{"id":259590,"date":"2026-06-08T19:55:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T19:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/259590\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T19:55:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T19:55:11","slug":"mamdanis-new-criminal-justice-coordinator-resigned-from-bronx-defenders-amid-oct-7-turmoil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/259590\/","title":{"rendered":"Mamdani\u2019s new criminal justice coordinator resigned from Bronx Defenders amid Oct. 7 turmoil"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A version of this piece first ran as part of the New York Jewish Week\u2019s daily newsletter, rounding up the latest on politics, culture, food and what\u2019s new with Jews in the city. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/subscribe-to-the-ny-jewish-week\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up here to get it in your inbox<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p aria-level=\"1\">Justine Olderman, Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nyc.gov\/mayors-office\/news\/2026\/06\/mayor-mamdani-announces-justine-olderman-as-criminal-justice-coo\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">choice to lead his Office of Criminal Justice<\/a>, led the Bronx Defenders during a bitter internal dispute about responding to the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. <\/p>\n<p aria-level=\"1\">Olderman, a New York University Law professor and then-executive director of the Bronx Defenders, condemned a <a href=\"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/15Hzyy_ufSJ9h8GjiYdg4eRKdGIUyikRE\/view\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">statement<\/a> from the public defense organization\u2019s union issued on Oct. 20, 2023. The statement said that Israel\u2019s assault on Gaza was \u201cgenocidal,\u201d affirmed support for \u201cPalestinian liberation and resistance under occupation\u201d and did not mention the Israelis killed on Oct. 7.<\/p>\n<p aria-level=\"1\">Olderman told her staff that the letter \u201ccaused grave risk to the organization and our ability to serve the people who need our representation,\u201d according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/12\/14\/nyregion\/bronx-defenders-israel-gaza.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New York Times report<\/a> in December 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p aria-level=\"1\">Olderman stepped down from her post in December 2023 after an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bronxdefenders.org\/justine-olderman-stepping-down-as-executive-director-at-the-bronx-defenders\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">announcement of her departure in August<\/a>, prior to the Oct. 7 attacks. In March 2023, she <a href=\"https:\/\/brandeiscenter.com\/tag\/bronx-defendersworkplace-anti-semitismworkplace-antisemitism\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">publicly apologized to a staffer<\/a>, Debbie Jonas, who sued the Bronx Defenders for alleged antisemitic harassment. <\/p>\n<p aria-level=\"1\">Jonas won a $170,000 settlement that included mandatory antisemitism training for Bronx Defenders employees administered by the Brandeis Center. Olderman said in her apology, \u201cI feel a special kind of shame for not speaking up in the face of internal emails containing hateful personal attacks on you and your family.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A version of this piece first ran as part of the New York Jewish Week\u2019s daily newsletter, rounding&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259591,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-259590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}