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Everyone knows about Herzl. Is it time for Max Nordau, the intermarried father of Zionism, to get his due?

(JTA) — In the weeks since Israel’s latest government was sworn in, questions relating to assimilation, defining Jewish identity and what it means to be a Zionist have been central to the public and political discourse, which in some ways is perhaps more heated and divisive than it has ever been.

One useful addition to the discourse might be recalling the thought and example of an author and Zionist leader who died 100 years ago last month. Max Nordau was a central figure in the early years of the modern political Zionist movement, literally founding the Zionist Organization (today’s World Zionist Organization) with Theodor Herzl and heading multiple Zionist congresses. A physician and renowned man of letters prior to his “conversion” to Zionism following the Dreyfus Affair in France, Nordau’s joining the Zionist movement gave it a notable boost in terms of renown and respectability.

He also coined the term “Muscular Judaism” — a redefinition of what it meant to be a Jew in the modern world; a critical shift away from the traditionally insular, “meek” Jewish archetype devoted solely to religious and intellectual pursuits. The “Muscular Jew” in theory and practice was necessary in order for a modern Jewish state to be established.

Reviving interest in Nordau now is a continuation of a conversation that an Israeli historian kicked off four decades ago. The historian, Yosef Nedava, embarked on a crusade to renew interest in and appreciation of Nordau. Nedava was a proponent of Revisionist Zionism, a movement led by Zeev Jabotinsky and later Menachem Begin that was considered to be the bitter ideological rival to the Labor Zionism of David Ben-Gurion and others. Broadly speaking, Revisionist Zionism was more territorially maximalist when it came to settling the Land of Israel, and favored liberal principles as opposed to the socialist ones championed by Ben-Gurion and his colleagues.

Nedava had a penchant for fighting the battles of unsung heroes of history who he thought should be better remembered. He led a crusade to clear the name of Yosef Lishansky, the founder of the NILI underground movement that assisted the British during World War I who was executed by the Ottomans. He also worked to exonerate fellow Revisionist Zionists accused of murdering Labor Zionist leader Haim Arlozorov — an event that shook Mandatory Palestine in the early 1930s and beyond.

About Nordau, Nedava said at the time, “For 60 years he wasn’t mentioned and he was one of the forgotten figures that only a few streets were named after.”

Nedava’s sentiment was clear, even if his words were somewhat hyperbolic. Nordau had in fact been studied and cited over the years, and there were in fact at least a few streets named after him in Israel. At the official state event marking six decades since Nordau’s death, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin even declared, “We never forgot Max Nordau, his teachings and his historical merits.”

Following Nedava’s efforts leading up to the 60th anniversary of Nordau’s death in 1983, Begin set up an official committee to memorialize the Zionist leader. The committee was tasked with publishing Nordau’s works, establishing events and honoring him in other ways like getting his face on a stamp “and maybe on a monetary bill,” according to Nedava.

But no bill was ever printed with Nordau’s visage, and there’s no question that Nordau never has gotten nearly the credit nor recognition that Herzl received. If the streets referenced by Nedava are any indicator, there are currently a respectable 33 streets named after Nordau in Israel, though that’s just about half of what Herzl’s got. There’s a city called Herzliya, with a massive image of the Zionist founder overlooking one of Israel’s most-trafficked highways. Nordau has a beach in Tel Aviv, a neighborhood in Netanya and a small village far in the north — but no city of his own.

Trees line alongside Nordau Avenue in Tel Aviv, March 4, 2017. (Anat Hermoni/FLASH90)

That’s not to say he didn’t have his fans. The Revisionist movement and Begin’s Herut and Likud parties idolized him, often mentioning and depicting him alongside Herzl and Vladimir Jabotinsky. Revisionist historian Benzion Netanyahu, father of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, greatly admired Nordau, even editing four entire volumes of his writings.

“Alongside Herzl, the Revisionists loved him, as he was a liberal. Yet he was also accepted and respected by those on the other side of the political spectrum,” Hezi Amiur, a scholar of Zionism and the curator of the Israeli Collection at the National Library of Israel, told me.

