Zohran Mamdani Under Fire Over Report of Past Anti-Semitic Statements By Transition Team

New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani responded this week to a devastating report on allegations of widespread anti-Semitism among the 400 members of his newly appointed transition committees.

The Anti-Defamation League published a report on Monday digging into the past social media history of some of Mamdani’s appointees and found that at least 20% showed anti-Zionist sentiments and some who dabbled in outright anti-Semitism.

The ADL found a member of Mamdani’s transition team repeatedly praised anti-Semitic Nation of Islam head Louis Farrakhan. Others wrote things like “resistance” is justified in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’s horrific Oct. 7 attack on civilian communities in southern Israel.

The ADL report came just days after Mamdani’s Director of Appointments Catherine Almonte Da Costa resigned over past antisemitic tweets.

Mamdani was asked about the report during a Monday press conference, “We all saw that Da Costa stepped down, and if you might be aware, the ADL just released a report on the more than 400 people you appointed to transition committees. Among that report, they identified Ms. Ansari, who posted a cartoon depicting Israel as a dog. There was another person on the Committee on Worker Justice, Kazi Fouzia, who said resistance is justified hours after October 7. Someone else saying Zionism is racism from the Committee on Legal Affairs, someone from the Committee on Worker Justice who shared a post that said Zionists are worse than the Inquisition and the Nazis. Will the policy of your administration be to reject candidates who are actually hired to your administration when they express anti-Semitic positions or have anti-Semitic statements in the past? Are you going to automatically reject them from your administration? Were any of these statements or these people that I identified, or that were identified in the report, were these already flagged or identified by your transition team?”

“So I have always spoken out against anti-Semitism and hatred in any form and have made it clear that the commitment I have made to protect New Yorkers, to protect Jewish New Yorkers, is one that I will uphold as the next mayor of this city,” Mamdani replied, adding:

And we must distinguish between anti-Semitism and criticism of the Israeli government. The ADL’s report oftentimes ignores this distinction, and in doing so it draws attention away from the very real crisis of anti-Semitism we see not only just in our city, but in the country at large. And this is a team we are speaking of, of more than 400 New Yorkers that we have assembled to advise on the transition. These are committees, 17 of which, that range from worker justice to the importance of the arts, and we will continue to build an administration of appointees that reflect not only our commitments but also the fulfillment of our affordability agenda.

“Did any of those examples I read, or in the report if your team looked at it, did any of those go too far to where you said, ‘Okay, this is kind of anti-Semitic?’” pressed the reporter.

“I think there’s no tolerance for anti-Semitism, and also when we’re thinking about critiques of Zionism and different forms of political expression, as much of what this report focuses on, there’s a wide variety of political opinion, even within our own 400-plus transition committee, on the Israeli government and its conduct,” Mamdani replied.

The GOP quickly pounced on the comments and the RNC’s X account posted:

Communist Zohran Mamdani refuses TWICE to condemn the antisemitic rhetoric from his transition team appointees — including justifying the October 7th terrorist attack.
MAMDANI: “There’s a wide variety of political opinion…”

The RNC’s attack on Mamdani is notable given President Donald Trump’s warm meeting with the incoming NYC mayor in the Oval Office last month.