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When Standards Disappear: What the Mamdani Reversals Reveal About Jewish Political Vulnerability
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani delivers a speech during his inauguration ceremony in New York City, US, Jan. 1, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Kylie Cooper
When New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani took office, he pledged to “protect our Jewish neighbors.”
Within hours of taking power and very deliberately, he reversed two policies that many Jewish New Yorkers had reasonably understood as core safeguards: New York City’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, and restrictions barring city officials from participating in boycotts or divestment campaigns against Israel.
The reversals were framed as an administrative reset — a clearing away of a prior administration’s preferences. But their effect was unmistakable. They removed explicit institutional commitments to defining and confronting contemporary antisemitism and to affirming Israel’s legitimacy within city governance.
The public reaction followed a familiar script: condemnation, statements, reassurances, and calls for calm.
What has been missing is a clear-eyed assessment of what this episode actually reveals and what it demands of the Jewish community going forward. This is not primarily a story about tone, intent, or interpersonal trust. It is a story about power, incentives, and institutional design.
As a professor of political science, nothing about this outcome is surprising. Decades of research reveal that democratic governance is often shaped less by stated intentions, than by incentive structures. Elected officials respond to organized pressure, coalition management, and political cost. Policies that are discretionary — rather than embedded in durable institutional constraints — are inherently vulnerable to reversal when political alignments shift. Goodwill is not a governing mechanism. Constraints are.
The IHRA definition mattered not because it resolved every possible case, but because it translated moral concern into an operational standard. It provided guidance to institutions tasked with distinguishing between legitimate political speech and discriminatory conduct. It constrained interpretive drift. It limited the ability of political actors to redefine antisemitism opportunistically when ideological pressure mounted.
Its removal did not merely alter language; it shifted authority. Decisions about what constitutes antisemitism were moved from a widely recognized framework into a discretionary space shaped by coalition politics.
This shift matters, especially because antisemitism today rarely presents itself in its older, easily recognizable forms. Contemporary antisemitism is more often expressed through the delegitimization of Jewish collective identity, through moral exceptionalism applied uniquely to Israel, or through the attribution of collective guilt to Jews as a people.
These forms of antisemitism are harder to name, precisely because they cloak themselves in the language of politics, justice, or critique. That is precisely why definitional clarity matters. Without agreed-upon standards, antisemitism becomes whatever the most powerful actors in the room say it is — and Jews are once again placed in the position of having to prove harm after it has already occurred.
In practice, the removal of IHRA has concrete downstream consequences. City agencies, educators, and law-enforcement officials are left without clear guidance. Complaints become harder to adjudicate. Incidents that previously would have been recognized as discriminatory risk being dismissed as mere political disagreement. Ambiguity does not produce neutrality; it produces inconsistency — and inconsistency predictably disadvantages minorities whose harms are already contested.
Supporters of the reversal argue that definitions like IHRA chill speech. This objection deserves to be addressed directly. Standards do not regulate speech; they guide institutional response once speech crosses into discrimination or harassment. That distinction is foundational to civil-rights law.
Universities, workplaces, and governments have long relied on definitions to enforce equal protection without policing opinion. The alternative to standards is not free expression; it is discretionary enforcement, which is far more susceptible to political bias.
To understand why this matters so deeply in New York, one must take seriously how urban politics actually work. The city is not a neutral forum adjudicating claims in the abstract. It is a competitive ecosystem of organized interests: labor unions, housing advocates, immigrant coalitions, civil-liberties groups, ethnic and religious communities, and pro- and anti-Israel movements, all pressing their claims. Groups that exert influence in this environment tend to be cohesive, disciplined, and capable of imposing consequences — electoral, reputational, or financial — when their core interests are ignored. Groups that rely primarily on access, symbolic recognition, or rhetorical reassurance tend to lose influence over time, even when their concerns are legitimate.
The Jewish community has encountered this structural problem before.
