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‘We are not alright’: How Oct. 7 defined Eric Adams’ Jewish legacy
As New York City Mayor Eric Adams was welcomed to deliver remarks at his final Hanukkah reception — just a day after the horrific terror attack in Bondi Beach — he made a characteristically unscripted entrance, walking in from the side of the room holding a wireless microphone instead of stepping onto the stage in the center. Adams told the audience on Monday night that he did not want to be separated from them by ropes or barriers. “I just really wanted to remind all of you that I am on your level,” he said. “I want you to know that your pain, I feel your pain.”
That moment, signaling that he understood not just the community’s fear after the attack, but its need for visible solidarity, was the kind of instinctive gesture that, aides and allies say, has defined his relationship with Jewish New Yorkers during a tumultuous single term as mayor.
As he prepares to leave City Hall on Dec. 31, having failed to overcome his unpopularity citywide and win reelection, Adams remains personally popular among much of the Jewish community, which continues to grapple with uncertainty about his successor, Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, whose stance on Israel has been divisive.
Throughout his tenure, Adams cultivated a reputation for speaking the Jewish community’s language, understanding their concerns and being willing to step up in moments of crisis. Senior aides say he rarely reads prepared remarks, even when speeches are written for him, particularly at Jewish events.
This spontaneity was most evident in a four-minute speech he delivered at a rally on Oct. 10, 2023, days after the Hamas attack on Israel. The moment raised his profile in Israel, when he declared, “We are not alright.”
“The fact that everybody in the Jewish world has seen that speech, such a short clip, speaks to the impact on Jews around the world,” said Fabian Levy, the deputy mayor for communications, who is Jewish. He recounted the behind-the-scenes moments leading up to the speech in a recent interview, growing emotional at times and struggling to speak. Before Adams took the stage, he met with the parents of Israeli-American hostage Omer Neutra.
Levy, 41, is considered one of Adams’ closest aides, frequently at the mayor’s side. He was first appointed as press secretary in 2021, and elevated to his current role in August 2023, becoming the first-ever deputy mayor of Persian or Iraqi descent. Levy said that some of his relatives in Israel, who knew he worked in government but did not realize he worked for Adams, had posted that Oct. 10 speech to a family WhatsApp group and suggested he “work for this guy.”
When I asked about his popularity in Israel in a recent interview, Adams said, “My clarity of message, I believe it resonated with people who have been there for others, yet did not see their allies stand up and fight with them. The friendship we have with Israel and our Jewish community is not one that ends during the time of conflict, but one that withstands difficult challenges.”
In Monday night’s farewell address to the community, following a final official trip to Israel, Adams cast himself as a modern-day Maccabee.
Eric Adams’ relationship with Jews
Adams, 65, has had a longstanding relationship with the Jewish community dating back to his time as a police officer in the 1980s, a connection that continued through his four terms in the state legislature and two terms as Brooklyn Borough President.
He aggressively courted Orthodox voting blocs, critical to electing him, in the 2021 crowded Democratic primary for mayor. “I don’t need a GPS to find Borough Park,” Adams said in a campaign stop in Borough Park a day before the primary. “I was there for this community for over 30 years, and I am going to be there as the mayor. I’m not a new friend. I’m an old friend.”
Adams initially moved his Jan. 1, 2022 inauguration — traditionally held at noon in the plaza outside City Hall in downtown Manhattan and drawing thousands of spectators — to the evening out of respect for Shabbat observers, since it fell on a Saturday. The ceremony was later postponed and scaled back altogether as the Omicron COVID-19 surge swept through the city at the time.
A large number of American Jews served in senior roles at City Hall and throughout Adams’ administration. That includes Jessica Tisch, who became police commissioner in 2024; Robert Tucker, commissioner of the fire department; Fred Kreizman, commissioner for community affairs; Zach Iscol, the emergency management commissioner; and Ed Mermelstein, commissioner for international affairs until July.
