I spent more than 20 years inside the New York City government, including as a detective for the New York City Supreme Court. I know how slowly the bureaucratic machine moves when it comes to the hardest problems – homelessness, untreated mental illness, addiction, and collapsing public trust. Nothing in our city is ever done “on the first day.”
That is why I cannot ignore what was done on the first day of the new mayoral administration: the swift move to weaken or undo a set of protections that the previous mayor, Eric Adams, had put in place to respond to rising antisemitism and to protect visibly Jewish New Yorkers.
I write this as someone who has walked the corridors of city agencies and courthouses and as a Black Ethiopian Jew for whom the safety of Jews and all minorities is not abstract. I know the gap between what politicians say in front of cameras and what happens on the ground.
So I ask: Why, on day one, go after a measure designed to reassure a community that has been beaten in the streets, harassed on subways, and intimidated on campuses? Why was the first impulse not to strengthen protections for a visible target of hate but to remove or dilute them?
Sending a message
Any city government professional would say homelessness, mental health, and public order should have been the first priority. Instead, the first sacrificial offering on the altar of “change” was a law or framework whose primary message was: If you attack Jews because they are Jews, the city will not look away.
When your first move is to touch the protection of a bullied and threatened minority that is not nuance; its is a signal telling the worst people in the city: the wind is shifting. It tells Jews, and other minorities: You are on your own again.
At this exact moment, New York chose its first Jewish speaker of the city council. A Jewish woman, a moderate who loves Israel and her people, with a record of fighting antisemitism, has been elevated to one of the highest public positions in the city. I cannot help but hear the echo of Queen Esther.
No, New York is not ancient Persia, but the pattern is familiar: a climate of growing hatred, Jews singled out, leaders who hesitate or send mixed signals, and one Jewish woman placed, perhaps, “for such a time as this,” in a position where her voice can tilt the balance.
What this means for NYC
Will she be a decorative symbol, a Jewish name on the letterhead while the city’s policies quietly retreat from protecting Jews in practice? Or will she speak, loudly and clearly, for the safety and dignity of Jews and for the rights of every minority who knows what it is to be scapegoated?
What does this mean for Jewish self-determination and courage in New York? Will Jewish high school and college students feel safer wearing a kippah or a Magen David? Will our synagogues on Park Avenue, Park East, and Kew Gardens feel more protected or more exposed? Will the young women at Stern College be able to sit in a kosher café late at night after studying, without fear?
I now stand in a different watchtower: Jerusalem. From here, I watch New York closely. I watch to see whether Jewish and other minority communities will be protected or sacrificed to ideology. To my fellow New York Jews: Do not underestimate what is happening.
Is it an accident that in this hour, with antisemitism exploding and Jews doubting their place in the city, a proud Jewish woman has been chosen to hold the speaker’s gavel? Or is this, perhaps, a quiet act of Providence, opening a door for someone to save her people not by begging for mercy, but by wielding the instruments of democracy with courage?
Building coaltions
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z”l would remind us that Jews are called not to be passive victims of history but “creative minorities” who shape it and that hatred begins with symbols and quiet undoing of protections. He would urge us to build coalitions that refuse to let the city slip backwards into tribal war.
To the mayor: Repair what you have damaged, or you will own what follows. To the speaker: Be our Esther. Use your voice. To the Jews and all minorities of New York: Stand together now, before the train has gathered too much speed.
I still believe New York can choose life over death, courage over fear, and unity over the easy politics of scapegoating. But that choice begins with what you decide to protect on your first day.
The author is a former NYC Supreme Court detective, investigator, and educator in conflict resolution, restorative peace, and moral diplomacy expert. His upcoming book, Moral Diplomacy for a Broken World, is inspired by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.