By: Fern Sidman

In the first hours of his mayoralty, with the ink on his oath of office scarcely dry, New York City’s newly sworn-in mayor, Zohran Mamdani, detonated a political thunderclap that reverberated far beyond City Hall. As reported by Israel National News, Mamdani on Thursday afternoon issued an executive order revoking every directive signed by his predecessor, Eric Adams, after Sept. 26, 2024—the day Adams was indicted.

What might have appeared, at first glance, to be a procedural housecleaning exercise has instead become one of the most consequential political maneuvers in recent municipal history. The sweeping cancellation erased, among other actions, Adams’ June 2025 order formally adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, as well as a more recent directive barring mayoral appointees and agency staff from engaging in boycotts or disinvestment campaigns targeting Israel.

According to the information provided in the Israel National News report, these revocations have reignited fears within New York’s Jewish community that the city is retreating from its most concrete institutional commitments to combating antisemitism—at precisely the moment when antisemitic incidents remain near historic highs.

The Mamdani order was breathtaking in its scope. Rather than selectively rescinding individual policies, the new mayor chose to nullify all executive orders signed by Adams after the date of indictment, establishing a temporal line in the sand that effectively rewound City Hall’s legal framework to late 2024.

Among the casualties was Adams’ formal embrace of the IHRA definition, a document that classifies certain contemporary forms of anti-Israel rhetoric—when they veer into delegitimization or demonization—as antisemitic. Jewish organizations had praised the move as a critical step toward providing city agencies, schools and law enforcement with a workable standard for identifying and confronting hate.

“Removing IHRA is not symbolic,” a Jewish communal leader told Israel National News. “It dismantles the single most important tool we had for addressing antisemitism in a way that reflects modern realities.”

Equally fraught was the rescission of Adams’ prohibition on BDS activity by city employees—a policy intended to ensure that municipal power would not be wielded to economically isolate the Jewish state.

Attempting to temper the backlash, Mamdani told reporters that the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism, which Adams had established, would continue its operations.

“That is an issue that we take very seriously,” Mamdani said, according to Israel National News. “It’s part of the commitment that we’ve made to Jewish New Yorkers to not only protect them, but to celebrate and cherish them.”

Yet critics were quick to note the incongruity: how can an office combat antisemitism effectively when the mayor has just stripped away its foundational legal architecture? The office’s first report—released on Adams’ final day—outlined interagency task forces, messaging guidelines and a comprehensive history of antisemitism in New York. Now, as the Israel National News report observed, it must operate in a legal vacuum.

Mamdani’s relationship with Jewish voters has been turbulent since long before his midnight inauguration. He has repeatedly drawn condemnation for his refusal to disavow the phrase “globalize the intifada,” a slogan that translates into a call to violence against Jews worldwide. He further inflamed tensions by issuing harsh criticism of Israel on Oct. 8, 2023—less than 24 hours after Hamas terrorists massacred civilians in southern Israel.

Israel National News has chronicled how Mamdani has accused Israel of war crimes in Gaza and publicly vowed to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should he visit New York City—an extraordinary statement for the mayor of a city that has historically prided itself on close ties with Israel.

These positions, critics argue, render Mamdani’s assurances about protecting Jewish New Yorkers deeply suspect.

In Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan, reaction was swift and visceral. Rabbis and communal leaders described a sense of betrayal—particularly among voters who had hoped Mamdani’s democratic-socialist rhetoric about solidarity and justice might translate into empathy for Jewish concerns.

“The cancellation of the IHRA definition is not a technicality,” one synagogue president told Israel National News. “It signals that antisemitism is once again being redefined out of existence under the guise of political critique.”

Within hours of the announcement, advocacy groups began organizing emergency meetings and drafting letters demanding that Mamdani either reinstate the IHRA order or introduce alternative measures with comparable legal force.

New York is not just another municipality. As the Israel National News report emphasized, it is the largest Jewish city outside Israel and a bellwether for urban policy worldwide. Its decision to adopt IHRA had encouraged other cities and school districts to follow suit. Its abandonment of that standard threatens to unravel a fragile consensus.

This matters not only locally but geopolitically. At a time when anti-Israel activism increasingly blurs into outright antisemitism, the removal of IHRA from the city’s legal vocabulary deprives civil servants of the clarity they need to distinguish between legitimate policy debate and hateful incitement.

Why would Mamdani choose such a provocative path in his opening hours? Israel National News analysts point to a combination of ideological conviction and political calculus. Mamdani swept into office on a wave of progressive energy that views the IHRA definition as an instrument of censorship and regards BDS not as discrimination but as activism.

By revoking Adams’ orders wholesale, Mamdani not only dismantled policies he opposed but signaled to his base that the era of incrementalism was over.

The deeper question now confronting New York is whether the city can sustain its proud legacy of Jewish life while governed by a mayor whose rhetoric and record have alienated so many within that community.

The continuation of the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism may provide a fig leaf of reassurance, but without the IHRA definition or the anti-BDS directive, the office risks becoming a shell—symbolic rather than substantive.

As the Israel National News report indicated, Mamdani’s first executive act has ensured that his tenure will be defined not merely by housing or transit policy but by an existential struggle over how the world’s most Jewish metropolis understands antisemitism, Israel and its own moral compass.

In choosing to reset the clock to September 2024, Mayor Zohran Mamdani may have hoped to usher in a new political dawn. Instead, he has plunged New York into a renewed and volatile debate over identity, memory and the boundaries of tolerance—one whose outcome will shape the city for years to come.