In the late 1960s and 1970s, formal Jewish quotas in elite universities were dismantled. Many Jewish leaders understandably celebrated what appeared to be the end of explicit discrimination. What replaced quotas, however, were “holistic admissions systems” that sounded neutral and humane — yet operated with enormous discretion.
Over time, and without enforceable constraints, Jewish representation declined in some institutions — not because of overt hostility, but because the rules no longer anchored Jewish inclusion in durable standards. Once discretion expanded, Jewish objections carried less weight.
This is not to claim that history repeats mechanically. The analogy is not that today’s New York mirrors yesterday’s campuses. It is that the same structural error — substituting discretion for durable standards — predictably produces vulnerability over time. When protections are treated as administrative preferences rather than institutional commitments, they become reversible.
What, then, should the New York Jewish community do?
First, it must reorient its strategy away from reassurance and toward institutionalization. Executive orders and informal commitments are inherently fragile. Jewish leaders should be pressing for protections embedded in municipal law, administrative code, and binding procedures that cannot be undone unilaterally by a single mayor. Standards that survive political turnover matter more than promises offered in moments of controversy.
Second, the community must move beyond consensus statements to coordinated escalation. Unity is valuable, but unity without consequences signals disappointment rather than resolve. Effective political actors develop escalation ladders: clear benchmarks for action, followed by predictable increases in pressure if those benchmarks are ignored. That means legislative engagement, legal review, donor accountability, voter mobilization, and sustained public argument — not episodically, but over time.
Third, Jewish leaders must be clear-eyed about coalition politics. Coalitions are not moral communities; they are transactional alignments. When interests diverge, coalitions realign. Coalitions that require Jews to accept weakened protections in exchange for continued inclusion are not partnerships; they are asymmetries. Participation in pluralistic civic life does not require surrendering the authority to define antisemitism or abandoning institutional safeguards that Jews have repeatedly said they need.
Fourth, the community should frame this issue not as a narrow Jewish concern, but as a rule-of-law problem with broader implications. A city that abandons clear standards for identifying and addressing bias weakens protections for all minorities. Discretion may feel humane in the short term, but it is precisely discretion that allows enforcement to be politicized when pressure mounts. Equal protection requires standards that do not fluctuate with ideology.
Finally, Jewish institutions must invest in long-term political capacity rather than episodic crisis management. This moment exposes a collective-action problem, not a moral failure. Influence is cumulative. It is built through persistence, clarity, organizational discipline, and a willingness to tolerate conflict when core protections are at stake.
This is not a moment for panic, but for sobriety. The lesson of the past weeks is not that Jewish concerns lack legitimacy, but that legitimacy must be secured through structure.
Protections that rely on tone, trust, or reassurance will fail under pressure; protections that are codified, enforced, and defended endure. For Jewish communal leaders in New York, the task is clear: stop treating safeguards as favors, stop confusing access with influence, and build constraints that survive political change. In democratic politics, what is not institutionalized does endure.
Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
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Jewish Democrats back Michigan AG Dana Nessel’s decision to skip state party convention
(JTA) — Local and national Jewish Democrats say they are sympathetic after Michigan’s Jewish attorney general, Dana Nessel, said she would skip the state Democratic Party’s nominating convention over concerns about antisemitism and harassment.
“I don’t blame AG Nessel for not wanting to go and basically put herself in situations that feel untenable in this moment of time and don’t add any value politically, personally,” Jessica “Decky” Alexander, the Michigan Jewish Democratic caucus chair, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Friday.
Alexander’s comment came a day after Nessel announced during a televised antisemitism roundtable that she would be skipping the convention next month, where party leaders will finalize the state’s Democratic candidate for Senate following a divisive primary that has focused in part on Israel and antisemitism.
