Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City, rolled out an extensive list of more than 400 new transition team appointees on Monday, saying the picks would help “recruit top talent and develop smart policy” on such issues as housing, community safety and economic development.

Despite the wide diversity of his choices, some of the appointees have raised concerns among Jewish leaders who remain skeptical of the mayor-elect and his commitment to fighting antisemitism, especially in moments where anti-Israel sentiment can cross a line into overt bigotry against Jews.

Among the most controversial sources of criticism was Mamdani’s appointment of Tamika Mallory, a former Women’s March leader who stepped down from its board amid allegations of antisemitism, to a newly established community safety committee.

Mallory, who rose to prominence as a leading organizer of the Women’s March after President Donald Trump was first elected, resigned from her role as a co-chair of the organization after facing accusations of having made virulently antisemitic remarks, including a widely discredited claim that Jewish people had played a major part in the slave trade.

The assertion echoed an infamous tract published by the Nation of Islam, whose antisemitic leader, Louis Farrakhan, Mallory had also praised as “the GOAT,” or “greatest of all time,” on social media. 

In a statement to Jewish Insider on Tuesday, the Anti-Defamation League, which launched an online tool to monitor policies and personnel choices of the incoming administration, called Mallory “simply the wrong choice for a committee on community safety” and said that she has “made some highly insensitive remarks about Jews and money, which play directly into antisemitic tropes,” while aligning “herself with people like notorious antisemite Louis Farrakhan.”

“Given the fact that New York’s Jewish community is facing antisemitism and security threats at unprecedented levels, the mayor-elect needs to appoint someone who will unite, rather than divide, communities.” the ADL spokesperson said.

In 2020, Mamdani called on social media for Mallory to be released from custody after she and others were arrested during a social justice demonstration in Kentucky. Linda Sarsour, a Palestinian American activist and former Women’s March leader who also has espoused antisemitic rhetoric, has long been an ally of Mamdani, but was not appointed to a role on any of his transition committees.

Monica Klein, the communications director for Mamdani’s transition, said in a statement shared with JI on Tuesday that the newly announced “subcommittees are preparing to implement Mayor-elect Mamdani’s agenda of safety and security for Jewish New Yorkers and everyone else who calls this city home, including his pledge for an 800% increase in anti-hate crime prevention.”

Mallory did not respond to a request for comment.

After the appointees were publicized Monday, Jewish leaders were scouring the lists in group chats and private texts for signs of how the newly elected mayor, a democratic socialist and staunch critic of Israel, would approach issues of concern to the community.

“There are a lot of bad names,” one Jewish leader told JI, sharing screenshots of exchanges flagging some transition picks seen as problematic, such as an anti-Zionist rabbi and activists affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America, which is pushing Mamdani to divest from Israel when he takes office.

Other appointees who drew scrutiny were Alex Vitale, a professor of sociology at Brooklyn College who has called for an end to policing and will advise on community safety. 

The list included a number of outspoken detractors of Israel. Tahanie Aboushi, a civil rights lawyer and a former candidate for Manhattan district attorney who, like Mamdani, has endorsed boycotts against the Jewish state, will provide input on legal affairs. Lumumba Bandele, a member and organizer of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement who is joining the community organizing team, has frequently accused Israel of genocide as well as apartheid, while calling Zionism “a crime against humanity,” among several other incendiary social media comments.

The tolerance of such heated rhetoric underscores how Mamdani’s election upended the conventional thinking that a winning candidate in New York — a place with the largest Jewish community of any city in the world — must show strong support for Israel, emboldening like-minded allies who are now poised to shape the administration. 

Still, some Jewish leaders were encouraged that Mamdani had chosen Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, the executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis, to join an emergency response committee, despite his past criticism of the mayor-elect’s views on Israel.

Potasnik, who was recently named the first chief chaplain of the New York City Police Department, said he had “no specifics” to share about his role at the moment, noting that Mamdani’s representatives advised new appointees to direct any press requests to the transition team. 

“There are going to be meetings discussing what we’re expected to do,” Potasnik told JI broadly. “I just think that it’s important to have constructive engagement discussing important issues impacting our lives in New York.”

Potasnik was a member of outgoing Mayor Eric Adams’ transition team, which featured more than 700 members and leaned heavily on the Orthodox community.

Mamdani, for his part, named a handful of rabbis to join his transition team, including Abby Stein, a top Jewish ally who identifies as an anti-Zionist and will advise on health issues, and Rachel Timoner, who is the leader of Congregation Beth Elohim, a Brooklyn Reform synagogue that hosted a discussion with the mayor-elect during the campaign. She is serving on the immigrant justice committee.

In addition to clergy members, Mamdani tapped a pair of former Jewish lawmakers, Helen Rosenthal and Ruth Messinger, and community activists such as Masha Pearl of the Blue Card Fund, a nonprofit providing financial support for Holocaust survivors. 

Rabbi Marc Schneier, a critic of Mamdani, spoke with the mayor-elect late last week after protesters had demonstrated outside Park East Synagogue, a Modern Orthodox congregation in Manhattan led by his father. 

He said that Mamdani — who had drawn backlash over his initial statement on the protest, which he revised this week — voiced interest in learning more about legislation to bar demonstrations from taking place outside houses of worship.

But while Schneier was encouraged that Mamdani had been receptive to his recommendation, he told JI that he did “not see things changing” with respect to other key issues, such as the mayor-elect’s refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.

“If he continues to encircle himself with people who are going to support his limited understanding of Israel,” he said, “then we’re going to have a problem here.”