The New York City Council is taking aim at “skyrocketing” antisemitism by adopting a plethora of new policy and funding initiatives, with the latest announced this week by speaker Julie Menin and other Jewish council members. 

These efforts include a council five-point “action plan to combat antisemitism,” which consists of forming a council task force on Jew-hatred; making a dedicated hotline to report incidents; and a significant increase in funding for Holocaust education for public school students.

Inna Vernikov, a former Democrat who is now a Republican and a vocal supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump, is a co-chair of the new bipartisan task force. She has been vocally critical of Zohran Mamdani, the New York City mayor who is opposed to Israel as a Jewish state.

Mamdani has been in office for a month but has yet to name a head of the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism.

Dan Mannarino, of PIX11 News, asked Mamdani on Thursday if he would name a head of the office next week. “We’re working on the timeline, but it is in the final stages,” the mayor said.

Eric Dinowitz, a member of the City Council and chair of its Jewish Caucus, was named co-chair of the new task force.

Dinowitz, a Democrat who represents parts of the Bronx, including the heavily Jewish neighborhood of Riverdale, told JNS that he is grateful that Mamdani has rushed to sites of recent antisemitic incidents to strongly condemn the Jew-hatred. 

But “the response to a skyrocketing increase in antisemitism should not solely be words of condemnation,” he said.

Vernikov told JNS that part of the new council effort is to implement more serious repercussions for those who commit anti-Jewish hate crimes.

“In New York, there is very little consequence if you assault someone. You actually take a plea deal and go home,” she said. “When we get consequences, it sends a message: anyone who allows antisemitism or a hostile environment—that’s when they stop to think about whether or not they want to feel emboldened to attack a Jew on the street.”

“It prevents further hate crimes and puts in place leadership that will help, rather than harm, the Jewish community,” Vernikov, whose district includes Brighton Beach and parts of Midwood, Sheepshead Bay and Coney Island, told JNS.

“This creates an opportunity to hold to account those individuals at the helm of entities and institutions that allow antisemitism to fester,” she said.

Vernikov, who was born in Ukraine, told JNS that Menin, the council speaker, offered to use her ability to subpoena officials to testify before the city council if they resist.

The Jewish Republican was arrested in 2023 for openly carrying a gun to a Students for Justice in Palestine protest at Brooklyn College, but the charge was dropped. Last October, shortly before the mayoral election, she stated that if Mamdani was elected, “jihad is coming to New York City.”

“The bad news for Jewish New Yorkers is that we have Mamdani in charge,” Vernikov told JNS on Jan. 29. “I believe he’s very dangerous for a future for Jews in New York City,” she said.

Menin stated this week that as the council’s first Jewish speaker, and as the daughter and granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, “this effort is deeply personal to me.”

“These bills and our new task force will help protect New Yorkers and ensure that hate, harassment and intimidation are never normalized in our city,” she stated. (JNS sought comment from Menin.)

Task force co-chair Dinowitz told JNS that “we have to approach antisemitism from all angles.” The Democrat introduced a bill that would add the outcomes of arrests on hate crime charges to the New York City Police Department’s crime dashboard.

Jews account for about 10% of New York City residents, 57% of the hate crimes recorded in the city in 2025 were aimed at Jews—more than every other group combined.

In the last week, a man repeatedly rammed his car into doors at the Chabad-Lubavitch world headquarters in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights; 57 swastikas were found painted in a Borough Park playground in Brooklyn; and, in Forest Hills, Queens, a rabbi dressed in traditional Jewish clothes was verbally attacked, punched in the face and chest and knocked to the ground on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Hate-crime charges were filed against the alleged perpetrators in each case.

The council can implement some of the new measures, like $1.5 million in funding over two years to increase public school visits to the Museum of Jewish Heritage-A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, while the mayor would have to sign others into law.

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