New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani holds a press conference at the New York City Office of Emergency Management, as a major winter storm spreads across a large swath of the United States, in Brooklyn, New York City, US, Jan. 25, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Bing Guan

Major Jewish organizations are sharply criticizing New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani after he vetoed a bill aimed at limiting protests near schools, condemning the mayor for what they argue is a failure to protect Jewish students at a time of rising antisemitism.

The legislation, which passed the City Council with bipartisan support, would have created buffer zones around educational institutions to prevent obstruction, intimidation, and disruption during demonstrations. Supporters said the measure was a direct response to recent protests outside Jewish schools and community spaces that have left students feeling unsafe.

In statements following the veto, several Jewish advocacy groups said the mayor’s decision sends the wrong message amid a surge in antisemitic incidents across the city. They warned that without additional safeguards, Jewish students could remain vulnerable to harassment and disruption near their schools.

A group of leading Jewish organizations subsequently released a statement condemning the veto, saying they were “deeply disappointed” with the decision.

“This legislation represented a crucial step toward ensuring that every school and community institution can be better protected,” read the statement from UJA-Federation of New York, ADL New York/New Jersey, AJC New York, Conference of Presidents, JCRC-NY, New York Board of Rabbis, Orthodox Union, The Rabbinical Assembly, StandWithUs, Teach NYS, and the Union for Reform Judaism.

City Council Speaker Julie Menin condemned Mamdani’s veto. 

“Ensuring students can enter and exit their schools without fear of harassment or intimidation should not be controversial,” Menin said.

New York City Councilmember Eric Dinowitz similarly criticized Mamdani, saying in a statement that the mayor had undercut his campaign promise to ensure the safety of Jewish New Yorkers. 

“The mayor promised to keep New Yorkers safe and increase police transparency,” Dinowitz said. “By vetoing this bill, he is breaking yet another campaign promise.”

Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, a far-left and fringe anti-Zionist group, released a statement framing Mamdani’s veto as a victory for free speech rights. 

The group wrote that Mamdani “further demonstrated his commitment to protecting New Yorkers’ First Amendment rights, and his refusal to endorse what is quite simply bad policy.”

“The ‘buffer zone’ bills are not about keeping New Yorkers safe. They are about silencing our voices,” the organization continued. “That they do so under the auspices of combating antisemitism doesn’t just add insult to injury; it actively endangers Jews. At best, these bills change little. At worst, they divide and silence New Yorkers and contribute to the broader political climate targeting protestors.”

Mamdani defended his decision, arguing that the bill’s language was overly broad and could infringe on constitutionally protected protest rights. He said the definition of educational institutions could extend beyond K-12 schools to include universities, museums, and other public-facing institutions, potentially restricting a wide range of demonstrations unrelated to antisemitism.

“As the bill is written, everywhere from universities to museums to teaching hospitals could face restrictions,” Mamdani said. “This could impact workers protesting ICE [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement], or college students demanding their school divest from fossil fuels, or demonstrating in support of Palestinian rights.”

The mayor also pointed to existing laws that already prohibit harassment, threats, and obstruction, suggesting the proposed measure was unnecessary and legally vulnerable.

Still, critics say those protections are insufficient in the current climate. They argue that recent demonstrations, particularly those tied to tensions over the Israel-Hamas war,  have at times crossed into intimidation, and that clearer boundaries are needed to ensure student safety.

The backlash has put Mamdani at odds with some Democratic lawmakers and community leaders who had supported the bill. While he allowed a separate measure strengthening protections around houses of worship to become law, opponents say excluding schools from similar safeguards leaves a critical gap.

Skeptics also claim that the veto undercuts Mamdani’s previous vow to protect the local Jewish community amid a surge in antisemitic hate crimes in the Big Apple. 

