FIRST HERE 🫓🍷Mamdani is set to attend the annual Downtown Seder Monday night at the City Winery in Manhattan. The mayor will speak alongside artists and cultural leaders. #Passover More info ⬇️ forward.com/news/815929/...

Mamdani noncommittal on signing buffer zone bill poised to pass City Council tomorrow. City Hall spox: Mamdani “is keenly aware of the serious concerns regarding these bills’ limiting of New Yorkers’ constitutional rights, and he will keep these concerns in mind….” forward.com/news/815239/...

Raul Rivera yelling outside Mamdani presser. Mamdani: “I want that man to be able to afford to keep living in NYC, because the day that I don't hear him yelling at me, it means he got priced out of this place.” “We need to make this a city where it's affordable enough to yell at your politicians.”

Tish James declines to fast-track the NYC public hospital system's takeover of a private hospital in Brooklyn that serves many Orthodox Jewish patients. @jacobkornbluh.bsky.social

📸 🫓 Mamdani met today with Orthodox bizman Dov Bleich, who showed him a Haggadah dating to the Civil War era in NY ahead of Passover. Bleich said the mayor appeared “visibly moved” by the artifact and reaffirmed commitment to protecting Jewish New Yorkers. More ⬇️

#IL09: Daniel Biss beats AIPAC spending VIDEO: Biss in victory speech: “So enough about AIPAC. May tonight be the last night I utter their name. “This victory belongs to J Street.” forward.com/news/813115/...

Phylisa Wisdom, executive director of the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism, said the 45-minute discussion focused on affordable housing, child care and efforts to address rising antisemitism ⬇️

📸 PHOTO: Mayor Mamdani just held a roundtable with Orthodox and Hasidic leaders at City Hall. He was joined by his Jewish aides Phylisa Wisdom, Josh Binderman and Uri Fraenkel. (via source)

*EXCLUSIVE* In her first interview since Mamdani named her as head of the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism, Phylisa Wisdom says she'll do a listening tour and craft a plan before the High Holidays, drawing from competing definitions. more ⬇️ forward.com/fast-forward...

🚨 SCOOP🚨: NYC Mayor Mamdani appoints Phylisa Wisdom, progressive Jewish leader, to run the Mayor's Office to Combat Antisemitism. forward.com/fast-forward...

Council Speaker Julie Menin, introducing buffer zones outside synagogues legislation, addresses Mamdani + others’ concerns about limiting protests: “Enforcement is not based on speech or viewpoint. It is based on conduct that endangers others.”

SCOOP: Mayor Mamdani visited today Holocaust survivor and artist Olga Spiegel at her Manhattan apartment to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day. More details ⬇️ forward.com/fast-forward...

EXCLUSIVE: Marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch affixed a mezuzah to the front doorframe of her office at One Police Plaza. Details ⬇️ forward.com/fast-forward...

❄️ VIDEO: Mayor Mamdani seen with a shovel assisting a car stuck in the snow in the Hasidic-populated neighborhood of Williamsburg.

NYC Council Speaker Julie Menin announces legislation to establish safe perimeter around as part of five-point plan to combat antisemitism. Mamdani says he’s waiting for review to determine legality of buffer zones before committing to supporting the legislation forward.com/fast-forward...

Julie Menin says in her inaugural speech: “We live in a day with the first Muslim mayor of New York City and now the first Jewish speaker of the Council serving at the same time…. “As the first Jewish Speaker, I want my vision of leadership to be as focused on dissolving division.”

Poll: 53% of non-Jewish voters say NYC needs leaders who challenge U.S. support for Israel’s government, even if it upsets some voters. 55% of non-Jewish voters say concerns about feeling threatened by Mamdani’s statements on Israel are overreaction fueled by politics. forward.com/fast-forward...

Rep. Dan Goldman was visibly emotional at start of remarks at his reelection campaign launch in Chinatown this morning: “It’s been three years of really good work.” The two-term incumbent is facing a tough primary challenge by Brad Lander, the former comptroller endorsed by NYC Mayor Mamdani.

NYPD commissioner Tisch: Antisemitic incidents in NYC declined in 2025, down 3% from 2024, but it still made up the majority — 57% — of all hate crimes reported. “These numbers remain far too high, and antisemitism continues to be the most persistent hate threat that we face.”

🚨 BREAKING: Mayor Mamdani says that he will keep open the recently-created Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism. “That is an issue that we take very seriously, and as part of the commitment that we've made to Jewish New Yorkers, to not only protect them, but to celebrate…”

Mayor Mamdani at inauguration: “I know there are some who view this administration with distrust or disdain… and while only action can change minds, I promise you this: if you are a New Yorker, I am your mayor. “Regardless of whether we agree, I will protect you, celebrate with you…”

In today's transition news: Mayor-elect Mamdani appointed Steve Banks, who is Jewish, as corporation counsel, the city's top lawyer. His pick for schools chancellor, Kamar Samuels, is married to a Jewish woman, Meg Cassedy-Blum Samuels.

Mamdani announces appointment of Sam Levine, who is Jewish, as commissioner of the NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. Levine was previously director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.

📸 Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani just attended and spoke at the @NYJewishAgenda Hanukkah celebration in Manhattan.

