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Who is Jessica Tisch, the Jewish police commissioner both Mamdani and Cuomo want to keep?
For Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist who would be New York City’s first Muslim mayor if elected, promising to keep Jessica Tisch as police commissioner is a key campaign gesture, given his past stance on defunding the police. For many Jewish New Yorkers, still shaken by rising antisemitism since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks and uneasy about a shifting discourse on Israel, Tisch offers a sense of stability and reassurance.
Tisch, 44, who comes from one of the city’s prominent Jewish families, is widely respected in the Jewish community for her record on public safety since her appointment last year and for her strong support of Israel. Five of her deputies are also Jewish.
Critics brushed off Mamdani’s proclamation that he wanted her to stay — at last week’s televised debate — as a political stunt, given the Democratic nominee’s positions on Israel. He has refused to outright condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada,” has said he doesn’t recognize Israel as a Jewish state, supports pro-Palestinian activism on campus and has pledged to order the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits the city.
Tisch’s approach to policing is a stark contrast to Mamdani’s progressive public safety agenda. And her public statements on Israel have been unequivocal. When she was sworn in as NYPD commissioner, she wore a Star of David necklace to the ceremony. “My Jewish identity is not something that I put on and take off,” she said in a speech earlier this year at the Anti-Defamation League’s “Never is Now” conference. “It is who I am and who I will always be.”
Still, Mamdani’s pledge to keep her was seen as a reassuring signal. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who had previously avoided taking sides in the mayoral race, highlighted the promise in his Friday endorsement, calling it a sign of Mamdani’s sincerity and his commitment “to keep every New Yorker safe, including the Jewish community.”
At least four members of the Tisch family contributed to a super PAC that backed former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s failed mayoral bid in the primary; Cuomo is running for mayor as an independent in the general election. According to Forbes, the Tisch family gave $1.2 million to the anti-Mamdani Fix the City super PAC.
Tisch has not publicly commented on whether she would stay on as police commissioner if Mamdani wins the Nov. 4 election. Cuomo also said he’d want her to stay if he becomes mayor.
Who is Jessica Tisch?
Tisch was born into a family deeply rooted in business and Jewish communal life. Growing up on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, she attended the elite private Dalton School. The family name was originally Tichinsky when her ancestors immigrated to the United States from Ukraine in 1904, later shortened as a nickname when her great-grandfather Avraham was cheered as a captain of the City College of New York’s basketball team.
Her father, James Tisch, serves as president of the Loews Corporation, which the family has led since the 1950s; their fortune is estimated at $10 billion. Her mother, Merryl, is the former chair of the New York State Board of Regents and a longtime leader in Jewish philanthropy. She now serves as chair emeritus of the Met Council on Jewish Poverty.
As a student at Harvard, Tisch was involved with Chabad. After graduating from Harvard with degrees in law and business, she married Dan Levine, a venture capitalist, whom she met at Harvard. The wedding at Central Synagogue in Manhattan was officiated by her grandfather, Rabbi Philip Hiat, a Reform rabbi known for his interfaith work. He served as a police chaplain in the New York City Housing Authority Police Department.
On Rosh Hashanah, Tisch joined services at Central Synagogue and watched her father blow the shofar. Rabbi Angela Buchdahl acknowledged Tisch, thanking her for her service. “You model the best of what it means to serve something bigger than us,” the rabbi said. She also credited Tisch for acting swiftly when the synagogue faced a direct threat in February, arresting the suspect just an hour before Shabbat services, an incident that had not been made public. “What you did was heroic,” Buchdahl said, without providing more details.
Tisch’s grandmother, Sylvia Hiat, was a principal at the Emanuel Midtown Y, a Hebrew school, for 30 years, and called her granddaughter every morning until she died in 2024. On the morning of Oct. 7, Tisch said her grandmother called her and said, ”We are at war.”
After working at a law firm, as a fact-checker in the speechwriting office of President George W. Bush’s White House, and on the editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, Tisch began her career in government in 2008 as a counterterrorism analyst at the NYPD. She rose through the department’s ranks before leading the city’s departments of information technology and telecommunications and sanitation under Mayors Bill de Blasio and Eric Adams. She keeps her grandfather’s badge on her desk at police headquarters. At her inauguration, she took the oath of office on her grandmother’s Bible.