Like many of his generation and ilk, Nordau, himself the son of a rabbi, rejected religion and tradition as a teenager, opting to join mainstream European secular culture. He changed his name from Simon (Simcha) Maximilian Südfeld to Max Nordau. The shift in surname from Südfeld — meaning “southern field” — to Nordau — meaning “northern meadow” — was very much an intentional act for Nordau, the only son in his religiously observant family who chose northern European Germanic culture over the traditions of his fathers. He even married a Danish Protestant opera singer, a widow and mother of four named Anna Dons-Kaufmann.

In a congratulatory letter sent to Nordau following his marriage to Anna, Herzl, who was also not a particularly observant nor learned Jew, wrote:

Your concerns regarding the attitudes of our zealous circles [within the Zionist movement] regarding your mixed marriage are perhaps exaggerated. … If our project had already been fulfilled today, surely we would not have prevented a Jewish citizen, that is, a citizen of the existing Jewish state, from marrying a foreign-born gentile, through this marriage she would become a Jew without paying attention to her religion. If she has children, they will be Jews anyway.

This particular vision of Herzl’s has certainly not come to fruition, and the topic remains a particularly heated one, continuing to roil the Israeli political system, and — no less — Israel-Diaspora relations.

Similar political forces to those that have kept this particular Herzlian vision at bay may have also been responsible for ensuring that Nordau’s impressively whiskered face never made its way onto Israeli currency.

According to one report, Begin’s Likud government abandoned its efforts to get Nordau’s onto a shekel note in 1983 in order to avoid a potential coalition crisis. The concern was that the religious parties that were part of the ruling coalition could become outraged at the prospect of having someone married to a non-Jew on Israeli money. Whether the report was fully accurate or not, the sentiments behind such a potential coalition scare are certainly familiar to anyone following contemporary Israeli politics.

Nonetheless, perhaps the two most influential religious Zionist rabbis of the 20th century, Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaKohen Kook and his son, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda, not only somewhat overlooked Nordau’s assimilationist tendencies and intermarriage, they even celebrated the man and his vision.

The elder Rabbi Kook, who served as the rabbi of Jaffa, Jerusalem and the Land of Israel in the opening decades of the 1900s, uncompromisingly criticized some of Nordau’s views, especially with respect to the separation of religion from Zionism. But he was a big fan of Nordau’s “Muscular Judaism,” writing among other things, that:

…a healthy body is what we need, we have been very busy with the soul, we have forgotten the sanctity of the body, we have neglected physical health and strength, we have forgotten that we have holy flesh, no less than we have the holy spirit… Through the strength of the flesh the weakened soul will be enlightened, the resurrection of the dead in their bodies.

Decades later his son, likely the most influential Israeli religious Zionist spiritual leader until his death in 1982, defined Nordau (as well as seminal Hebrew poet Shaul Tchernichovsky, who also married a non-Jew) as a “baal tshuvah” — a term imprecisely translated as “penitent” that is generally used to refer to non-observant Jews who become more religiously observant. Yehuda based his designation on a Talmudic teaching that “Anyone who transgresses and is ashamed of it is forgiven for all of his sins.”

Like anyone, Max Nordau probably regretted and felt ashamed of various decisions and actions in his life, but marrying a non-Jewish woman does not seem to be one of them. He and Anna stayed married for decades until his death in 1923.

Both Kooks were able to overlook the decidedly non-religious (if not outright anti-religious) life Nordau chose to lead. Instead of his personal choices, they focused on the central contribution he made to ensuring the reestablishment of a Jewish home in its ancestral land.

The majority of Israel’s current ruling coalition claims to be the ideological descendants of Begin and the Rabbis Kook, men who managed to have great admiration for the teachings and achievements of Nordau, even if they may have found his anti-religious, assimilationist tendencies and intermarriage reprehensible. Nedava wanted Israel to learn from Nordau 40 years ago. It’s possible the country still could today — if only the striking level of tolerance and respect with which he was considered in the past can still be summoned.


The post Everyone knows about Herzl. Is it time for Max Nordau, the intermarried father of Zionism, to get his due? appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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Antisemitism Spikes to Record Levels in Italy, New Data Shows

A protester uses a pole to break a window at Milano Centrale railway station, during a demonstration that is part of a nationwide “Let’s Block Everything” protest in solidarity with Gaza, with activists also calling for a halt to arms shipments to Israel, in Milan, Italy, Sept. 22, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco

Antisemitism in Italy surged to record levels last year, according to newly published figures, as Jews and Israelis across Europe continued to face a relentlessly hostile environment including harassment, vandalism, and targeted attacks.