Mamdani responding to renewed criticism re: refusal to condemn ‘globalize the intifada’ slogan: “I continue to discourage the use of that phrase, a phrase that I do not use myself, and I continue to focus on the work at hand of keeping Jewish New Yorkers safe in the city.”

🚨📸 NYC Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani visited the Ohel of the Lubavitcher Rebbe in Queens this evening to pay his respects to the victims of the Bondi Beach terror attack. Mamdani also made a private prayer at the grave.

Exciting news! Alyssa Katz has joined the Forward as new editor-in-chief. forward.com/communicatio...

🚨 SCOOP: Mamdani is meeting this afternoon with the New York Board of Rabbis to discuss his agenda. I also write about last night's appearance at the Satmar events ⬇️ forward.com/fast-forward...

Last night, outgoing NYC Mayor Eric Adams signed executive order that prohibits city agencies from engaging in BDS and blocks city officials from divesting from Israel Bonds and other Israeli companies.

🚨 SCOOP: Senate Democratic Leader Schumer will introduce today a resolution “rejecting Nick Fuentes and his white supremacist views, condemning [Tucker] Carlson’s platforming of hate, and condemning antisemitism and white supremacy...” Schumer wants it to be bipartisan.

#NY12 SCOOP: In bid for Nadler’s seat, Jack Schlossberg makes Jewish security his Day One priority. Read more about his new “Jack-Fast-Track” plan to force immediate House floor vote to increase funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program to $500M⬇️ forward.com/fast-forward...

Mamdani asked if he thinks Mayor Adams is “trolling” him by traveling to Israel? Mamdani has said he wouldn’t visit the country as mayor. Mamdani: “I think the mayor is free to spend his remaining days and weeks and months as he so pleases.”

🚨 CNN exit poll: 38% of New York City voters said the candidate's position on Israel was a a major factor in their vote. 30% a minor factor. 29% not a factor at all. David Chalian: “Of course, that cuts both ways, since there was a real contrast in positions on Israel.”

“God of Israel will help you win,” this Jewish woman told Cuomo when he arrived to vote.

UPDATE — some political drama over the Mamdani endorsement: Three leaders from the Satmar Ahronim sect just sent out this statement endorsing Cuomo. forward.com/fast-forward...

PHOTO — Happening now in Williamsburg: Zohran Mamdani handshake with Rabbi Moshe Indig, a political leader of the Satmar Ahronim sect.

🚨 BIG 🚨Satmar Ahronim sect is endorsing Mamdani for mayor, two sources familiar confirmed. Mamdani is expected to meet with Satmar leaders in Williamsburg this afternoon. Here is more background ⬇️ forward.com/fast-forward...

How Mamdani built bridges to Jewish New Yorkers, from Williamsburg to Park Slope. Mamdani told me he “deeply appreciated” the opportunity to meet with a broad spectrum of Jewish New Yorkers, calling it “meaningful.” forward.com/news/780196/...

I went to Germany to speak with both Jews and non-Jewish Germans who are doing the work of bringing memory culture to life — and to learn how Germany's commitment to remember the Holocaust is being strained by the post-Oct. 7 and far-right politics. Thanks to @boellus.bsky.social for their support.

On Unholy podcast, @jonathanfreedland.bsky.social asks Hillary Clinton if she’d vote for Zohran Mamdani? HC: “You know what? I don't vote in this city. I'm not involved in it. I have not been at all even asked to be involved in it, and I have not chosen to be involved in it.”

BREAKING: Both Satmar factions decide not to endorse a candidate for mayor and decry the vicious campaign against Mamdani that paints him as hostile to Jews. In letters to their community members, the Satmar leadership calls the attacks against Mamdani false and dangerous.

Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, in an open letter backing Cuomo: "One shudders to think of the sort of people Mamdani would bring into his administration. How many of Mamdani’s team have ripped down hostage posters, or worse?"

Mamdani says part of his plan to counter antisemitism is implementing an existing curriculum in the public school system called ‘Hidden Voices’ that “would celebrate the breadth and the beauty of Jewish life in our city’s history.”

INTERVIEW: Mamdani has created ‘great fear,’ and Jewish voters are ‘more motivated than I have ever seen,’ Cuomo says forward.com/news/778666/...

In a phone interview, Cuomo tells me in response: “I think Mamdani has created great fear among the Jewish community and many other communities. He is affirmatively offensive. It has nothing to do with his being Muslim. It has to do with what he says.”

Mamdani today: “To be Muslim in New York is to expect indignity… I thought that if I behaved well enough or bit my tongue enough in the face of racist baseless attacks, all while returning back to my central message, it would allow me to be more than just my faith. I was wrong.”

🚨 IN YIDDISH — Zohran Mamdani is making a direct appeal to Hasidic voters in an open letter published in all weekly Yiddish-language newspapers this week, highlighting his plans to combat antisemitism and his proposals on affordability and childcare vouchers.

American politics is in a totally good place

Mamdani on why he hasn’t praised the Gaza ceasefire or have an opinion on Hamas disarming: “Calling for a ceasefire means ceasing fire. That means all parties have to cease fire and put down their weapons.” Mamdani adds post-war plan should also address occupation apartheid.

Looking forward to talking about this race with my colleagues @arnorosenfeld.bsky.social, @jacobkornbluh.bsky.social and @juliemmoos.bsky.social — join us!