In the mayor’s office, Levy served alongside Menashe Shapiro, deputy chief of staff; Moshe Davis, Adams’ Jewish liaison and later also director of the newly-created mayor’s office to combat antisemitism; and Lisa Zornberg, his chief counsel, who inspired the mayor’s widely cited Oct. 10 line and resigned last year amid the federal investigations that rocked the Adams administration.
Joel Eisdorfer, a member of the Satmar Hasidic community in Borough Park, was senior adviser until he stepped down in 2024, citing family reasons, and was a close political ally who helped mobilize Jewish support during Adams’ campaigns. Adams’ personal photographer, Benny Polatseck, who is also Hasidic, documented many of his appearances at Jewish and other official events.
“You see yourself in my administration, in a very significant place,” Adams told Jewish reporters in 2024.
In speeches to Jewish audiences, Adams described New York City as the “Tel Aviv of America.”
But Adams faced criticism from parts of the broader Jewish community after launching a Jewish Advisory Council that met regularly to discuss Jewish-related issues. Some liberal groups argued the council was not representative of the city’s full Jewish diversity, noting that at least 23 of its 37 members were Orthodox Jews and only nine were women. The progressive group New York Jewish Agenda later met with Adams after raising concerns that he was primarily hearing from Orthodox leaders and those with more conservative political views.
Last year, Adams announced the creation of a new office to combat antisemitism, which led to a bitter feud with the city comptroller, Brad Lander, who is Jewish and who was at the time a mayoral candidate. (Adams and Lander have long had a strained relationship, sparring over policy and oversight.)
Adams also signed an executive order adopting the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, which labels most forms of anti-Zionism as antisemitic. Critics, including progressives and Jewish advocacy groups, warned it could chill free speech.
Some Jewish elected officials also criticized Adams for his crackdown on the pro-Palestinian protests across the city and on college campuses. He was unapologetic about his opposition to the call for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Recently, Adams signed a measure barring city agencies from participating in Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions efforts, which would pre-empt any moves by city officials to divest from Israel Bonds and other Israeli investments. Adams maintained that it wasn’t an attempt to tie Mamdani’s hand but “to protect my legacy on the investment in Israel.”
During a roundtable with ethnic media outlets at City Hall on Monday, Adams didn’t elaborate when asked by the Forward how he would define his tenure in terms of curbing antisemitism and protecting Jewish New Yorkers. Antisemitism was up 18% in New York last year, with 68% of the 1,437 incidents occurring in New York City, according to the Anti-Defamation League. In the first quarter of 2025, NYPD data showed antisemitic acts made up 62% of all reported hate crimes citywide. Last month, anti-Jewish crimes were 37% of all reported hate incidents.
Adams said the numbers have been steadily dropping as a result of his moves to counter antisemitism, including his signature “Breaking Bread, Building Bonds” initiative, which encourages New Yorkers to host meals for 10 people from different racial, ethnic and religious backgrounds. “I think that the next administration must be extremely clear in their position around hate in general and antisemitism,” he said.
Levy said that Adams acted bravely in taking a firm stance on Israel, even when it carried political risk. “Some people are saying that it could have been the reason why he is no longer going to be mayor for another term,” Levy said. “He did it because it was the right thing to do.” Adams took a recent trip to Israel to bid farewell.
Shadowed by controversy
Despite his close and warm relationship with the Jewish community, Adams’ career has also been marked by recurring controversies. During the 1993 mayoral race, when he supported incumbent Mayor David Dinkins, Adams drew backlash after suggesting that then–state comptroller candidate Herman Badillo, who is Puerto Rican, would have shown greater concern for the Hispanic community had he not married a white Jewish woman. In the 1990s, Adams worked with the Nation of Islam as part of community crime patrol efforts and appeared publicly with its leader, Louis Farrakhan, who spewed antisemitism. He later came under fire for condemning former Rep. Major Owens during a 1994 congressional primary after Owens denounced Farrakhan.
As mayor, Adams faced renewed scrutiny in 2022 after defending his endorsement of a minister previously cited for antisemitic slurs in a race against a pro-BDS lawmaker. More recently, he faced criticism for invoking Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf while pushing back against allegations that he struck a quid pro quo with the Justice Department to end his federal corruption case, and for sitting for an interview at Gracie Mansion with Sneako, an influential antisemitic online streamer.