Speaking before second and third graders at Ramaz School in May, Tisch said about her role at the police department, “You can be anything you want to be, whether you’re a woman, a mother, or an observant Jew.”
Tisch highlighted her Judaism while receiving the Woman of the Year Award from the NYPD Muslim Officers Society in August. “It’s not lost on me what this represents: the first female Jewish Police Commissioner in the history of the NYPD being recognized by our Muslim Officers Society. This could only happen in New York — a city where every faith is practiced, every language is spoken, and every tradition has a home,” she said.
Tom Allon, the Jewish publisher of the City & State magazine who ran for mayor in 2013 and encouraged Tisch to run, called her a “no-nonsense technocrat” like former Mayor Mike Bloomberg.
Tisch has two sons, Harry and Larry.
What Tisch has said about the pro-Palestinian protests and antisemitism
During Tisch’s tenure, the NYPD has handled more than 3,000 pro-Palestinian protests and rising antisemitism. According to the Anti-Defamation League, 68% of the 1,437 antisemitic incidents across the state of New York last year occurred in the five boroughs of New York City. NYPD data shows that antisemitic acts made up 57% of all reported hate crimes citywide this year, though Jews make up only 12% of the city’s population.
At the ADL’s annual summit earlier this year, Tisch noted that on the morning of Oct. 7, reported antisemitic crimes were down 20% compared with the previous year. But from that day to the end of 2023, they jumped 80%, and in 2024 they rose another 7%, accounting for 54% of all hate crimes reported in the city.
Mamdani attended some of the protests just after Oct. 7, and participated in a hunger strike outside the White House to call for a permanent ceasefire in November 2023. He has defended the campus protests and, along with other elected officials, criticized the Adams administration for its crackdown on them.
Tisch called out the antisemitism and defended the policing approach. In the ADL speech, she said that for some of the protesters, “their target was not and is not Israeli policy or geopolitics, or even the horrors of war, but the Jewish people themselves.”
She added, “The NYPD will follow the law, and we will uphold the First Amendment even when the protected language is deeply offensive to our own sensibilities. But make no mistake, anyone who commits a crime will be arrested, they will be held accountable, and our city will not go backward — not on my watch.”
In a recent speech at an award presentation and dedication of a new community center in Borough Park, Tisch said she draws inspiration from the mitzvah of building a fence around the roof when constructing a new home. “When you create something new, you also take on the duty to protect others — not just your family, not just yourself, but every person who enters your space,” Tisch said. She added, “The NYPD will always stand with you, making it clear that you are not alone in this city.”
For Jewish New Yorkers, whether or not Mamdani keeps Tisch as police commissioner, the real test will be whether he keeps his promise to protect all New Yorkers if he becomes mayor when the campaign is over.
The post Who is Jessica Tisch, the Jewish police commissioner both Mamdani and Cuomo want to keep? appeared first on The Forward.
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Amsterdam Police Probe New Blast Claimed by Same Group That Claimed Jewish School Explosion
Police officers stand outside a Jewish school following an explosion that caused minor damages, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, March 14, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
Dutch police are investigating an explosion that damaged an office building in Amsterdam and was claimed by the same extremist organization which also claimed it was behind a recent blast at a Jewish school in the area, a police spokesperson said on Monday.
It was not immediately clear if the building has a link to Amsterdam‘s Jewish community.
Officers were investigating the explosion, which led to a small fire that was quickly extinguished by security guards and caused minor damage, the spokesperson said, adding that police were examining whether the two incidents were indeed linked.
Sienna Investment Managers, which manages the building, did not immediately reply to an emailed request for comment.
Saturday’s explosion, for which the same group claimed responsibility, caused minor damage to a Jewish school. Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema and Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten condemned the attack.
The group has also claimed earlier attacks on synagogues in Rotterdam and in neighboring Belgium’s Liege. The attacks had already triggered heightened security at Jewish sites in Amsterdam.
Justice Minister David van Weel said on Saturday that a link between the explosions in Amsterdam and Rotterdam could not be excluded, but did not confirm any claims made on social media by the group.
