Outgoing New York City Mayor Eric Adams used his visit to Israel to issue one of his sharpest warnings against incoming socialist mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, declaring, “If I were a Jew from New York, I'd be worried about my children” and insisting that “all is not well” for the city's Jews as anti-Semitism rises and a new administration prepares to take power.
Adams arrived in Israel on Friday on his final trip as mayor to meet with business and political leaders and visit sites related to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre. On Sunday, the Combating Antisemitism Movement (CAM) held an event in Tel Aviv to highlight its support for Israel and its efforts to combat rising antisemitism – an event that quickly turned into a stark warning about the future of New York under Mamdani.
Asked about the safety of Jews since Mamdani took office on January 1, Adams did not shy away from answering. “We have to be honest about the current moment and we can’t sugarcoat it,” he said. said. “The New York Jewish community needs to prepare. This is a time when you need to be aware of the level of global hostility toward the Jewish community. If I were a New York Jew, I would be worried about my children.”
When pressed again, Adams was even more frank: “Everything is not okay. If you say everything is okay, you're setting yourself up for failure.”
The outgoing mayor described a worrying cultural shift in which anti-Semitism is now rewarded by society. “It's cool and hip to be anti-Semitic now,” Adams said, recalling an encounter with a teenager in Brownsville who called him a Zionist and demanded the destruction of Israel even though he couldn't find the country on a map—a worldview that has become completely absorbed by social media.
“They have kidnapped our youth,” Adams warned. “Their plan was well executed. Now we need a professional plan to fight back.”
He said the same trend is increasing on college campuses, public schools and online platforms. Adams pointed to protesters “walking around the country with signs saying 'Queers for Palestine,'” calling it “strange when the only place in the Middle East where you can be gay is Israel. They've hijacked the conversation.”
Adams also argued that the essence of the anti-Israel campaign was never about land or sovereignty. “The Free Palestine Movement has never touched the ground,” he said. “It was and is about the destruction and extermination of the Jewish people.”
He then compared his own community: “If the same thing happened to the African-American community, you wouldn't be silent. So why are others silent now?”
Adams saved some of his harshest remarks for what he called a reporting collapse following the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre, arguing that Israel's supporters had failed to stand up to opponents who had flooded the public sphere with emotionally charged images from Gaza. He said the figures, whom he called “zorans of the world,” helped develop the idea, turning the imagery into a rallying point for anger against Israel.
Adams previously called Mamdani's victory “abnormal” and evidence that “people are comfortable being anti-Semitic.” During the election campaign, Mamdani repeatedly refused to denounce the “globalization of the intifada” slogan as anti-Semitic, changing his position only after sustained backlash – even as he continued to deny Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and positioned himself as a champion of the Free Palestine movement.
Mamdani has been criticized for his affiliation and position over the years. He co-founded the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at college, has supported the BDS campaign since 2014, has pledged not to visit Israel as mayor, and said he will “exhaust all legal options” to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits New York, citing International Criminal Court warrants that the US does not recognize.
Like Breitbart news reportedDemocratic Party veteran Hank Sheinkopf warned that Mamdani's victory would mark “the end of Jewish New York as we know it,” predicting that Jews who are able to leave the city will do so. He said the Democratic Socialists of America had hijacked the “framework” of the Democratic Party to promote a far-left agenda.
In a separate exclusive interview with Breitbart News, Mosab Hassan Youssef – “Son of Hamas” – warned that Mamdani is acting as a Trojan horse for the Red-Green Alliance, which unites radical leftist and Islamist forces.
Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Ohio repeated this view, calling Mamdani's victory a “referendum” on the Palestinian “resistance” and a blow to the democratic establishment.
Public anxiety among Jewish residents is growing. New York Post reported that New York Jews are now rushing to buy firearms for self-defense following Mamdani's victory—a dramatic shift in a city where many Jews have traditionally relied on police protection rather than personal guns.
The mayor's warning comes amid a documented surge in anti-Semitic incidents. Anti-Defamation League reported a 227 percent increase in anti-Semitic incidents nationwide from 2021 to 2023. New York, home to the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, had nearly 1,000 incidents reported in 2024 alone. the tallest any US city since tracking began.
At Sunday's event, CAM CEO Sasha Roitman Dratva praised Adams for concrete actions during his term, including adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, creating the city's first office dedicated to countering anti-Semitism, creating the Jewish Advisory Council and creating the New York-Israel Economic Council.
Two years after his fiery “We're Not Okay” speech After the October 7 attacks, Adams told a Tel Aviv audience that the situation had worsened. “No, we’re not okay,” he said. “We're far from that. We're going in the wrong direction.”
In Jerusalem Adams met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and said he wanted Israelis to understand that 49 percent of New Yorkers “did not believe the rhetoric of hatred against Israel,” citing the election results to emphasize that the city was not rebelling against the Jewish state.
During the visit, Adams also met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu recently warned that if Mamdani represents the future of New York, “I think New York has a very dim future.”
As Adams told the Tel Aviv audience, New York Jews “must prepare themselves” because pretending that “everything is fine” under the new Mamdani administration is “setting yourself up for failure.”
Joshua Klein is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.