Mamdani, a far-left democratic socialist and anti-Zionist, is an avid supporter of boycotting all Israeli-tied entities who has been widely accused of promoting antisemitic rhetoric. He has repeatedly accused Israel of “apartheid” and “genocide”; refused to recognize the country’s right to exist as a Jewish state; and refused to explicitly condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada,” which has been associated with calls for violence against Jews and Israelis worldwide.

Leading members of the Jewish community in New York have expressed alarm about Mamdani’s victory, fearing what may come in a city already experiencing a surge in antisemitic hate crimes.

The City Council could attempt to override the veto, though it would need to secure additional votes to reach a two-thirds majority.

The dispute highlights a broader national debate over how to respond to rising antisemitism while preserving First Amendment protections, as protests tied to global conflicts continue to unfold across the United States. For many Jewish leaders, however, the issue in New York is immediate and personal, and they say the mayor’s decision falls short of the moment.

Smoke rises after an Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs, following an escalation between Hezbollah and Israel amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, Lebanon. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir

Hezbollah is exploiting Lebanon’s health-care system as a shielded pillar of its terrorist infrastructure, embedding its operatives within ambulances and medical facilities while expanding its operational reach — as fragile negotiations between Beirut and Jerusalem continue.

On Monday, the Alma Research and Education Center, which focuses on Israel’s security challenges along its northern border with Lebanon, released a study exposing how Hezbollah’s health system — while presented as civilian and humanitarian in nature — operates in practice as a central pillar of the Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist group’s military apparatus.

As Israel stepped up its offensive campaign against Hezbollah, international media outlets have repeatedly accused the Israeli government of deliberately targeting medical personnel, ambulances, and hospitals over the course of the conflict.

However, the newly released report shows that Hezbollah’s health organizations are part of a coordinated system in which civilian sectors — education, welfare, and health-care — are mobilized to support and advance military operations.

Under this framework, health-care personnel are systematically embedded within the group’s military apparatus, at times operating alongside its forces and even taking part in operations.

Functioning as Hezbollah’s de facto Ministry of Health, the Islamic Health Organization sits at the center of the terrorist group’s medical network, running hospitals, clinics, and emergency services that fill the void left by Lebanon’s collapsing public system.

However, beyond their civilian appearance, these medical bodies also serve clear military roles, operating as Hezbollah’s integrated medical corps embedded with its forces.

Like much of the country’s medical infrastructure, ambulances and facilities have also been used to transport operatives and weapons, and at times to store arms or function as mobile command posts.

The report explains that this overlap is deliberate, part of a broader system designed to enable operational flexibility while exploiting the protected status of medical actors.

This “human shield” tactic — in which military assets are placed within civilian environments — is meant to complicate strikes, raise political costs, and undermine the legitimacy of Israeli action.

Under international law, medical facilities and personnel retain protected status only so long as they are not engaged in military activity.

Hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel reignited on March 2, when the terrorist group opened fire in support of Iran two days after the start of the joint US-Israeli military campaign against the Iranian regime. 

Since then, Israeli forces have established a “buffer zone” extending 5 to 10 km (3 to 6 miles) into Lebanese territory, which officials say is meant to shield northern residents from Hezbollah attacks amid thousands of rockets and drones fired throughout the war.

Earlier this month, the United States brokered a 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. The deal was separate from Washington’s efforts to de-escalate tensions with Iran, though Tehran had pushed for Lebanon to be included in any broader framework for stopping hostilities.

Last week, US President Donald Trump announced a three-week extension of the truce to allow more time for negotiations and diplomatic efforts.

Even though the US-backed ceasefire has sharply reduced violence, negotiations and prospects for lasting peace remain fragile, with Israeli forces still launching strikes while positioned in southern Lebanon to maintain its buffer zone and dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure.

For its part, the Iranian proxy has repeatedly said it has “the right to resist” what it calls occupying forces, while rejecting direct negotiations between Beirut and Jerusalem and any resulting agreements. Meanwhile, Hezbollah has kept up its drone and rocket attacks against northern Israel as well as Israeli troops in Lebanon.

