The Jewish guide to New York City’s mayoral election

By Jacob Kornbluh
March 13, 2025

The crowded race for New York City mayor pits high-ranking Jewish officials against allies and other candidates who have been accused of antisemitism. As in the presidential election, the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza has drawn heightened attention to the race, most recently with the attempt to deport a Columbia graduate involved in pro-Palestinian campus protests, which has divided candidates.

Recent polls show former Gov. Andrew Cuomo leading the pack with more than 30% of support and the remaining candidates — including incumbent Mayor Eric Adams — far behind.

Here’s a running guide to the candidates in the Democratic primary for mayor, their Jewish backgrounds and connections, and their views on the issues related to Israel and antisemitism.

Start here: The basics

The campaign for mayor formally kicked off in February with five weeks of signature gathering to qualify for the ballot in the June 24 primaries. About two-thirds of New York’s voters are registered Democrats, making the party’s primary all but determinative of the November election.

In the new ranked-choice voting system, implemented in 2021 to avoid run-off elections, voters are asked to delineate up to five choices on their ballots. If no single candidate wins 50% of the first-choice votes, the candidate with the fewest first-choice votes is eliminated and those ballots are reallocated to their voters’ second choices. That process continues until one candidate wins more than 50%.

New York City is home to more Jews than any other city outside of Israel. Jews make up 12% of the city’s population, according to a recent Jewish Federation survey. Jewish voters could account for about 20% of the Democratic primary electorate, with the Orthodox community often voting in blocs based on rabbinic endorsements.

The Jewish candidates

Scott Stringer, a former city comptroller, and his successor, Brad Lander, have highlighted their Jewish identity and are rivals for the support of progressives, including the left-leaning Jews of Manhattan and Brooklyn, according to an internal poll sponsored by the United for a Brighter Tomorrow super PAC. Neither currently belongs to a synagogue.

Stringer, 64, was the leading progressive candidate for mayor in 2021, but his bid was derailed by allegations of sexual misconduct, which he denied. He is married to Elyse Buxbaum, chief operating officer of New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage. The Stringers have two sons, Max — who recently celebrated his bar mitzvah — and Miles, aged 12. In a 2021 interview, Stringer said he drew inspiration from his faith. “God has stayed the course with me through good times and bad,” he said.

Among Stringer’s Jewish supporters are Rep. Jerry Nadler and Assemblymembers Deborah Glick and Micah Lasher. Stringer said in an interview last fall that he had already started reaching out to Orthodox leaders, though he never resonated strongly with the more conservative Haredi voters.

Lander, 55, grew up in a Reform Jewish family in Creve Coeur, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, and was deeply involved in social activism from a young age. In recent years, Lander forged close relationships with progressive Jewish and liberal Israeli groups, becoming more vocal about Palestinian rights and a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He recently released a plan to counter antisemitism. He is married to Meg Barnette, a former executive at Planned Parenthood, and has two children, Marek and Rosa.

Lander is backed by Sen. Liz Krueger, who is Jewish. Last Friday, Lander visited the Orthodox-populated Borough Park neighborhood to shop ahead of Purim.

Close relationships with Jews

Both Mayor Eric Adams and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo are trying to make a comeback in this year’s mayoral race by courting a more conservative, Republican-leaning electorate – the Orthodox vote – to secure their nomination.

Adams, the embattled incumbent mayor who has insisted he’s running for reelection despite losing key support over his deal with the Trump administration to drop his corruption case, has maintained relationships with Jewish leaders and is deeply popular in the Orthodox community.

In 2021, Orthodox voters played a key role in Adams’ victory, splitting their support between him and Andrew Yang in the first round of ranked-choice voting. Adams, 64, declared himself a “modern-day Maccabee” at a pre-Hanukkah party he hosted at Gracie Mansion in December. A significant number of Jews serve in senior positions in the Adams administration. “You see yourself in my administration, in a very significant place,” Adams told Jewish reporters, most of them Orthodox, during a recent roundtable. “I think it’s a strong symbol when antisemitism is on the rise to have strong voices and advocates.”

Cuomo, who resigned in 2021 following multiple sexual harassment allegations which he denied, is competing with Adams for the Orthodox vote. During his three runs for governor, Cuomo consistently performed well in heavily Orthodox districts across the state. In 2014, he even outperformed his citywide margins in Brooklyn neighborhoods with large Haredi populations. However, his relationship with the Orthodox soured during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 and left lasting scars.

He has also appealed to the broader Jewish community concerned about pro-Palestinian campus protests since Oct. 7 and about progressive efforts to distance the city from Israel. Cuomo, 67, referred to himself as a “Shabbos goy,” a non-Jew speaking out “first and loudest” against antisemitism. Rep. Ritchie Torres, a Democrat from the Bronx who has consistently clashed with the party’s left wing over Israel, endorsed Cuomo’s bid for mayor, highlighting the need for a tough leader to challenge the far right and far left alike.

