New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has signed an executive order revoking a series of controversial directives issued by his predecessor, Eric Adams, including measures that had been presented as support for Israel.
According to the executive order issued by Mamdani on his first day in office, all directives signed on or after September 26, 2024, and still in effect as of December 31, 2025, were annulled, while earlier executive orders remain in force unless otherwise amended or revoked.
Just hours after his City Hall inauguration on Thursday, Mamdani put the orders into effect, and on Friday he said he stands by the revocation of the Adams executive order.
The move effectively annulled several orders, including one adopted last month that barred city agencies from boycotting or divesting from Israel.
Another revoked directive, signed in June, endorsed a broad definition of anti-Semitism that classified certain forms of criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic.
In a social media post, Israel’s Foreign Ministry accused Mamdani of fuelling anti-Semitism, and some organisations, like the UJA Federation of New York, issued a statement critical of his order, saying it reversed “significant protections against anti-Semitism."
"On his very first day as New York City Mayor Mamdani shows his true face: He scraps the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism and lifts restrictions on boycotting Israel," Israel’s Foreign Ministry said in a post.
'A clean slate'
Mamdani, however, did not revoke the establishment of the city’s Office to Combat Antisemitism, which was created by the previous administration and will continue operating.
The order also said it does not affect emergency executive orders currently in force.
Defending his position, Mamdani said in a press conference that "protecting Jewish New Yorkers is going to be a focus of my administration" and that his action on executive orders had given it "a clean slate to get to work on delivering a new era for New Yorkers."
"My administration will also be marked by a city government that will be relentless in its efforts to combat hate and division," Mamdani said.
"And that includes fighting the scourge of antisemitism, by actually funding hate crime prevention, by celebrating our neighbors and by practicing a politics of universality."
According to The New York Times, Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said the revoked orders appeared to be last-minute measures aimed at limiting viewpoints the previous mayor disagreed with, adding that it was "no surprise" the new administration moved to rescind them.
"The right to free speech does not depend on your viewpoint, and that is true for speech about Israel or Gaza, it is true about political activism about that conflict, and it is true about any other political issue that we face," she said.
