Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City, is following a tradition of mayors who came before him: choosing his own deputy mayors and commissioners to help run the city.
Turnover is to be expected. But on Tuesday, when Mr. Mamdani named Lillian Bonsignore, the former chief of New York’s Emergency Medical Services, as the city’s first openly gay fire commissioner, Mayor Eric Adams announced that he was appointing the interim commissioner, Mark Guerra, to the same role, an appointment that will last only the final eight days of the mayor’s term.
The position was open because Robert S. Tucker, the former fire commissioner, left the job on Friday. Mr. Tucker submitted his letter of resignation the day after Mr. Mamdani won the general election on Nov. 4. Mr. Tucker, who was the second Jewish person to serve as the city’s fire commissioner, said in an interview with CBS Mornings in November that Mr. Mamdani’s views on Israel had been a “factor” in his decision to resign.
“I believe that the things that I have heard the mayor say would make it difficult for me to continue on in such a senior executive role in the administration,” Mr. Tucker said.
The episode demonstrates how some of Mr. Mamdani’s positions on Israel will continue to be an issue he has to navigate as mayor. Mr. Mamdani, who will be New York’s first Muslim mayor, has had a strained relationship with some segments of the Jewish community.
During his campaign, Mr. Mamdani refused to compromise on his belief that Israel should be structured not as a Jewish state, but as one with equal rights for all, regardless of religion. He also criticized Israel’s war in Gaza as a genocide and said that he would arrest Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, were he to come to New York.
Though Mr. Mamdani’s transition team said the mayor-elect was unlikely to keep Mr. Tucker as fire commissioner because he lacked emergency response management experience, Mr. Tucker’s comments about the mayor-elect have resonated with some Jewish people. On Friday, Mr. Tucker was honored at a Shabbat service at Temple Emanu-El on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
In an interview on Tuesday, Mr. Tucker said that he did not regret his comments about his resignation, but that it was time to move on from them.
“I would stop paying attention to what I said,” Mr. Tucker said, “and start paying attention to the good trajectory the department is on and the future of the FDNY.”
Mr. Tucker, who had never been a firefighter, joined the department in August 2024 when he was appointed commissioner by Mr. Adams. On Tuesday, he sought to defend his record, saying he had been “arguably one of the most effective fire commissioners in the history” of the department, citing his work to reduce medical emergency response times and to increase pay for emergency medical services workers.
Mr. Tucker, who is now returning to work at his security and investigations firm, described Ms. Bonsignore, with whom he had previously worked, as “extremely competent,” saying he wished her luck.
Ms. Bonsignore will lead a department of more than 17,000 employees, including firefighters, emergency medical workers and civilian employees.
Marc V. Shaw, the chairman of the advisory board at the CUNY Institute for State and Local Governance and a veteran government official, said that Ms. Bonsignore’s rise to commissioner after starting out in E.M.S. was a sign that the merger of the two once-separate departments had been successful.
James Brosi, the president of the department’s Uniformed Fire Officers Association, said in a statement that Ms. Bonsignore’s comments indicated that she was interested in “a meaningful and lasting partnership with labor.”
The fire department is struggling with increased response times for life-threatening emergencies, according to the most recent Mayor’s Management Report. During the 2025 fiscal year, the response time for ambulances and fire companies to life-threatening emergencies increased by 22 seconds from the previous year, to 7 minutes and 45 seconds.
Members of the emergency medical service have also battled for years to achieve pay parity with firefighters, an issue Ms. Bonsignore said she understood firsthand as someone who started her career as an emergency medical technician and hoped to address. A majority of the emergency calls the fire department handles are related to emergency medical services, Ms. Bonsignore said.
“I know what E.M.S. needs. I have been with E.M.S. for 30-plus years,” she said. “And now we have a commissioner that could start an I.V.”
At the news conference where Mr. Mamdani introduced Ms. Bonsignore as his choice for commissioner, there were no comments or questions about Jewish relations.
Last week, Mr. Mamdani overhauled his transition committee’s vetting process after the Anti-Defamation League resurfaced antisemitic social media posts by Catherine Almonte Da Costa, whom he had chosen as his director of appointments, and who would have overseen hiring at City Hall.
Mr. Mamdani said he was unaware of the posts and would not have hired her had he known about them.
Ms. Da Costa offered her resignation, which Mr. Mamdani accepted. In a news conference afterward, Mr. Mamdani said he had a commitment ”to keeping Jewish New Yorkers safe” and to “celebrating and cherishing Jewish New Yorkers.”
The transition committee hired an independent law firm to work with an internal team of paid lawyers and the transition committee to vet potential hires. The new team of lawyers will re-examine the people Mr. Mamdani has hired so far.
In an interview after Ms. Da Costa’s resignation, Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, the senior rabbi of Stephen Wise Free Synagogue and the president of the New York Board of Rabbis, said he had hoped that Mr. Mamdani would recognize the link between “hostility to the existence of the state of Israel” and antisemitism.
“He needs to continue to work very hard to reach out to the Jewish community, understand Jewish sensitivities and understand the connection between the well-being of the Jewish community and the well-being of New York City,” Rabbi Hirsch said.
Mr. Mamdani received support from many Jewish New Yorkers in both the Democratic primary and the general election, especially from anti-Zionist Jewish organizations and others who agreed with his views on the war in Gaza. Mr. Mamdani’s opponent in both contests, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, characterized his positions on Israel as a threat to the city’s Jewish community.
Mr. Mamdani has also retained Jessica Tisch, who is Jewish, as his police commissioner, even though she is a strong supporter of Israel.
Her family controls the Loews Corporation, the $22 billion New York-based conglomerate, and many of her relatives donated money to try to stop Mr. Mamdani from being elected. Commissioner Tisch recently apologized to Mr. Mamdani after her brother called him an “enemy” of the Jewish people.
Jeffery C. Mays is a Times reporter covering politics with a focus on New York City Hall.
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