Zellnor Myrie, a state senator who represents the heavily Jewish Brooklyn neighborhoods of Crown Heights, East Flatbush and Park Slope, also highlighted his deep connections.

“This has been part of who I am as a New Yorker, growing up in and around the Jewish community,” said Myrie, 38, who was born and raised in Crown Heights, home to a significant Orthodox population. He has introduced legislation aimed at waiving bank fees on Holocaust reparations, advocated for increased funding for hate crime prevention, and pushed to expand the state curriculum to include education on Jewish history. Rep. Dan Goldman, who is Jewish, endorsed Myrie for mayor.

Whitney Tilson, an investor and Harvard graduate, is married to Susan Dana Blackman and has three adult daughters, all of whom are Jewish, though he is not. With his family, he is a longtime member of Central Synagogue, a prominent Reform congregation in Manhattan. In 2020, Tilson faced backlash for highlighting the COVID-19 response efforts of an evangelical Christian organization where he volunteered.

Since Oct. 7, Tilson, 58, has been outspoken against the rise of antisemitism on college campuses. He declined a meeting with Harvard’s business school fundraising office ahead of his 30th-year reunion in protest of how the leadership responded to antisemitic incidents and pro-Palestinian protests. At a recent mayoral candidate forum, Tilson noted that his youngest daughter, Katharine, feels unsafe at Carleton College in Minnesota, where Students for Justice in Palestine has an active chapter.

Tilson received the support of Bill Ackman, a Jewish hedge fund billionaire, who has been highly critical of the pro-Palestinian protest movement at Harvard and outspoken against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Scrutiny over views on Israel and accusations of antisemitism

Candidates on the rise include Zohran Mamdani, a member of the state assembly and a Democratic Socialist, and Adrienne Adams, speaker of the New York City Council who is term-limited.

Mamdani, 33, who has been steadily gaining in the polls in recent weeks, has been accused of antisemitism after he authored a bill to penalize charities supporting Israeli settlements. His views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and his affiliation with the far left have made him a target for the moderate candidates and suggest a ceiling on his support.

When Mamdani introduced the bill in 2023, titled “Not on our dime!: Ending New York funding of Israeli settler violence act,” a majority of Democrats pushed back. Some called it “purely antisemitic” because it targeted, in part, Jewish organizations and nonprofits assisting families of terror victims. Mamdani revived his push for the bill — with the backing of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — amid the war in Gaza to also target nonprofits “aiding and abetting” the resettling of Jewish communities in the Gaza Strip or providing “unauthorized” support for units of the IDF that allegedly commit human rights violations.

Mamdani, an Uganda-born Muslim, also supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, which some critics see as an assault on the legitimacy of the Jewish state’s existence. Mamdani alleged only days after Israel launched a military campaign against Hamas in Gaza that “we are on the brink of genocide of Palestinians.” And he defended the Democratic Socialists of America’s NYC chapter, which was broadly condemned for celebrating the Oct 7 Hamas attacks on Israel at a Times Square demonstration on the day of the assault. In November, he said he would comply with the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to town.

Council Speaker Adams, who shares the same name as the mayor but is not related to him, also came under scrutiny for her stance on Israel. Adams sparked outrage among colleagues after she ordered the removal of posters featuring the names of the Israeli hostages held by Hamas from lawmakers’ desks in the chamber, explaining that the action was aimed at reducing tensions with other members who were critical of the war. Last June, Adams attempted to introduce a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. The measure was met with pressure from colleagues and outside groups. She reportedly ordered staff to block emails written against the resolution from being distributed to members.

​​In 2020, Adams broke with tradition and declined to lead an educational mission to Israel. The trips, sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, have historically been led by the chamber’s speaker for the past three decades.

Michael Blake, a former state legislator and Obama administration official, has been critical of Israel since Oct. 7 despite previously describing himself as a strong supporter of the Jewish state.

He called Israel’s action in Gaza “genocide,” accused the Israeli military of spreading a “horrible and disrespectful lie” regarding the killing of aid workers in Gaza last April, and criticized a bipartisan House bill aimed at federally monitoring the rise in antisemitism on college campuses.

Jessica Ramos, a progressive state senator from Queens, came under fire for urging fellow lawmakers to support a union representing Legal Aid lawyers in its right to consider and pass a resolution that labeled Israel an apartheid state and accused it of ethnic cleansing and genocide, citing free speech. A judge blocked the resolution after several union members filed a lawsuit, calling it “rank antisemitism.” During the 2014 Gaza conflict between Israel and Hamas, she tweeted “Palestine <3>

Ramos, 39, aligned herself with left-wing activists calling for a permanent ceasefire and for the U.S. to withhold military support for Israel. She also joined calls for the party establishment to allow a Palestinian voice at the summer Democratic National Convention. In a questionnaire, she stated that she would refuse contributions from AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby.

