Eric Adams issues executive order barring BDS, throwing down gauntlet for successor Zohran Mamdani

By JOSEPH STRAUSS

(JTA) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams threw down a gauntlet for his successor on Wednesday, issuing an executive order barring city officials from taking action against Israel or entities associated with it.

Once he assumes office in January, Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani (right) will have the power to revoke or modify Eric Adams’ (left) executive orders. (Left: John Lamparski/Getty Images; Right: Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images)

Now, if Zohran Mamdani wants to permit city officials to take such action — including boycotting Israel, a move Mamdani has long supported — he’ll have to either rescind the executive order or depart from a longstanding city tradition of issuing a blanket extension on executive orders during mayoral transitions.

The new executive order bars city officials from taking actions that would “discriminate” against Israel, Israeli citizens or entities otherwise associated with Israel, and warns that officials “who fail to follow this directive may be subject to disciplinary action by their agency.” Adams said it was designed to repudiate the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement, known as BDS.

“Executive Order 60 makes it clear: BDS has no place in our city,” Adams wrote on X.

A second order signed on Wednesday directs the NYPD to evaluate proposals on banning, or further regulating protests within 15 to 60 feet of houses of worship. The directive comes two weeks after a pro-Palestinian protest took place outside an Upper East Side synagogue that was hosting an Israeli immigration event, which galvanized major Jewish groups and lawmakers. Two lawmakers have proposed legislation to limit protests outside houses of worship, a move that Mamdani has expressed openness.

Adams, whose term ends at the end of December, has made a point of highlighting his support for Israel and Jews over his last months in office — during which he’s spent multiple weeks out of the city. He signed the two executive orders while on a trip to New Orleans for the Combat Antisemitism Movement’s mayors’ summit, and traveled to Israel and Uzbekistan in November.

Adams’ vocal support for Israel stands in stark contrast to the views of Mamdani, who has promised to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu if he enters New York City, and is a supporter of the BDS movement. During his trip to Israel, Adams spoke grimly about the future under Mamdani. “If I were a Jewish New Yorker I would be concerned about my children,” he said at an event in Tel Aviv.

Once he assumes office in January, Mamdani will have the power to revoke or modify Adams’ executive orders. But the city’s latest mayors have not made a practice of immediately rescinding their predecessors’ executive orders, instead issuing blanket extensions on their first day — though with a caveat that the orders “are hereby continued unless specifically revoked, revised, or superseded by a subsequently issued Executive Order.”

This puts Mamdani in a difficult position on the first day of his administration: Unless he takes deliberate aim at Adams’ executive order, a move that would certainly inflame tensions in the city, a policy that runs contrary to his deepest values will be on the books.

The mayor-elect responded to Adams’ executive order on Thursday, telling reporters, “The mayor is free to issue as many executive orders as he’d like with the less than 30 days that he has in office, and then we will be taking a look at every single one once we actually enter into City Hall.”

Executive Order 60 runs counter to Mamdani’s personal support of BDS and his intention to not invest pension funds in Israel Bonds, which the city had done for five decades until 2023. It adds a new wrinkle to a potential point of contention that is brewing between Mamdani and the city’s next comptroller, Mark Levine, who has said he intends to reinvest in Israel Bonds amid protests by pro-Palestinian groups telling him not to. 

The executive order points to the city’s $300 million in public funds that remain invested in Israeli assets, and says that officials, to the “extent consistent with their fiduciary duties,” must “oppose divestment from bonds and other assets made for the purpose of discriminating against the State of Israel, Israeli citizens based on their national origin, or individuals or entities based on their association with Israel.” 

Officials make pension fund investment decisions based on fiduciary rather than political reasons. Comptroller Brad Lander, who decided not to reinvest in Israel bonds in 2023, has said his decision was a financial one, which was partly informed by the discovery that New York City did not own any other foreign government bonds. 

In a tweet about the new directive, Adams called the BDS movement “antisemitic in nature and discriminatory in practice.” 

“NYC contracts and pensions must serve the public good,” he wrote. “Discrimination is illegal. Antisemitism is abhorrent.”