Adams made combating antisemitism central to his reelection effort. After withdrawing from the Democratic primary, facing a surging field of challengers, Adams sought to run on an independent line dubbed “End Antisemitism.” It came under legal challenge after creating another “Safe and Affordable” ballot. He ended his campaign in late September after failing to gain steam and in an attempt to clear the field for former Gov. Andrew Cuomo to stop Mamdani.
He also got into a dispute between Williamsburg Hasidim over the bike lanes earlier this year.
What his aides and Jewish leaders are saying
Adams’ senior aides and Jewish leaders all pointed to Adams’ response to the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel as the high point of his tenure.
“His consistent support for the Jewish community after Oct. 7 was a model for what real leadership looks like,” said David Greenfield, a former member of the City Council who is now the chief executive of Met Council, the nation’s largest Jewish anti-poverty charity. “His remarks were, for many of us, the first time we felt genuinely seen and defended by leaders outside our community. At a moment of surging antisemitism, he didn’t hedge or look away.”
Sara Forman, executive director of the New York Solidarity Network, a pro-Israel political organization, said the expression of empathy he expressed toward the Jewish people by showing up “was very poignant and also a very significant legacy that Eric Adams is going to leave with all of us.”
In interviews, Adams’ Jewish staffers described a natural rapport with the community that often lessened the need for formal outreach or guidance on specific issues.
Shapiro, his deputy chief of staff, said that Adams’ unscripted nature underscored his familiarity and a genuine sense of belonging in the community. “He felt so comfortable in their presence, he knew exactly what he wanted to say,” Shapiro said.
“With Mayor Adams, you always felt like he practically went to yeshiva with you,” Davis, his liaison to the community, said. “He’s been in this so long and really knows what the community cares about.”
In his remarks at the Hanukkah event, Adams reassured the community that he will remain an ally after he leaves office. “I am going nowhere,” he said. Earlier in the day, Adams referred to what comes next as “God’s Plan A.” Adams is reportedly exploring a private-sector opportunity tied to an Israeli construction firm. “The end of the mayoralty means the beginning of what we are going to do together,” he said.
The post ‘We are not alright’: How Oct. 7 defined Eric Adams’ Jewish legacy appeared first on The Forward.
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‘Have a problem, call the PM,’ says Netanyahu as he gives out his number in campaign video
(JTA) — TEL AVIV – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday posted what he described as his personal phone number and invited Israelis to contact him with their questions and problems.
It was an election-season stunt that drew such a flood of responses that the number’s WhatsApp account was blocked within minutes and those calling received a busy signal.
It also drew suspicions that it was a ploy to collect voter data.
In a video posted to social media, Netanyahu is seen with longtime adviser Topaz Luk, who asks the prime minister whether he can publish his phone number. Netanyahu initially reacts with disbelief, saying, “Topaz, have you gone crazy?” before agreeing.
“I want to hear from you. Your suggestions, your questions, your problems. I want to hear, so leave me a message,” Netanyahu said. He added that he could not promise to answer everyone but would respond to as many people as possible.
Hundreds of messages and calls arrived within minutes and the WhatsApp account associated with the number was blocked. Luk later posted on X that the account had been disabled because of the volume of calls and said Netanyahu’s team was working to restore it, directing people to Telegram in the meantime.
Kan political correspondent Michael Shemesh questioned whether the number belonged to Netanyahu at all and suggested on X that the exercise was “probably designed to harvest the phone numbers of potential voters.”
Other users pointed to another clue that the handset seen in the video was unlikely to be Netanyahu’s personal phone. One of the WhatsApp groups visible in Luk’s video was a synagogue updates group whose latest message appeared to back political rival Naftali Bennett, the former prime minister who now heads the Beyachad party.
“Something tells me that Bibi isn’t signed up to the ‘Menachem’s House Main Shul Updates’ group,” one X user wrote, “especially not when the latest message there is ‘yalla, it’s time for Bennett.’”
The Likud spokesperson had not responded to a request for comment on the accusations by the time of publication.