In Italy, the Milan-based CDEC Foundation (Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation) confirmed that antisemitic incidents in the country almost reached four digits for the first time last year.

Of 1,492 reports submitted through official monitoring channels, the CDEC formally classified a record high 963 cases as antisemitic, according to the European Jewish Congress and Union of Italian Jewish Communities (UCEI), the main representative body of Jews in Italy.

By comparison, there were 877 recorded incidents in 2024, preceded by 453 such outrages in 2023 and just 241 in 2022. The data fits with several reports showing antisemitism surged across the Western world, especially the US and Europe, following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.

The findings will be formally presented at the Senate in Palazzo Giustiniani on March 3.

According to the CDEC, anti-Israel animus was a key ideological driver of the surge in antisemitism.

“The main ideological matrix that has fueled hatred against Jews is anti-Semitism linked to Israel – i.e., the transfer of anti-Jewish myths, such as blood libel, racism by election, and hatred of mankind,” the organization stated.

In May, for example, a restaurant in Naples ejected an Israeli family, telling them “Zionists are not welcome here.” Months earlier, demonstrators at a January protest in Bologna vandalized a synagogue, painting “Justice for a free Gaza.”

Most of the incidents, 643, occurred online on digital platforms, while 320 involved physical acts such as graffiti, vandalism, and desecration of synagogues in addition to discrimination, threats, and assaults.

The surge in antisemitism came amid multiple surveys showing pervasive antisemitic attitudes among the Italian public.

Around 15 percent of Italians consider physical attacks on Jewish people “entirely or fairly justifiable,” according to one survey published in September.

The survey, conducted on Sept. 24-26 by the pollster SWG among a national sample of 800 adults, found that 18 percent of those interviewed also believe antisemitic graffiti on walls and other public spaces is legitimate.

About one-fifth of respondents said it was reasonable to attack professors who expressed pro-Israeli positions or for businesses to reject Israeli customers.

Months earlier, in June, the Italian research institute Eurispes, in partnership with Pasquale Angelosanto, the national coordinator for the fight against antisemitism, polled a representative sample of the country’s population and found that 37.9 percent of Italians believe that Jews “only think about accumulating money” while 58.2 percent see Jews as “a closed community.”

About 40 percent either did not know or did not believe that 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust, and the majority of respondents — 54 percent — regarded antisemitic crimes as isolated incidents and not part of any broader trend.

The report also showed elevated levels of anti-Israel belief among younger Italians, with 50.85 percent of those 18-24 thinking that “Jews in Palestine took others’ territories.”

The Institute for Jewish Policy Research estimates the number of Jews in Italy as ranging from 26,800 to 48,910 depending on which standards of observance one selects. Eurispes places the number at 30,000.

In January, the Anti-Defamation League released the newest results of its Global 100 survey which found that 26 percent of Italians — 13.1 million adults — embrace six or more antisemitic stereotypes.

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Israeli bobsled captain on Olympics exit: ‘Holy endeavor’ slammed into rigid rule

The man who piloted the Israeli bobsled team to its first-ever Olympic Games defended the athlete-swapping scheme that led to the team’s removal from competition, saying in an interview with the Forward that the Israeli sporting authority blew the incident out of proportion.

The Olympic Committee of Israel said it pulled the team after learning that a member had faked an illness in order to allow the substitution of a teammate in his place.

AJ Edelman, the team’s captain, did not contest that account. He said that the substitution was unanimously agreed to by the group, calling it “essentially a normal maneuver” at the Olympics given what he called a “somewhat arbitrary” rule that allows alternates to compete only when an athlete is medically unable to continue.

The reason it didn’t work, he said, was that the teammate chosen to fake sick tipped off the Israeli committee, which needed to approve the substitution.

“We’re not the only team to have made that sort of substitution in the competition,” Edelman, 34, said in a phone interview with the Forward from Prague, shortly after midnight local time Tuesday. “We are the only team for which the person then was just upset that he was the one doing it and made a scene about it.”

