STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 Mayor Zohran Mamdani met with a group of religious leaders from across Staten Island on Tuesday to address pressing community concerns and strengthen ties between City Hall and faith communities.<\/p>\n
The roundtable, hosted by the Mayor\u2019s Office of Mass Engagement and organized by Bishop Victor Brown of Mt. Sinai United Christian Church in Tompkinsville, brought together leaders from different faiths to discuss social topics like affordable housing on Staten Island, support for the city\u2019s immigrant community, antisemitism and opportunities for the mayor to partner with congregations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis week, I sat in a church on Staten Island and listened to 26 community leaders of different faiths discuss what their congregants need most from city government,\u201d Mamdani said in a statement posted on X. <\/a>\u201cFaith leaders do more than give solace, they are pillars of our community who work tirelessly to make sure New Yorkers are fed, clothed, and respected. The work we do would not be possible without the work they do.\u201d<\/p>\n The meeting also addressed how the administration will support small businesses on Staten Island. A day earlier, Mamdani announced \u201cOPEN for Small Business,\u201d a package of reforms that aim to eliminate outdated permits, redundant paperwork and unnecessary fines for small businesses across the city.<\/p>\n Rabbi Gerald Sussman, spiritual leader of Temple Emanu-El of Staten Island in Port Richmond, attended and said in an interview with the Advance\/SILive.com that the event was pleasant despite not finding common ground on certain issues.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was actually a very lovely event… it was about services on Staten Island and how the mayor\u2019s office could help with providing various things… But I brought up the issue of antisemitism,\u201d Rabbi Sussman said. \u201cThe mayor answered my questions, but I don\u2019t think the answers were really complete. I think we need more.\u201d <\/p>\n Rabbi Sussman stated that Mamdani\u2019s plan includes increased funding to plan community events, work on joint projects and bringing people together. While he shared that he appreciates these plans, he feels more action is needed. <\/p>\n \u201cThose kind of things have been done one way or another for many years. Now that there\u2019s a crisis in the world, we need more than that. That\u2019s not enough to have much of an impact,\u201d the religious leader said. <\/p>\n When asked what he hoped Mamdani would take from the conversation, Rabbi Sussman said that he hopes he becomes more sensitive to the issue, especially after a recent stabbing of a 50-year-old Jewish man occurred in Manhattan at West 86th and Amsterdam Avenue near a synagogue.<\/p>\n \u201cI would hope that he would have more sensitivity to our feelings about antisemitism, and that he would do things to bring people together for good and peaceful relations, and not add to the antagonism. That\u2019s not to say he can\u2019t be critical, or he must be in favor of everything we\u2019re in favor of,\u201d he shared. \u201cBut I think it was great that the mayor came to Staten Island and spoke with people.\u201d<\/p>\n Prior to attending the meeting, Mamdani visited FDNY Squad Company 8 on Victory Boulevard in Travis.<\/p>\n \u201cStaten Island is home to FDNY Squad Company 8, where, in addition to responding to calls for fire, members train as Hazardous Materials Technicians handling chemical and biological threats, complex rescues, building collapses, and other emergencies,\u201d he said in a post on X. <\/a>\u201cI\u2019m grateful to have had the chance to hear about their history and heroic work this week.\u201d<\/p>\n Both events were closed to press and officials did not release the locations to media ahead of time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 Mayor Zohran Mamdani met with a group of religious leaders from across Staten Island…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306651,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-306650","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\/306650","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=306650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}