It was not the first time Netanyahu handed out what he presented as his personal number during an election campaign. In August 2022, little more than two months before the vote that returned him to power, the then-opposition leader published another number and invited Israelis to video call him.
“Why should only some people have my phone number? Everyone should have it,” Netanyahu said at the time, joking that the move was a “dramatic, world-changing decision.” He told supporters who sent proof they had joined his Telegram channel that they would have a better chance of receiving a video call from him.
The response was similarly intense. Likud said Netanyahu received 9,420 calls within the first 30 minutes, while follow-up videos showed calls and messages flooding the phone.
Netanyahu’s rivals mocked the stunt. Then-Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman released a parody video saying Netanyahu “has not picked up the phone in 12 years,” while Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid dismissed it as a “fictional phone operated by Netanyahu’s aides.”
The episode comes as Netanyahu faces a difficult reelection campaign, with roughly 20% of voters remaining undecided, many of whom are disillusioned Likud voters, according to pollsters and researchers cited by Reuters.
A Channel 13 poll released earlier this month put Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party at 23 seats, ahead of Likud with 21, and Netanyahu’s current coalition projected to win just 49 of the Knesset’s 120 seats. Eisenkot also led Netanyahu 47% to 34% when respondents were asked who was better suited to serve as prime minister.
The phone-number appeal is the latest in a series of efforts to put Netanyahu directly in front of voters, including a blitz of highly publicized appearances. Last week, the prime minister visited a restaurant in Hadera, a Likud stronghold, where owner Simo Shtivi said his arrival was “like hoisting the World Cup,” as diners lined up for photos and a chance to speak with him.
Netanyahu also made a surprise appearance with his wife Sara at a concert by Israeli pop star Eden Ben Zaken. A few days earlier, he filmed a campaign video at Jerusalem’s Malha Mall meeting shoppers, including children. The Central Elections Committee later ordered the video removed because election law bars the use of children in campaign propaganda.
Likud also rolled out billboards showing New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani alongside the leaders of Iran, Turkey and Hezbollah under the slogan, “They want Netanyahu to lose. Don’t let them win.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post ‘Have a problem, call the PM,’ says Netanyahu as he gives out his number in campaign video appeared first on The Forward.
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Providence voters to put Israel boycott movement to major test at the ballot box
(JTA) — As pro-Palestinian progressives find some success at the 2026 ballot box, the long-gestating Israel divestment campaign is looking to capitalize in Rhode Island.
Voters in Providence, the state capital, will vote on a referendum this November saying the city should refrain from investing in “foreign countries conducting ethnic cleansing, apartheid, illegal military occupation, or genocide.”
The language of the actual ballot petition does not mention Israel, nor any other country, by name. But the signature campaign was led by Providence for Palestine, a local activist coalition, and both its proponents and opponents have framed the measure as a referendum on Israel and the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
With the referendum’s ballot placement secured, Providence has become the largest American municipality ever to place divestment before the voting public.
“We’re in this moment when the general public at large, and particularly Democratic voters, very much understand what’s going on in Gaza and Palestine as genocide, as apartheid, and want their leaders to take action on it,” Zack Kliger, a lead organizer of the ballot initiative and member of the Rhode Island chapter of the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Kliger described the current divestment campaign as having “definitely been led disproportionately by Jewish organizers.”
To determine which countries are “conducting” any of its list of human rights abuses, the referendum would rely on “resolutions” from various bodies, including the United Nations Security Council, International Court of Justice and “any” U.S. court ruling or U.N. body. Some, though not all, of those bodies have reached conclusions that would implicate Israel in the ballot language’s divestment campaign.
Both Israel and the Trump administration have strongly rejected all genocide accusations leveled against the country. “Apartheid” can be considered an independent crime under international law, while “ethnic cleansing” has no formal legal definition.
Divestment from Israel has seen some success on the municipal level since the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks and Israel’s military response in Gaza, which has sunk the country’s popularity across the American electorate. Last year a non-binding divestment resolution in Somerville, Massachusetts, a Boston suburb with less than half of Providence’s population, became the first such initiative to win at the ballot box. Over objections from Jewish groups, the city this summer began exploring the question of how to enact the measure into law.