“I don’t feel safe going. I feel like my presence isn’t going to be welcome. I don’t want to get chased around. I don’t want to get harassed. I don’t want to get yelled and screamed at. I don’t want to get booed off the stage, irrespective of what I’m saying,” Nessel said during the roundtable. “And I believe that if I go, that is what will happen because it’s been happening to me.”
She said she had filed a formal complaint within the party about a party official who had called her a neo-Nazi because of her beliefs. “Why is this person more accepted in our party than me?” she asked without naming the official. Her office responded to a request for comment by referring to the recorded livestream of the antisemitism roundtable.
Nessel’s declaration comes in the final days of the primary between Rep. Haley Stevens, a pro-Israel stalwart, and Abdul El-Sayed, a democratic socialist who is deeply critical of Israel. El-Sayed is surging in polls despite a reported $30 million spent against him by AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby, and its supporters, whom he has made a target of criticism from the campaign trail.
Nessel’s comments also follow turmoil at the Michigan Democratic Party’s endorsement convention in April, where Stevens was booed by attendees. A third primary candidate who later dropped out of the race, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, said a convention attendee had targeted her Jewish husband with an antisemitic slur.
The incident has fueled alarm among Jewish Democrats, according to Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America.
“She’s not alone,” Soifer told JTA about Nessel on Friday. “We’ve heard from other Jewish Democrats who attended the Democratic Party convention earlier this year in Michigan, and there was a sense of discomfort amid what felt like a pro-Palestinian protest [that] may have even blurred the line for some into antisemitic sentiment — and it’s really concerning.”
Nessel has raised the alarm about antisemitism within the party for years, alleging in 2024 that Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a prominent pro-Palestinian voice, had been antisemitic when criticizing charges Nessel filed against pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Michigan.
For her part, Alexander said she would be participating in the nominating convention and said she believed the chair of the state Democratic Party, Curtis Hertel, had been “very accessible and very open to making sure that we, including our Jewish elected officials, feel safe in that space.” But she said she understood why Nessel was staying away.
“It would never even occur to me, but I’m not an elected official,” Alexander said. “It’s a different stake for me than it is for Dana. I understand her completely.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Jewish Democrats back Michigan AG Dana Nessel’s decision to skip state party convention appeared first on The Forward.
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Maine rabbis call for peace, urge politicians to stop calling Gaza war a ‘genocide’
(JTA) — Every congregational rabbi in Maine has signed onto a statement calling for peace and urging the state’s political leaders to stop using the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s war in Gaza, following a Democratic primary in which several candidates used the label for the first time.
But the rabbis also indicated that they, too, were unsatisfied with conditions in the Middle East and called on Israeli and Palestinian leaders to work toward a peaceful future.
“We call upon Maine’s leaders, and particularly its political leaders, to reject the irresponsible usage of the term in describing the Israel-Hamas War,” said the statement released on Friday. “We also call upon Israeli and Palestinian leaders to end the cycle of violence and to create a better world for both Palestinian and Israeli children.”
The statement, titled “A Call for Peace and Responsible Rhetoric,” argues that using the term as a “political slogan does not advance peace in the Middle East.” The term “erases essential moral and legal distinctions, diminishes the meaning of genocide, and inflames hatred for the local Jewish community,” the rabbis say.
“Compassion for Palestinians does not require the adoption of hateful and misleading language,” they continue. “Advocating for peace does not require participation in a ‘Holocaust inversion’ against the Jewish community. And political leadership does not require demonizing one community in the service of another.”
The statement comes days after Troy Jackson, a former logger and state Senate president, secured the Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nomination Saturday at the party’s nominating convention to replace Graham Platner, a staunch Israel critic who dropped out of the race earlier this month. Platner faced a sexual assault allegation, which he denies. Jackson now faces Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins in November’s general election.
Platner’s romp to the primary victory featured routine use of “genocide” to describe Israel’s actions. And ahead of the convention to replace him, Jackson and several other Democratic hopefuls who later exited the race began using the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s war in Gaza for the first time, a shift that drew scrutiny from some Jewish leaders and voters in the state.