Concerns about possible attacks against Jewish communities around the world have risen following the US and Israeli attacks on Iran and the subsequent response from Tehran.
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Israel Says Lebanese Displaced Won’t Return Until Its Own Citizens Are Safe
Israeli soldiers walk next to military vehicles on the Israeli side of the Israel-Lebanon border, amid escalation between Hezbollah and Israel, and amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, in northern Israel, March 16, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Avi Ohayon
Israel on Monday warned that displaced Lebanese driven from their homes by its military campaign against the terrorist group Hezbollah would not be able to return until the safety of Israelis living near the border was ensured, as Israeli troops pushed into new parts of southern Lebanon.
In a briefing, Israeli military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani told reporters that soldiers were now conducting ground operations in “new locations,” describing the latest offensive as “limited and targeted.”
The extended operation began days after Defense Minister Israel Katz said the military had been ordered to expand its campaign. He later warned that the country could face territorial losses and damage to its infrastructure unless Hezbollah was disarmed.
Israel‘s military, which has occupied five positions in southern Lebanon since a November 2024 ceasefire with Hezbollah, sent additional forces into the country after Hezbollah fired a salvo of rockets on March 2, dragging Lebanon into an expanding regional war.
Hezbollah, a Shi’ite Muslim terrorist group backed by Iran, said its attack was in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s supreme leader on Feb. 28, the first day of the US-Israeli war with Iran. Israel has responded with an intensive bombing campaign on Lebanon.
COMPARISON WITH GAZA
The military has framed the ground offensive, launched after March 2, as a defensive effort to protect northern Israel from Hezbollah attacks, which it says have averaged at least 100 rockets and drones a day and have reached as far as central Israel.
More than 880 people in Lebanon have been killed, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, and more than 800,000 have been driven from their homes, many from the south as well as from areas near the capital, Beirut.
On Monday, Katz linked the return of displaced Lebanese residents to the safety of Israelis living near the border.
“Hundreds of thousands of Shi’ite residents of southern Lebanon who have evacuated or are evacuating their homes in southern Lebanon and Beirut will not return to areas south of the Litani line until the safety of northern residents is ensured,” he said in a statement.
He said the military had been instructed to destroy “terrorist infrastructure” in villages in southern Lebanon near the border with Israel, drawing a comparison to operations in cities in the Gaza Strip that were largely destroyed by Israeli forces.
Katz also suggested that Hezbollah’s leader, Naim Qassem, could face a fate similar to that of his predecessor, and to Iran’s supreme leader, both of whom were killed in Israeli strikes. Qassem said last week threats against his life were “worthless.”
ISRAELI TROOPS ADVANCE WEST
Over the weekend, Israeli troops encircled the key southern Lebanese town of Khiyam and were advancing west toward the Litani River, a move that could leave large swathes of southern Lebanon under Israeli control, Lebanese security sources told Reuters.
Israeli troops battled Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon throughout the day on Monday, and advanced towards Bint Jbeil, a Lebanese village and Hezbollah stronghold located about 4 km from the border with Israel, the sources said.
Two Israeli officials said on Sunday that Israel and Lebanon were expected to hold talks in the coming days aimed at securing a durable ceasefire which would see Hezbollah disarmed.
A Lebanese source familiar with the matter said it didn’t seem talks with Israel would be taking place soon, though they would happen eventually.
Israel‘s Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon told reporters that a “few players were trying to mediate and host talks,” adding: “I believe the next step will be talks but first we have to degrade the capability of Hezbollah.”
Under the November 2024 ceasefire, Hezbollah was to pull back from southern Lebanon as the Lebanese military took over.
Israel said Lebanon never upheld its part of the deal, continuing near-daily air strikes against what it said were Hezbollah positions and weapons.
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Still Too Early To Silence the Lions Roaring Above Iran
The sky is illuminated as an Iranian missile lands in Israel, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, as seen from Tel Aviv, Israel, March 12, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Dylan Martinez
The Iran war is full of surprises. The United Nations Security Council, often a hostile arena for Israel, condemned Tehran — not Washington and Jerusalem — on March 11 for Iran’s war conduct, particularly its strikes on Gulf Arab countries uninvolved in the conflict.