The swap would have made Ward Fawarsy, who was traveling with the squad as an alternate, the first Druze Israeli to appear in Olympic competition. Instead, the committee pulled the team before its third race, cutting short Israel’s run with two heats remaining.

The Israeli committee said in a statement that it had reported the matter to the International Olympic Committee and would conduct an investigation after the Games.

The exit — which Edelman characterized as a voluntary withdrawal — blighted a budding underdog success story. The team, nicknamed “Shul Runnings” (a play on the title of a popular movie about the 1988 Jamaican team), had scrapped its way into the Olympics without financial support from Israel — largely thanks to the perseverance of Edelman, its indefatigable spearhead, who told the Forward he saw the team as a “holy endeavor.”

Without a national sports program behind him, Edelman, a former MIT hockey goaltender, had recruited Israeli athletes from other sports to the project — Zisman was a former pole vaulter, Fawarsy played rugby — and crowdfunded relentlessly to pay for their training. He said this year was the first he broke even, with the team’s costs totaling to around $300,000.

After narrowly missing qualification in 2022 and 2026, Israel broke through in January, receiving an invitation after the United Kingdom decided to send only one team instead of two.

But at the end of a whirlwind month in which the team was burglarized at its pre-Olympic lodgings, booed at the opening ceremony and drawn into controversy involving multiple foreign broadcasters, Israel’s withdrawal left it below teams that crashed in the final results for 4-man bobsled, marked “Did Not Start” on the scoresheet.

Israel also finished last out of 26 teams in 2-man sled.

Taking the plunge

Israel’s 4-man bobsled team was in 24th place out of 27 when one team member falsely claimed an illness. Photo by Tiziana FABI / AFP via Getty Images

The fake illness plan was set in motion after the second of four heats in the 4-man competition, with Israel in 24th place out of 27 and medaling out of reach.

Olympic rules generally do not allow alternates to compete unless a team member has to withdraw due to injury or illness. The idea to fake an injury, according to Edelman, had been Zisman’s earlier in the year, when it appeared that he, not Fawarsy, would be the alternate. Edelman said he nixed the proposal at the time.

But in Italy, with Fawarsy the alternate due to a pre-Olympics injury, Edelman went for the switch.

“Ward’s inclusion was important because of his years of service to the team, because of who he was and because of who he represented,” Edelman said. “I was quite proud that a group of young Israelis took a look at their brother, their teammate, and said, ‘This is important for you. This is important for us.’”

After the group agreed to the plan, the question became which team member would drop out.

According to Edelman, Zisman thought it should be Menachem Chen, because he had raced with Edelman in the 2-man. But Zisman, Edelman said, “was the weakest performer. And given that Ward’s position was his position in the sled, they were somewhat interchangeable.”

Zisman appeared to begrudgingly go along with the arrangement at first, undergoing a medical exam and signing an affidavit to support the substitution request, according to Israeli officials. But Edelman said that during that process, Zisman volunteered that “another athlete should do it instead, and at that point Israel made it what it became.”

Edelman said his team’s alternate substitution ploy was not uncommon at the Olympics.

The Olympic Committee of Israel said in a statement that Zisman had admitted to the head of the delegation that he had acted improperly, forcing the committee to withdraw the request and disqualify the move.

“The Olympic Committee of Israel views any deviation from the Olympic values as unacceptable and cannot accept inappropriate behavior,” the OCI statement added. “It should be emphasized that, up to this point, the participation of the bobsleigh delegation has taken place in the spirit of sport and without any violations by the athletes.”

The Israel committee did not respond to questions sent by the Forward, and Zisman did not respond to a request for comment.

Edelman flatly disagreed with the committee’s decision.

“We felt that it was completely fine, given that it was essentially a normal maneuver,” Edelman said. “It was really blown into something that we hadn’t expected. Israel insisted on sort of making an example of the situation.”

Iced out of Italy

AJ Edelman, left, and Israel’s Menachem Chen congratulate each other after competing in a 2-man bobsled heat. Photo by Stefano Rellandini / AFP via Getty Images

The incident capped a Winter Olympics in which Israel appeared in more headlines due to controversy than competition. The country did not medal at Milan Cortina — it has never medaled at a Winter Games — and most of its athletes ended competition in the bottom half of contestants.

