A scorecard of Mamdani’s first month

There was never going to be a honeymoon in New York, but Mayor Zohran Mamdani could have made critics work a little harder to find things to kvetch about. As it is, New York doing its best three-week imitation of Nuuk under more than a foot of ice has put everyone in cantankerous spirits. The new mayor faced a storm of criticism from the word “Go”; whatever goodwill he had is likely the only thing that melted his first month. Here’s a scoreboard of slippery slopes and snowballs saddling the 111th mayor of New York.

Early Ax

New city staff hadn’t slept off their New Year’s hangovers, and Mamdani was already chopping down all the executive orders Eric Adams issued in his last year. The new boss framed it as an innocent “Who, me?” general reset, but no one was fooled. Most saw an attempt to hide — b’havla’ah — the revocation of important actions protecting Jews and relations with Israel, such as the citywide adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism and a BDS-busting ban on businesses boycotting the Jewish state.

For a mayor battling allegations of antisemitism and allegedly out to prove his allegiance to unzere, it was a poorly planned first step. To his credit, there hasn’t been a whole lot of boycotting or divestment on his part yet, earning him a solid 3/10.

Hate Has No Home, and Raising Its Ugly Head

After an early stumble, the mayor did a better job condemning antisemitic attacks.

Unfortunately, he’s had plenty of opportunities. Antisemitic incidents spiked a staggering 182% in January, year over year. After the most visible recent attacks, the mayor deftly and immediately wielded his armchair and keyboard to unequivocally condemn them and make appropriate “no home/ugly head” vows. He even sped to Eastern Parkway to hold a press conference at the Exact Spot at which a man bull-rushed 770 with his car, calling it a hate crime — although that conclusion is, as yet, inconclusive.

But Mr. Mayor had raised eyebrows and consternation a week into his term by failing to clearly and unconditionally condemn a rally outside the Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills at which chants openly supported Hamas and intifada. Absent an official tweet, his mumbled comment — to a question — calling “the language wrong” while walking to his car 24 hours later did little to mollify even his progressive allies, who tweeted their own horror at the chants and sighed about the mayor’s faux pas. His follow-up smear of the land sales expo that had taken place inside the shul as “peddling in illegalities” made it worse.

In honor of Zohran’s better-job-next-time and allowing for the confusing chaos of adjusting to having a job the first week running a big city, we’ll give this a 6/10.

Was Wanting Wisdom Wise?

When Mamdani tapped Phylisa Wisdom of Park Slope to head the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism (MOCA), progressives crowed; the Orthodox winced.

Wisdom, former head of New York Jewish Agenda, inhabits that nanospace in which progressive advocacy overlaps with support for Israel. She had added her voice to early calls for a ceasefire in Gaza and opposed the IHRA definition; but hey — at least she supports Israel’s right to exist, thanks!

An antisemitism czar that opposes IHRA is odd; but more so is her past work with YAFFED, the organization that targeted Orthodox yeshivah education for years. Moshe Davis led the office under Mayor Adams and is well acquainted with its new leader.

“To appoint someone opposed to things the chassidic community holds dear is alarming,” he told Mishpacha. “Attacks against Jews make up over 50% of hate crimes in the city, and most of these victimize people who are visibly Jewish. The head of MOCA should have a good relationship with them.”

“Picking Phylisa Wisdom to run an office tasked with combating antisemitism is probably the biggest gaslighting Mamdani has done so far,” tweeted Yaakov Kaplan, vice-chair of Brooklyn Community Board 12.

For at least appointing someone that disagrees with his own stance on Israel, the mayor has earned a 4/10.

The True Test of Democracies: General Winter

Having defeated Napoleon and the Third Reich, snow and ice are conspiring to topple a fresh, new city administration innocently trying to prove it can function.

The 15 inches of snow dumped on the city three weeks ago are largely still sitting there. While even Curtis Sliwa wouldn’t blame Mamdani for the weather, city dwellers are frustrated with the brittle snow removal response — and frozen sanitation operations.

The mayor bragged that DSNY melted “122 million pounds of snow” and made sure to be caught on viral video, shovel in hand, helping dig a car out of a snow drift in Williamsburg. But an equally viral video showed men in full chassidic regalia excitedly rallying around to help fill a sanitation truck that finally arrived to peck away at a mountain of trash bags — weeks’ worth of garbage sitting uncollected on top of sooty snowbanks. Here’s a tip: If you’re measuring snow removal in pounds, you’ve lost me.

The number that did matter is 17 — the body count. Mamdani’s policy of allowing “people experiencing homelessness” to remain in the streets, canceling sweeps to clear encampments and get their residents indoors, is being blamed for that number of people found dead in the gutters; 13 of them were confirmed to have died of hypothermia.

All this, and the street in front of Gracie Mansion is clean and clear of trash, snow, or ice. How Communist.

For what critics call “killing them with kindness,” His Honor earns a 2/10.

Save the Stabber, Ax ICE

He may not be keen to get rid of ice, but he certainly wants to be free of ICE. The new mayor called for abolishing the federal agency, terming it a cruel, inhumane, rogue group detrimental to public safety. He’s followed up with action to strengthen city sanctuary laws and limit NYPD cooperation.

But he really annoyed police after officers fired at 22-year-old Jabez Chakraborty, who was lunging at them with a kitchen knife.

Instead of supporting police, Mamdani visited Chakraborty in the hospital, where he theatrically stated that “no family should have to endure this kind of pain,” the incident “should never have been treated as a criminal matter,” and all charges should be dropped against Chakraborty.

He did not express sympathy for police.

Read the room, dude. For pure tone-deafness, this is a square zero out of ten.

“The frum community in New York is on edge,” Moshe Davis sums up. “We have to double down on our Yiddishkeit, continue educating our kids, and continue to live our lives as proud Jews.”

And Shamayim will do the rest.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1099)