Mayor Adams took a page from President Trump’s playbook and announced the city’s own antisemitism task force – after years of local Jewish groups pushing for action.
Hizzoner rolled out a new Office to Combat Antisemitism in City Hall on Tuesday ahead of his weekly off-topic presser with the aim of making sure no city funds flow to any group or organization that promotes hate against Jewish people.
The agency will be tasked with monitoring court cases and working with the Law Department on which cases the city should join or bring, as well as advising the administration on potential executive orders.
“The Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism will be the first of its kind in a major city across the nation, and will tackle antisemitism in all of its forms,” Adams said.
“The office will work to ensure city-funded entities and city agencies do not permit different forms of antisemitism,” he added.
The new office — which, as of Tuesday had executive director Moshe Davis as its sole employee — seemingly mimicked Trump’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism that has gone to war with universities over alleged antisemitism on campus.
Earlier on Tuesday, the feds revoked another $450 million from Harvard after the school was found to have “repeatedly failed” to tamp down on antisemitism and other racial discrimination.
The mayor, though, couldn’t point to any groups when pressed on what antisemitic groups have benefited from taxpayer dollars — only the city’s schools, which twice sent out radicalized messages in newsletters.
Adams’ bare bones announcement comes after years of increases in antisemitic hate crimes and was praised by some who have called on the city to do more.
“We expect the Mayor’s office to use its legal authority to root out systemic Jew-hatred in all city agencies and offices and take proactive steps to end the tyranny of terror that silences and excludes Jewish New Yorkers in schools, at work, and in the city’s streets,” the group End Jew Hatred said in a statement.
However, others skewered the mayor and claimed he was using the office in his longshot reelection bid in the general election in November. Adams dropped out of a crowded Democratic Party primary and is expected to run on an independent ballot line, “EndAntiSemitism.”
“It’s insulting. It’s pathetic,” said Dov Hikind, former Brooklyn assemblyman and founder of Americans Against Antisemitism. “Where has he been? Jew hatred was bad three years ago and it’s 10 times worse after Oct. 7, 2023. He didn’t know?
“He’s creating a task force in the bottom of the ninth inning,” he railed, adding, “There’s no question he’s pandering.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled a seemingly nearly identical slate of initiatives, following a City Council law requiring the creation of an Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes.
Adams dodged questions about the timing of the new office, only pointing to the 62% of hate crimes this year being antisemitic.
Antisemitism has continuously accounted for an outsized portion of hate crime in the Big Apple, dating back to 2019 when more than 60% were anti-Jewish incidents.
Over the past two years, the NYPD has reported 325 and 350 antisemitic incidents, accounting for 48% and 52% of all hate crimes in 2023 and 2024, respectively, according to police data.
Political operative Hank Sheinkopf told The Post he believed the pandering would pay off for Adams in the general, as he aligns himself opposite of state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, who is second in polls in the Democratic race after former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and could be on the Working Families Party line come November.
“It’s smart. It engages Mamdani, not [Andrew] Cuomo,” Sheinkopf added.
“He’s not the first incumbent — or the last — to use his office for political gain.”