The first Israeli delegation to compete at the Winter Olympics since the attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, was also a frequent target at the Games. Much of the ire from foreign press and other athletes targeted Edelman, who has been a vocal defender of Israel’s war in Gaza on social media.

As Israel was racing in the 2-man event, a commentator for a Swiss TV broadcast listed Edelman’s comments and actions related to the war, which it said were “in support of the genocide in Gaza.” The network later apologized.

An Italian commentator also landed in hot water after he told someone off camera but on live air to avoid the Israeli team.

Edelman said the hostility extended to his fellow bobsled athletes, and claimed that one had called the team “baby killers.” He declined to name the athlete or say what country he represented.

“I take a look at a guy like that, who has made the Olympics a couple of times, and I go, ‘What a loser,’” Edelman said. “He spends his time worrying about Israelis or Jews? What a total loser. So I just don’t put too much stock in it.”

Ward Fawarseh would have become the first Druze Israeli to compete in the Olympics. Photo by IOC via Getty Images

Edelman did not want to highlight the role Fawarsy’s ethnic background played in the team’s decision to break the rules, saying doing so “minimizes him as an athlete and it minimizes him as a person, into something demographic.” At the same time, he appeared to allude to Fawarsy serving in the IDF as a reason for his inclusion.

On Oct. 12, 2023, Edelman posted a picture of Fawarsy to Instagram, writing in the caption that his teammate was “serving on the front lines right now.” (He edited the caption earlier this month to, “Love Ward. Send him a message with your support!”)

“He served Israel with distinction and a level of heroism that all of us aspire to have in our lives,” Edelman told the Forward, adding, “Ward earned it and deserved it as much, if not more, than any of the other guys.”

Fawarsy did not respond to an inquiry.

Frozen fallout

Few in the public sphere have found inspiration in the team’s intentional rule-breaking, even done in service of a Druze athlete’s achievement. Israel’s i24 news broadcast called it a “dramatic and disappointing development.” The Times of Israel said the team’s “legacy was tainted.”

And David Greaves, the president of the Israeli Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation, told Times of Israel that he was “deeply disappointed in the actions of the team.”

Edelman maintained that the public reaction reflected a lack of context about how the sport tends to operate.

He compared the move to a football player seeking medical treatment to stop the clock or buy time for fatigued teammates. But that ploy, he noted, conferred a competitive advantage his team’s swap had not.

The rule that alternates could not compete was arbitrary in Edelman’s view because it was mostly designed to limit the census of the Olympic Village. He said that other teams had similarly broken the rule with none the wiser.

AJ Edelman touts himself as the first Orthodox Jewish Winter Olympian. Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

“When you take a look at the sport from the outside and don’t understand how the sport works, what the usual behavior is in the sport and why things are the way they are,” he said, “the decision seems like a very heavy risk to have taken on. The move is not unusual. It is not uncommon whatsoever.”

It did not appear that any other men’s bobsled teams made substitutions at the 2026 Games. It was unclear how many alternates ultimately competed at Milan Cortina.

At least one alternate was substituted in in another sport: Rich Ruohonen, an athlete on the U.S. curling team, entered competition late in a match with his team facing a near-insurmountable deficit. His throws made Ruohonen the oldest-ever U.S. Winter Olympian. It was unclear how he was able to substitute, and U.S. broadcasters embraced the moment. (Ruohonen could not be reached for comment.)

In a statement to X following news of the team’s withdrawal, Edelman took accountability for the decision and said he believed he had been “putting the country first.” And while he believed Israel was held to a higher standard than other countries, he was not sure that should have influenced his team’s choices.

“A lot of people have asked, ‘Would you do it again?’” Edelman told the Forward. “I think it would have been very hard in the future for all of us to take a look back on it and go, ‘You know, every other team does this sort of thing — we were just not going to get Ward in there because we’re looked at extra harshly if something goes wrong.’

“Again, it’s tough to explain to outsiders who don’t know the sport,” he continued. “So I feel very comfortable and confident in the decision that the team unanimously took.”

The post Israeli bobsled captain on Olympics exit: ‘Holy endeavor’ slammed into rigid rule appeared first on The Forward.