Critics of divestment measures argue that they force local governments to put undue focus on international issues; could prompt division and backlash against local Jewish communities, and jeopardize public pension programs. The Providence campaign’s decision to avoid mentioning Israel in the ballot language sets it apart from similar initiatives, while also neutralizing claims, made against other resolutions, that such measures unfairly single out Israel.
Yet local Jewish groups say the risk to the community remains.
“All this will do [is] stoke more division in our community, and potentially make Jewish people here feel more unsafe,” Stephanie Hague, chief strategy officer of the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island, told JTA.
Hague noted that the ballot language, as written, prompts questions about the authority of the international bodies making judgments about what constitutes genocide, ethnic cleansing and other terms in in the initiative. She said that the Alliance would campaign against the ballot measure and, if it passes, explore legal options for putting up roadblocks to it.
A 2024 proposal to the city council urged Providence, whose approximately 15,000 Jews make up around 7% of the population, not to invest in Israel bonds. The measure failed to make it out of committee. Likewise, the board of Brown University, the Ivy League school located in Providence, voted on a divestment resolution as part of the demands of the school’s pro-Palestinian encampment movement in 2024. It failed.
Activists are more confident this time, citing the success in Somerville — where, unlike in Providence, Israel was mentioned by name as the target of the winning ballot measure. Also unlike Somerville, whose measure was non-binding, Providence’s initiative would mandate city action.
Supporters also note that Providence joined a 2006 divestment initiative against Sudan to protest ethnic cleansing in Darfur, a divestment campaign that was spearheaded by American Jewish groups.
“We’re really proud of the legacy of the American Jewish community and standing up on social issues,” Kliger, who grew up in the Conservative movement, attended a Jewish day school in Brooklyn and has family in Israel, told JTA.
Unlike in Pittsburgh, where a similar 2024 initiative was undone before the election following legal challenges to the signatures, the Providence activists were able to collect and verify more than enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. The initiative’s supporters said they had identified around $2.5 million in city funds that would be affected by a divestment order. They cited American companies frequently targeted by pro-Palestinian activists, such as construction equipment manufacturer Caterpillar and weapons firm Axon Enterprise.
The city council of Portland, Maine, also passed a divestment proposal in 2024, though that city’s mayor, after initially endorsing the plan, later said he regretted having done so because of the divisiveness it spurred.
Some progressive Jewish professionals in Providence say the initiative is in keeping with their values.
“I know there are others out there who think that this is a situation where one would need to choose between their Jewish principles and other principles. I don’t perceive it that way,” Lex Rofeberg, senior Jewish educator with the alternative Jewish engagement network Judaism Unbound, told JTA about his support for the ballot campaign.
Rofeberg, a Providence resident, said it would be wrong for non-Jews to conclude that “it is a Jewish value to support human rights violations.”
“For those who see a ballot initiative that does not name Israel at all, but simply says we should not invest our dollars in atrocities — for people who see that as somehow threatening to Judaism, why would they think that?” he asked.
Hague, the Jewish Alliance staffer opposing the initiative, sees just such a threat to Jewish interests. She acknowledged that it can be hard to communicate to non-Jews, who would understandably oppose genocide and apartheid, the ways in which her group sees the BDS movement as “a calling card for antisemitism.”
She outlined what she saw as her group’s mission: “We have to do so much education in a short period of time, and helping people understand the Jewish community’s relationship to Israel, and then understanding this initiative’s relationship to the BDS movement and how those things are connected, and the real fear and isolation many Jewish Americans are already feeling, particularly after Oct. 7.”
The political environment, though, may be unfriendly to such efforts. Following broader national trends, the city’s Democratic mayoral primary, set for Sept. 9, is also pivoting to a large degree around Israel.
Incumbent Mayor Brett Smiley, who converted to Judaism and held a bar mitzvah while in office, is a vocal Israel supporter who opposes the ballot initiative. His progressive challenger, state Rep. David Morales, has backed the ballot initiative.