The Gulf strikes are part of the Islamic Republic’s strategy to increase international pressure to force the war’s premature end. This is intended to prevent the United States and Israel from achieving their ideal scenario — the fall of the ayatollahs’ regime — or an acceptable outcome — stopping Iran’s offensive military capabilities.
Terrible as war is, this one should continue until more of its initial goals are achieved.
That’s not to say there haven’t been successes. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander in chief, the minister of defense, the head of the military council, the deputy intelligence minister, the commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force, and other Iranian leaders met at Khamenei’s compound in Tehran on February 28. All of them died there.
In the devastating opening salvo, the Iranian leaders who had long called for Israel’s destruction and chanted “death to America” were instead killed by the countries they wished to harm.
Battle damage assessments can be difficult amid the fog of war, but some things are clear. The United States has struck approximately 6,000 targets, including more than 90 naval ships, and enjoys air superiority over large swaths of Iran. Iran’s drone and missile launches have declined by around 90 percent compared to the first day of the war. Israel assesses that 75 percent of Iran’s missile launchers have been destroyed, and the United States and its partners have intercepted thousands of Iranian drones.
US and Israeli forces are fighting wingtip-to-wingtip in the skies over Iran, and the Gulf Arab states’ fury at Iran for attacking them may portend favorable developments in the regional defense architecture envisioned in the Abraham Accords.
But there’s more work to be done. The Islamic Republic has struck at least 12 countries in an attempt to create economic pressure for the war to end.
A de facto blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is reducing global shipping and driving up commodity prices, especially oil and gas. And though he hasn’t been seen since being injured early on in the conflict, Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has pledged to leverage the Strait’s closure to squeeze the global economy even further to try to get Gulf countries to pressure the United States to halt the operation.
With further damage to the world’s economy looming, the United States and its partners may eventually have to try reopening the Strait. But even without doing so, options exist to reduce the blockade’s impact. The International Energy Agency already released 400 million barrels of oil from reserves, and plans are reportedly being considered for US naval and other escorts through the narrow waterway.
There’s also the regime’s nuclear program to consider. While the damage done to nuclear facilities at Isfahan and Natanz remains largely unclear, satellite imagery indicates that they have been struck during the campaign. Israel did confirm on March 12 that it struck Taleghan 2, a site utilized by the Islamic Republic for explosives testing related to its nuclear program.
But with the regime’s highly enriched uranium supply reportedly buried deep under mountains in fortified Iranian facilities, air power can only do so much damage. It’s unclear if the US or Israel are considering special operations missions to try and make sure that uranium can’t be used in a future nuclear weapon.
Meanwhile, Israel has used its air power to weaken Iran’s tools of repression.
Since the beginning of the war, Iranians have reported that checkpoints run by the regime’s Basij forces have increased in cities around the country. The “religious” militia has also been running more patrols. The Basij seek to prevent a repeat of the massive anti-regime protests in January, in which more than 30,000 innocent Iranians were reportedly slaughtered.
Earlier this month, Iranian state media reported that at least 10 members of the Basij were killed in drone attacks at several checkpoints around the Iranian capital. Later, the Israel Defense Forces confirmed carrying out the precision strikes, pledging to “continue to strike at the mechanisms and operatives of the Iranian terror regime wherever they operate.”
The most optimistic forecast for this conflict is the eradication of the Islamic regime at the hands of historically oppressed Iranian civilians. For now, conditions on the streets are still far too volatile to resume protests.
Israeli eyes in the sky, combined with targeted strikes against Basij forces, can help tilt the odds in favor of the protesters seeking to take their country back from tyrants. A lesser success would be weakening the regime’s nuclear, ballistic, and drone capabilities to dramatically decrease the threat Iran poses to the United States and the world. The United States and Israel have already severely weakened the Islamic Republic, but the mission is far from over.
David May is the research manager and a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where Aaron Goren is a research analyst and editor. For more analysis from the authors and FDD, please subscribe HERE. Follow David and Aaron on X @DavidSamuelMay and @RealAaronGoren. Follow FDD on X @FDD. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.