New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani recently unveiled a map of the city’s “Immigrant Enclaves,” and the backlash was immediate. The map celebrated dozens of neighborhoods, from Little Palestine and Little Pakistan to Little Yemen and Koreatown, but it ignored iconic Italian, Irish, and Jewish communities that have long defined New York’s immigrant story.
The omissions were widely denounced as cultural erasure. That’s a big strike against Mamdani because a key hallmark of governing as a mayor is signaling that everyone belongs. When entire communities conclude they have been written out of a city’s identity, they lose trust in those leading it.
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I spent a decade in local government in New Castle, New York, first as a councilwoman and then as town supervisor. During that time, I learned something most Americans overlook — the mayor’s office is the most intimate in all of government.
MAYOR MAMDANI, WHY DID YOU ERASE LITTLE ITALY?
What a mayor does affects every constituent they were elected to govern. Mayors supervise policing, housing, parks, permitting, contracts, emergency management, and relationships with civic and religious organizations. Just as importantly, they set the tone of public life.
Maybe Mamdani’s exclusionary map shouldn’t have come as a surprise, however, since he sent the same message on his first day in office.
The Democratic Socialists of America, from where Mamdani emerged, is anti-Israel. Following his election last year, many New York Jews worried the mayor would leave them vulnerable to the pro-Hamas mobs that have been hounding them in New York and across the globe since the Oct. 7 massacre nearly three years ago.
As if to confirm these fears, immediately upon his inauguration, Mamdani revoked the city’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition of Antisemitism and lifted a ban on municipal participation in boycotts of Israel.
By dropping the IHRA definition, Mamdani abandoned one of the most authoritative and effective tools for delineating contemporary antisemitism in all its forms. Rejecting that framework inevitably raised questions about which communities he intended to prioritize, and which ones the Mamdani-led City Hall wouldn’t protect.
Many are rightly concerned by the DSA’s growing presence in Congress. But it’s just as alarming that this left-wing faction is taking power in city halls across the country, because mayors are involved in the everyday lives of people in ways Congress rarely touches.
In Washington, D.C., leading mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George, a DSA member, opposes the IHRA definition and vowed to avoid events focused on “obfuscating the realities of occupation or promoting Zionism and apartheid.”
Seattle elected Katie Wilson, a socialist who supports divestment from Israel and refused to answer a Jewish community questionnaire on antisemitism. And Los Angeles could soon make socialist candidate Nithya Raman mayor. A city councilwoman who advanced to the November runoff against incumbent Karen Bass, Raman alleged in May, falsely, that Israel was perpetrating a genocide in Gaza.
Different cities, different candidates, but in each one, Jewish residents are being asked to trust a mayor whose goodwill toward them comes with a condition attached — their position on Israel.
Once City Hall begins making decisions based on ideological conformity, everyone should pay attention. Today’s litmus test concerns Zionism. Tomorrow’s may be any other identity or belief.
Municipal government cannot function that way. When I served as town supervisor, I represented everyone, not only those who agreed with me politically. The people I saw at the grocery store, Little League games, or school concerts were all my constituents.
MAMDANI’S MAP ERASES THE IMMIGRANT AMERICAN DREAM
The first duty of any mayor is to make sure that every resident knows they are part of the larger community, that city hall belongs to them, too. Sorting them into favored and disfavored sectors tells them they’re not, and it doesn’t.
Starting in our cities, people of all faiths and backgrounds must reject a DSA-imposed future where ideology determines who counts as a neighbor.
Lisa Katz is chief government affairs officer for the Combat Antisemitism Movement.
