The New York City Council’s new leader, Julie Menin, plans on Friday to unveil a sweeping antisemitism initiative to address rising fear among some Jewish New Yorkers — setting up a potential clash with Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Ms. Menin, who was sworn in as the Council’s first Jewish speaker earlier this month, said the legislative package would call for the Police Department to establish perimeters at schools and houses of worship to ensure students and congregants can safely enter if protests are underway.
The legislation, which has yet to be drafted, mirrors a similar effort underway in the State Capitol, where Gov. Kathy Hochul this week proposed establishing a 25-foot buffer zone around places of worship.
As a pro-business moderate Democrat and committed Zionist, Ms. Menin represents New Yorkers who did not support Mr. Mamdani.
She insisted in an interview Thursday she is purely motivated by concern about antisemitic hate crimes and repeatedly waved off any notion that she is taking on Mr. Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor and a staunch critic of Israel.
“This has absolutely nothing to do with the mayor,” she said. “This has everything to do with protecting Jewish New Yorkers.”
Since his election, Mr. Mamdani has had to walk the line between his loyal political base, many of whom oppose Israel’s actions in its war with Gaza, and some Jewish New Yorkers who equate his views with antisemitism. He has accused Israel of committing genocide in its war with Hamas and has said he cannot support the country as an official Jewish state that gives Jews more rights than Palestinians. He has also vowed to protect Jewish New Yorkers and celebrate their contributions to the city.
Ms. Menin, whom Mr. Mamdani did not back for speaker, said she briefed the mayor on her announcement and called the conversations “very productive.”
“Unfortunately we have seen the rise in antisemitism over the last few years,” said Ms. Menin, whose mother and grandmother survived the Holocaust by hiding in a cellar in Hungary. “It is very important now, at this critical time when we are seeing a real sense of uncertainty and fear in the Jewish community, to combat that head on.”
The police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, recently announced that antisemitic incidents made up 57 percent of all hate crimes reported to the police last year — 330 of 576 cases — even as hate crimes declined 12 percent citywide over the prior year. Reports of antisemitic incidents declined 3 percent last year compared with the year before.
In the interview, Ms. Menin said that the Council’s bill would probably go further than the governor’s proposal by requiring a 100-foot barrier. One source close to Ms. Menin said that some Council staff members have expressed concern that a similar bill introduced by two Albany lawmakers — which Hochul modeled her proposal on — might run into a First Amendment challenge or freeze protest activity.
Mr. Mamdani was in the audience in Albany, N.Y., for Ms. Hochul’s State of the State address on Tuesday when she first spoke of her support for a 25-foot barrier for protesters at houses of worship and health care facilities, and he notably did not applaud its mention. Afterward, he said he wanted his Law Department to review the plan before he issued a more formal response.
Ms. Hochul’s and Ms. Menin’s proposals follow a protest in November outside a prominent Modern Orthodox synagogue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. After the congregation rented space to an organization that helps Jews relocate to Israel and settlements in the occupied West Bank, demonstrators gathered around the site to chant “Death to the I.D.F.” and “Globalize the intifada.”
And last week, pro-Palestinian demonstrators chanted their support of Hamas outside a synagogue in Queens, as pro-Israel demonstrators shouted racial and homophobic slurs.
Ms. Menin is also planning to roll out a push to expand its reimbursement program for security guards and private and religious schools by providing access to security cameras. She did not know exactly how much this plan would cost, but estimated it would not exceed $6 million.
Other proposals, which Ms. Menin will announce Friday morning at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, will include mandating and funding a program that would offer security training to houses of worship; establishing a hotline to report antisemitic incidents to the city’s Commission on Human Rights; and allocating $1.2 million over the next two years for Holocaust education.
Ms. Menin has had a long career in politics and government, including as commissioner of what was then the city’s Department of Consumer Affairs. She also ran the city’s census efforts and was heavily involved in resuscitating Lower Manhattan after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Sally Goldenberg is a Times reporter covering New York City politics and government.
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