Jewish Groups Demand Changes to NYC Mayor’s Judiciary Panel Over Lack of Jewish Representation

Four Jewish bar associations have called on New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to modify his 19-member judiciary advisory panel after noting the complete absence of Jewish appointees. The Brandeis Association, Jewish Lawyers Guild, Brooklyn Brandeis Society and Queens Brandeis Association, supported by the Anti-Defamation League, say the omission contradicts the mayor’s stated commitment to diversity on the influential committee.

City Hall announced the panel on July 22 as a “truly representative cross-section” of the legal profession, language that echoed Mamdani’s January executive order requiring the committee’s composition to “reflect the cosmopolitan population of the City of New York.” The committee screens and recommends judicial candidates for positions across the five boroughs, including Criminal Court, Family Court and Civil Court.

The Jewish groups sent a joint letter Monday to Mamdani, Governor Kathy Hochul, Attorney General Letitia James and Chief Judge Rowan Wilson, asserting that excluding Jewish voices from the panel undermines its credibility. They wrote that the exclusion sends a troubling message during a period of rising antisemitism and increased threats to Jewish communities across the city.

Mamdani’s press secretary Joe Calvello denied that religious considerations influenced the appointments, stating the mayor had appointed “a dozen qualified judges from a range of backgrounds, including Jewish judges” to other positions. Calvello added the administration declined to appoint retired Justice John Leventhal, who is Jewish, after discovering his involvement with Ghislaine Maxwell’s legal team.

The dispute emerges amid heightened concerns about Jewish safety in New York City. On Tuesday, an intruder armed with a hammer entered the Jewish Institute of Queens grounds and shoved an 8-year-old boy into a fence, injuring the child’s head. The incident followed a stabbing attack the previous week on an Orthodox Jewish man outside an Upper West Side synagogue, with prosecutors characterizing the assault as a hate crime.

Civil rights attorney Gerard Filitti highlighted the significance of the panel’s composition, noting that New York City hosts the nation’s largest Jewish population and that the committee will select judges who preside over hate-crime cases. He stated the mayor’s characterization of the slate as representative rang hollow given these circumstances and called for equal representation for Jewish New Yorkers.