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On his first day in office, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani revoked all of the executive orders issued by former Mayor Eric Adams after his indictment in 2024 — including measures that sought to crack down on pro-Palestine protests and advocacy.
In December, Adams signed an order that prohibited city agencies from actions like boycotting or divesting from Israel, which the office labelled as actions that “discriminate against the State of Israel.”
At the same time, Adams signed an order seeking to bar protests outside of places of worship after protesters had targeted institutions, including synagogues, that were holding illegal sales of Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank.
Mamdani’s action on Thursday also revoked an Adams order from June that adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. This definition has been highly criticized for defining criticism of Israel as antisemitism, which advocates for Palestinian rights and civil society groups have said is crafted to quash dissent on pro-Israel policies.
However, Mamdani pledged to keep the Office to Combat Antisemitism, which Adams created in May. “That is an issue that we take very seriously and as part of the commitment that we’ve made to Jewish New Yorkers: to not only protect them, but to celebrate and cherish them,” Mamdani told reporters after signing his first executive orders.
Israel’s foreign ministry criticized Mamdani, saying that his revocations were “antisemitic gasoline on an open fire.” Mamdani said that he issued his order to have “a fresh start for the incoming administration.”
Mamdani’s revocation order, meanwhile, was praised by civil liberties advocates in the city.
“Both of those orders appeared to be last-ditch attempts to suppress viewpoints that [Eric Adams] and his benefactors disagreed with, especially since one of them was issued just in the last few weeks,” said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, per The New York Times.
Lieberman said that Adams’s orders were designed to “have a chilling effect” on protected speech. “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.
Mamdani also signed a number of executive orders aimed at increasing the housing stock and protecting renters. He issued orders to “revitalize” the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants, appointing tenant organizer Cea Weaver to head the office, and announced his administration was intervening in the bankruptcy proceedings of a housing group that has received thousands of reports of violations from tenants.
In his first speech as mayor, Mamdani once again emphasized his commitment to governing everyone in New York City.
“We will answer to all New Yorkers, not to any billionaire or oligarch who thinks they can buy our democracy,” said Mamdani.
“We will govern without shame and insecurity, making no apology for what we believe,” he went on. “I was elected as a democratic socialist and I will govern as a democratic socialist. I will not abandon my principles for fear of being deemed radical.”
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