So too have some local elected officials with Jewish heritage. “For any community that we are identified with, and for the sake of our soul and our humanity, we have to be able to say, ‘This is not OK,’” Rachel Miller, city council president, told JTA.
Miller, who has a Jewish father and Catholic mother, said she considers herself “culturally” Jewish and objected to the idea that there is a single Jewish voice on the issue. She believes, she said, in “disconnecting the actions of a state against a group of people from my personal Jewish heritage, from my personal Jewish identity.”
Even if passed, it’s possible the ballot initiative could run afoul of a statewide ban on working with government contractors who openly boycott Israel — a so-called “anti-BDS law,” one of many such measures enacted in a range of states.
Those laws themselves have been debated for years. This fall a ballot initiative in Oak Park, Illinois, a liberal Chicago suburb, will ask voters to register a formal objection to that state’s anti-boycott law. The initiative, which is opposed by local Jewish groups, survived a legal challenge on Monday.
Hague acknowledged current Jewish divisions on Israel, and the difficult political climate for pro-Israel Jewish groups. Facing down a ballot initiative like this, she said, takes work.
“I think we know public opinion is not supportive of Israel right now. I think it’s not an issue that people understand implicitly when they just read a ballot question,” she said. “So yes, of course, there’s reason for concern, and I think no matter what happens at the ballot, I still think it’s an important moment.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Providence voters to put Israel boycott movement to major test at the ballot box appeared first on The Forward.
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Dutch broadcaster pulls out of Eurovision over Israel’s participation
(JTA) — The Dutch public broadcaster Avrotros has pulled out of the next Eurovision Song Contest, saying that Israel’s participation undermined the event’s neutrality.
Avrotros announced on Monday that it was withdrawing from the world’s largest music event next year because it “can no longer be considered neutral, with a participating country still involved in a large-scale military conflict.”
Eurovision included 35 countries in 2026, all of them in Europe except for Israel and Australia. Avrotros said the contest’s independence was compromised by divisions surrounding “the severe humanitarian suffering in Gaza and the ongoing restrictions on press freedom.”
Avrotros’ withdrawal does not necessarily mean that the Netherlands won’t be part of the 2027 competition in Burgas, Bulgaria. Public-service broadcasters serve as the technical sponsors of competing artists, and Avrotros said it returned responsibility for Dutch participation in Eurovision to the Nederlandse Publieke Omroep, or NPO, the coordinating body for public broadcasters in the Netherlands. NPO could hand it off to a different broadcaster.
The Netherlands was absent from Eurovision in 2026, when Avrotros pulled out for the first time over Israel’s participation and NPO ruled out identifying another broadcaster.
Eurovision has become a focal point in European backlash against Israel’s actions in Gaza. The Netherlands was joined last year by boycotts from Spain, Ireland, Iceland and Slovenia, a bloc representing Israel’s strongest critics in Europe. The competition was viewed by 131 million people, down 35 million from the previous year.
The 2026 event in Vienna also saw thousands of protesters, while over 1,000 artists signed an open letter calling for a boycott of Eurovision. Boycotters have accused the European Broadcasting Union, which owns the contest, of a double standard for allowing Israel to remain while banning Russia after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Swiss singer Nemo, who won in 2024, returned their trophy last year in protest against Israel’s inclusion.
Earlier this month, Eurovision organizers announced new rules that bar countries involved in armed conflict from hosting the competition. But the changes did not sufficiently prove that Eurovision would remain “independent and neutral,” according to Avrotros.
“It is undeniable that international conflicts are increasingly affecting the Contest, undermining its neutral character,” Avrotros Director-General Taco Zimmerman said in a statement. “The Eurovision Song Contest has therefore become a platform for division.”
Martin Green, the director of the Eurovision Song Contest, said in a statement that organizers “regret” Avrotros’ decision but will continue to coordinate with NPO about opportunities for another broadcaster to take its place.
“We very much hope that audiences and artists in the Netherlands can continue to be represented in the Eurovision Song Contest,” said Green.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Dutch broadcaster pulls out of Eurovision over Israel’s participation appeared first on The Forward.