The use of the term has become a “currency for acquiring power and position in Maine’s Democratic party,” Rabbi Rachel Isaacs, the leader of Beth Israel Congregation in Waterville, who also signed the statement, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“Too many Maine Democrats are cynically willing to trade in that currency at the expense of our safety and dignity,” she said in an emailed statement. “We decided we needed to say something collectively, both about the specious and dangerous nature of the claim, and about how much damage has been done to our families and congregants.”
The statement Friday was spearheaded by the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine and signed by every congregational rabbi in the state, including Rabbi Bill Siemers of the Conservative Congregation Beth Israel in Bangor and Rabbi Erica Asch of the Reform Temple Beth El in Augusta. (Rabbis affiliated with the Chabad movement in Maine did not appear on the signatory list.)
Zach Schwartz, the director of the Jewish Community Relations Council at the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine, said the federation hoped the “unity displayed here in Maine can inspire Jewish communities across the US to also unite against the extremist rhetoric harming our community and our children.”
Rabbi Josh Stanton, the associate vice president of interfaith and intergroup initiatives for Jewish Federations of North America, also hailed the joint statement.
“Maine’s Jewish clergy are setting an important example with their call to put aside inflammatory rhetoric and look to the common good,” Stanton said in an emailed statement. “At a time of rising polarization and declining civil discourse, the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine’s efforts to unify the community around this important message are a mark of true leadership.”
Isaacs told JTA that she hoped Jackson would “support, understand, and advocate for all of Maine’s citizens, including the totality of Maine’s diverse Jewish community.”
“Work with us to figure out how to express outrage and legitimate critique of Israel’s government without succumbing to language that you might not know is an ancient antisemitic trope, or dismissing the security needs of Israel’s citizens,” Isaacs said of her message to Jackson. “Please have the courage to forge your own path, and not follow in the footsteps of Graham Platner, a man who should have never been normalized, endorsed, or empowered.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Maine rabbis call for peace, urge politicians to stop calling Gaza war a ‘genocide’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Boy George cedes role of King Herod in ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ production after releasing pro-Israel song
(JTA) — Boy George has withdrawn from his run as King Herod in London’s West End revival of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” days before he was due to take the stage and 24 hours after releasing “We Will Dance Again,” dedicated to the victims of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on the Nova music festival in Israel.
The 80’s pop star was scheduled to appear at London’s Palladium starting Monday as part of the production’s rotating cast playing King Herod, the Judean king who is best known by Jews for his expansion of the Second Temple and to Christians for his efforts to stave off the arrival of a challenger — the story of which is reflected in the rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice.
Boy George will be replaced by actor Richard Armitage in the London production.
In announcing the cast change, Paul Kelmsley, the singer’s manager, did not directly mention the blowback the former Culture Club frontman was receiving for releasing a pro-Israel song but alluded to it.
“George has never been afraid to stand by his personal convictions, and I have always respected him for that,” he said. ”In this instance, I felt it was right to step aside, allowing the production to remain the focus, while ensuring everyone involved can move forward with mutual respect and goodwill.”
Boy George is defending his decision to release the song, saying he believes artists should be free to express their views even when they are unpopular. In “We Will Dance Again,” the singer rejects claims of genocide against Israel and proclaims, “If you’re ever confused, I stand with the Jews.”
Earlier Friday, Boy George lashed back at the vitriol he was getting online. “What is most shocking is the amount of gay folk attacking me, ” he posted on X. “If you support terrorism you can in the words of Divine ‘Take your toolkit and go f—_ a garage,’” he said, referring to a quote attributed to the taboo-breaking transgender artist.
“When I say ‘they want to kill every last one of us’ I am also talking about us queers, not just the Jewish community,” Boy George said. “When will you wake up?”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Boy George cedes role of King Herod in ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ production after releasing pro-Israel song appeared first on The Forward.