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NYC Officials Sue Mamdani Over Failure to Disclose Docs on Decision to Scrap IHRA Definition of Antisemitism

Candidate Zohran Mamdani speaks during a Democratic New York City mayoral primary debate, June 4, 2025, in New York, US. Photo: Yuki Iwamura/Pool via REUTERS

A group of Queens elected officials and civic leaders has filed suit against New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, accusing his administration of stonewalling a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request related to his decision to revoke an executive order adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism.

The lawsuit centers on Mamdani’s move on his first day in office in January to rescind a series of executive orders issued by his predecessor, former Mayor Eric Adams, to combat antisemitism. Among the orders revoked was one formally adopting the IHRA definition, which has been widely embraced by governments and institutions across the democratic world.

Plaintiffs include Queens Councilmembers Joann Ariola and Vickie Paladino, along with Queens Civic Congress President Warren Schreiber, the Queens Daily Eagle reported last week.

They argue that the mayor’s office has failed to provide adequate transparency regarding the rationale behind rescinding the IHRA order, a move critics say weakened the city’s formal commitment to combating antisemitism at a time of rising anti-Jewish incidents both locally and nationally.

The purpose of the FOIL applications at issue in this proceeding is to decipher and obtain the documentary trail of information illuminating Mayor Mamdani’s motives, policies, programs, legislative initiatives, and budgetary priorities implicated within the EO [executive order],” the lawsuit reads.

In their filing, the plaintiffs accuse the administration of having “stonewalled, deflected, delayed, and denied” their FOIL request, calling the response timeline “arbitrary and capricious.” Although the city’s Law Department acknowledged receipt of the request and projected a response date in April, the plaintiffs contend that such delays are unacceptable given the gravity of the issue. The lawsuit characterizes Mamdani’s actions as “anti-Israel” and “anti-Jewish.”

IHRA — an intergovernmental organization comprising dozens of countries including the US and Israel — adopted the “working definition” of antisemitism in 2016. Since then, the definition has been widely accepted by Jewish groups and lawmakers across the political spectrum, and it is now used by hundreds of governing institutions, including the US State Department, European Union, and United Nations. Law enforcement also uses it as a tool for matters such as hate-crime investigations and sentencing.

According to the definition, antisemitism “is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.” It provides 11 specific, contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere. Beyond classic antisemitic behavior associated with the likes of the medieval period and Nazi Germany, the examples include denial of the Holocaust and newer forms of antisemitism targeting Israel such as demonizing the Jewish state, denying its right to exist, and holding it to standards not expected of any other democratic state.

Jewish community advocates have expressed alarm that rescinding the executive order could signal a retreat from clear standards at a moment when antisemitic incidents have surged in the two years following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.

The Israeli government and leading US Jewish groups sharply criticized Mamdani’s decision.

Mamdani’s supporters say the move was part of a broader action by Mamdani to revoke all executive orders issued by Adams since Sept. 26, 2024, when the ex-mayor was indicted for corruption, charges of which have since been dismissed. Mamdani’s office has framed the move as an administrative reset rather than a targeted policy shift, saying the new mayor sought to begin his term with a clean slate.

However, critics argue that lumping the IHRA adoption together with other rescinded orders was, at best, careless and, at worst, reflective of an ideological discomfort with pro-Israel policy frameworks.

The New York Times reported last month that Mamdani “knew from the moment he won the election” in November that he would revoke the executive orders related to Israel and antisemitism but believed rescinding them would upset Jewish groups whose concerns he spent months trying to allay. Therefore, the report continued, Mamdani’s team laid out a few options, and he chose to rescind every order that Adams issued after his indictment, “allowing him to frame the choice as a matter of good governance.”

The lawsuit now seeks a court order compelling the mayor’s office to produce internal communications and documentation explaining the decision-making process behind the revocation.

The IHRA definition could have been problematic for Mamdani, a far-left democratic socialist and avowed anti-Zionist who has made anti-Israel activism a cornerstone of his political career and been widely accused of promoting antisemitic rhetoric. A supporter of boycotting all entities tied to Israel, he has repeatedly refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state; routinely accused Israel of “apartheid” and “genocide”; and refused to clearly condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada,” which has been used to call for violence against Jews and Israelis worldwide.

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

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