Trading barbs

Lander and Stringer have traded barbs with the Cuomo campaign in recent days as they attempt to chip away at his early frontrunner status.

In response to Lander’s attack on the former governor’s cost of legal fees, Cuomo’s spokesperson highlighted a New York Post story accusing Lander, the city’s chief accountability officer overseeing pension fund investments, of divesting from Israel bonds. The report claimed that government employee pension funds had only $1.7 million invested in Israel bonds, down from $30 million in 1974. Rich Azzopardi, who has worked with Cuomo since 2012, fired back, saying Lander “should be more concerned about his ethical lapses stemming from his anti-Israel pension fund divestment strategy than about legal fees.”

Lander denied the report. “I oppose and have always opposed divestment from Israel,” he wrote on X. “Our pension funds are invested in many Israeli-owned companies.” However, he did not specify the amount of annual investments. In 2021, Lander opposed the state comptroller office’s move to divest from Unilever, the parent company of Ben & Jerry’s, over the ice cream maker’s decision to end sales in the occupied West Bank.

Stringer seized on a New York Times investigative report about Cuomo’s pro-Israel group, which never aired the ads against Hamas or promoted the initiatives it had promised. “Making false promises for one’s political gain in the face of rising antisemitism has no place in our discourse,” Stringer said in a press conference outside City Hall on Friday. “We cannot afford a mayor who uses Jewish fears to score cheap political points.”

In a statement, Azzopardi said Cuomo’s “lifetime” support for Israel and the Jewish community — “not just in words, but with actions” — is unmatched. He also fired back at Stringer, saying, “If Scott is in a talkative mood, he should explain to your readers why he sold out to the anti-Israel DSA in the last mayor’s race.” Stringer, who said he was opposed to BDS, was backed by top socialists in the 2021 mayoral primary before the allegations of harassment surfaced.

Cuomo has also gone after Mamdani, who is in third place according to a recent Quinnipiac survey. Appearing on The Stephen A. Smith Show, Cuomo accused the DSA of spewing antisemitism. “That’s not progressive in my mind,” he said.

What the candidates have said about pro-Palestinian protests, Mahmoud Khalil

Most of the candidates in the race, including the two Jewish mayoral hopefuls, condemned the Trump administration’s order to arrest Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate and a leader in the pro-Palestinian protests. The move to deport Khalil, a green card holder, and the administration’s intent to follow up with more arrests, have reignited last year’s protests across the city. A federal judge, who is Jewish, halted Kahlil’s deportation and unsealed records in the  case on Wednesday.

Lander referenced the famous “first they came” poem about the Holocaust in his statement. “It will not make Jews — or any of us — safer for the federal government to deport people for saying things we may find hateful,” Lander said. In a recent interview, Lander — who backed early calls for a ceasefire and regularly attended a weekly rally against the Israeli government’s handling of the war in Gaza — said he would allow the pro-Palestinian protests to continue if they remain nonviolent and avoid hateful rhetoric.

Stringer called it a violation of First Amendment rights. “It is absolutely absurd for the government to arrest people they don’t agree with,” he said. In an October interview, Stringer was generally critical of the pro-Palestinian protesters on college campuses. “They don’t know what ‘river’ or what ‘sea,’” he said, referencing the common chant, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Stringer promised a “zero-tolerance approach” to all forms of hate. “I understand that some people just want to be part of a mob, but to the agitators who think they can bully or attack other people — that’s just not going to happen when I’m in charge.”

Ramos, Mamadani, Myrie and Adrienne Adams all compared the arrest to the actions of past authoritarian regimes. In an interview, Myrie said he will lead with “maturity” so that all students and New Yorkers feel safe. “We need adults in the room to diffuse those tensions, not further inflame them,” he said. “We have to loudly and unequivocally condemn hate and antisemitic speech, and then allow for the democratic process to go through.”

Cuomo and Tilson — critics of the pro-Palestinian protesters — avoided publicly commenting on the Khalil case.

Mayor Adams maintained in a press conference Tuesday that deportation decisions fall under federal jurisdiction. “The federal government determines who will be deported from this country, not the mayor of the City of New York, and not any mayor determines that,” he said.

Adams, who came under fire for referencing Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf in pushing back against political opponents calling for his resignation, also complained that there was a double standard in support for Khalil. “What I’m finding surprising is the level of support you’re all displaying,” he told reporters. “But I didn’t see that support for me even after we saw the emails and text messages that there’s a potential that this is politically motivated. So if you’re about justice, don’t be inconsistent in your call for justice.”

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