The Zionist Organization of America on Monday accused New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani of promoting an "anti-American, pro-Hamas, Jew-hating agenda" through recent actions that the group said have endangered the area's Jewish community.
ZOA President Morton Klein released a statement condemning Mamdani for appointing an 18-member mayor's Advisory Committee on the Judiciary without any Jewish members, despite New York City having the nation's largest Jewish population.
The panel selects judges for the New York City criminal courts that try hate crimes.
"Jews are by far the largest number of victims of hate crimes. Further, one of the new committee members signed a statement affirming support for the antisemitic hate group Students for Justice in Palestine," Klein said in his statement.
"These appointments are clearly a deliberate attempt to censor and discriminate against Jews, by excluding Jews on both the selection panel and its resulting judicial appointments."
The ZOA president added, "Mamdani’s most recent anti-Jewish actions, moreover, followed Mamdani excluding Italian, Irish, and other European neighborhoods from his map of NYC neighborhoods."
Newsmax reached out to Mamdani's office for comment on Klein's statement but did not immediately receive a response.
Klein's statement followed Mamdani's recent comments about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his response to an antisemitic stabbing attack.
Klein argued that Mamdani inflamed tensions by labeling Netanyahu a war criminal and saying he should be arrested if he visits New York for the U.N. General Assembly.
During a Sunday TV interview, Netanyahu accused Mamdani of "fomenting hate."
"He's supposed to be the mayor of all New Yorkers — Jews, Christians, Muslims, everyone," Netanyahu said on Fox News Channel. "But he's trying to turn one group against the other."
Klein's statement also followed last week's stabbing attack on Manhattan's Upper West Side, where police said a suspect allegedly shouted "Allahu akbar" while attacking two men, one Jewish and one Asian.
Mamdani faced criticism after waiting several hours before publicly addressing the attacks, first posting about the city's new tax on luxury second homes.
Jewish organizations argued his repeated attacks on Israel had contributed to a dangerous atmosphere amid rising antisemitism.
ZOA contended the mayor failed to respond quickly enough or sufficiently condemn what the organization described as antisemitic violence.
Mamdani later said on X, "This kind of despicable violence is not who we are as a city" and pledged that his administration would combat antisemitism, racism, and all forms of hate.
WABC-TV reported that he also has said his criticism is directed specifically at Netanyahu and the Israeli government, not at Jewish people or the Jewish faith.