On Monday, Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem reiterated that the group will not give up its weapons and opposes Israel-Lebanon peace talks, reaffirming its stance despite international pressure.

“These direct negotiations and their outcomes are as if they do not exist for us, and they do not concern us in the slightest,” the terrorist leader said in a statement.

“We will continue our defensive resistance for Lebanon and its people. No matter how much the enemy threatens, we will not back down, we will not bow down, and we will not be defeated,” Qassem continued.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun seemingly lashed out at Hezbollah’s continued defiance of his government, indirectly calling the group “traitors.”

“What we are doing is not treason. Traitors are those who drag their country into war to serve foreign interests,” the Lebanese leader said in a statement. 

“My goal is to bring an end to the war with Israel, similar to the ceasefire agreement. I will not agree to reach a humiliating agreement,” Aoun continued.

The Lebanese government agreed to disarm Hezbollah as part of a previous US-brokered ceasefire with Israel. However, Israeli leaders have expressed frustration with Beirut’s inability to follow through, in part over fear of igniting a civil war inside Lebanon, arguing Israel’s military will do the job by force if necessary.

At the Passover Seder, we sing dayenu — “it would have been enough.” Each verse names a gift given by God to the Jewish people: the exodus, the parting of the sea, manna in the desert, the Torah. We sing the song to cultivate gratitude, and to remind ourselves that while just one of these miracles would have been sufficient, together, they are overwhelming. The point is to recognize that we have been blessed and that we carry an obligation — to remember, to protect and to stand with those who are still in danger.

Drew Warshaw, a candidate who is challenging Tom DiNapoli in the Democratic primary for New York state comptroller, recently published an op-ed in these pages calling on New York to divest its pension fund from Israel Bonds. He reinterpreted the Seder’s recitation of dayenu not as a prayer of gratitude but rather as a reminder of a personal reckoning — “enough is enough!” he wrote — suggesting it is time to withdraw the United States’ support from Israel.

This beautiful tradition deserves better than to be weaponized against a financial instrument, Israel bonds, that has served New York State pensioners — including school administrators, sanitation workers, court officers, and first responders — well for many years.

So, as a member of the Israel Bonds national board of directors, let me offer my own dayenu:

• If Israel bonds had simply never defaulted or had never been late on a single payment since 1951 — through wars, recessions, and regional upheaval — dayenu. It would have been enough.
• If Israel bonds had only delivered consistent, strong investment returns to the police officers and firefighters who rely on New York State’s pension fund — dayenu.
• If Israel bonds had only helped build a democratic nation from the ground up, the only stable democracy in a deeply unstable region — dayenu.
• If Israel bonds had done all of this while the state of Israel endured wars, fought terrorism and weathered the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023 — dayenu.

These facts present strong reasons to maintain or expand the investment. In contrast, the case for divestment is weak. That’s especially true given that Israel bonds represent far less than one percent of the nearly $300 billion held by the New York state common retirement fund. This is not a portfolio-defining position. It is a rounding error being treated as a moral crisis.

Warshaw is right that our tradition demands moral courage. But the story of the exodus is not only a story about the courage to leave; it is also a story about the courage required to build.

For Israel, sovereign bonds are part of that building. The proceeds from Israel bonds have been used to build every part of Israel’s economy. To treat an Israel bond as nothing more than a political statement is to collapse a complex financial instrument into a bumper sticker.

The New York State comptroller has one overriding obligation: to make investment decisions based on financial evidence guided by economics, not a personal political agenda.

State-level divestment from Israel would set a troubling precedent, telling voters that New York’s pension fund can be redirected not by financial best practice but by ideological pressure, its investment decisions subject to the political winds of any given election cycle. That is a slippery slope to travel.

The New Yorkers whose savings are at stake deserve better, and so does the tradition Warshaw has invoked. It teaches us that the hardest work is not, in fact, leaving. It is, instead, building something worth staying for.

The post New York shouldn’t divest from Israel Bonds — and voters should be wary of politicizing pensions appeared first on The Forward.