Mayor Zohran Mamdani is putting his own stamp on a city office created by his predecessor to combat antisemitism, unveiling a strategy that increases prevention funding while formalizing a break with the Adams administration’s embrace of a single definition of antisemitism.

The strategy arrives after months in which Mamdani has sought to patch a strained relationship with parts of the city’s Jewish community without retreating from his longstanding views on Israel and Palestine.

The long-awaited, 35-page plan, which the Mayor’s office released Tuesday, details how City Hall will spend the first $7.4 million of a previously announced $26 million increase for the Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes, including $6.4 million for community organizations working to prevent hate and support survivors and another $1 million to bolster security at synagogues and other houses of worship.

The plan also expands Holocaust education, launches campaigns highlighting Jewish contributions to the city and explaining how to report discrimination, and invests in Jewish cultural institutions. Administration officials say it was shaped by months of meetings with Jewish New Yorkers across the religious and political spectrum.

“Antisemitism has no place in New York City,” Mamdani said in a statement accompanying the report. Jewish New Yorkers, he said, “deserve to be safe, celebrated and protected by a city government that stands with them.”

Tuesday’s plan lays out seven priorities, including preventing hate violence, combating physical and online antisemitism, expanding education, supporting victims and survivors, engaging Jewish New Yorkers across the ideological spectrum and celebrating Jewish culture and traditions.

“As a Jewish New Yorker who is deeply dedicated to the work of combating antisemitism and uplifting Jewish communities, I am honored to release the nation’s first municipal-level Strategy to Combat Antisemitism,” Phylisa Wisdom, executive director of the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism, said in a statement. “Antisemitism is a complex and persistent form of hate, and it cannot be addressed through a single program or agency.”

However, first Jewish Speaker of the City Council, Julie Menin, was not among the officials immediately backing the plan’s launch. Her spokesperson said that Speaker Menin was briefed on the toplines of the Mayor’s plan yesterday and is reviewing the full report.

“Combatting antisemitism remains a top priority for Speaker Menin, and she will continue working with the administration, Jewish New Yorkers, and other stakeholders to address the deeply concerning rise in hatred,” the spokesperson said.

City Hall released supportive statements from Attorney General Letitia James, former Comptroller Brad Lander, Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal and Council Member Lynn Schulman, as well as T’ruah, New York Jewish Agenda, the Nexus Project, Jews for Racial & Economic Justice, Bend the Arc and J Street.

Inside Mamdani’s plan to fight antisemitism

Mamdani’s antisemitism plan sets aside $1 million for security upgrades at vulnerable nonprofits and religious institutions.

During a briefing with reporters Monday, Wisdom said the program is intended in part to help smaller institutions purchase relatively modest security upgrades — such as door locks, shatterproof glass and metal wands — without navigating more burdensome state and federal grant applications. City Hall is preparing to begin a process for determining how the money will be distributed.

The city will also double funding for its Partners Against the Hate grant program to $6.4 million. The program distributes money through community organizations, including the Jewish Community Relations Council, for efforts including hate-prevention education, data collection, restorative justice and survivor support.

Mamdani is also relaunching an interagency Security Infrastructure Working Group to help Jewish houses of worship and cultural institutions navigate city government when undertaking security upgrades. Wisdom said Monday that even institutions with money available can struggle to determine which agencies must approve measures such as installing bollards outside a synagogue.

The strategy also formalizes a break with Adams on how the city should define antisemitism. Mamdani wiped out Adams’ adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition when he revoked a slate of late-term executive orders on his first day in office.

Adams created the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism in May 2025. Mamdani reestablished the office on his first day in office in January and has since expanded it. Wisdom noted Monday that the Adams-era office operated for roughly seven months and issued a report at the end of his administration, while Mamdani’s strategy is intended as a forward-looking roadmap modeled in part on the Biden administration’s national antisemitism strategy.

The Mamdani report discusses three prominent approaches to defining antisemitism — the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition, the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism and the Nexus Document — but says adopting a single definition is neither necessary nor useful for the city’s work.

Instead, the administration says existing state and city laws give the NYPD and Commission on Human Rights the tools to determine whether conduct constitutes a hate crime or unlawful discrimination.

Mamdani had already rejected adopting a single definition before Tuesday’s report. Wisdom told reporters Monday that City Hall wants to preserve the ability to make case-by-case judgments because context can change and Jewish communities themselves do not agree on a single definition. She said the administration does not believe it is the government’s role to settle that debate.

The administration says it will work with New York City Public Schools to increase eighth-grade visits to the Museum of Jewish Heritage and continue educating students about the Holocaust and the contributions of Jewish Americans. Wisdom said Monday that about 14% of eighth graders have visited the museum exhibition despite trips being fully funded for all eighth-grade students.

City Hall also plans an informational campaign on LinkNYC highlighting the contributions of Jewish New Yorkers. Separately, the Commission on Human Rights will launch an awareness campaign about protections under the city Human Rights Law and how New Yorkers can report suspected discrimination. That campaign will appear on LinkNYC and in other public spaces across the five boroughs.

The plan also includes $2 million to complete the Queens Holocaust Memorial at Queens Borough Hall and $2.5 million for the Center for New Jewish Culture in central Brooklyn.

The report sets no numerical targets for measuring whether the strategy is working.

Wisdom said officials will look at antisemitic crime data, access to services and whether city investments reach the communities they are intended to serve. She said the Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes is developing additional evaluation efforts that will be detailed when City Hall announces how it will spend the remainder of the $26 million increase.