New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s $30 million push against antisemitism includes a major grant to a coalition partnered with an anti-Israel group once led by Linda Sarsour, drawing sharp criticism over the contradiction.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani rolled out the investment package earlier this month as antisemitic incidents remained the largest share of hate crimes tracked in the city. The plan directs $6.4 million to Partners Against Hate, known as PATH, a group tasked with boosting awareness and reporting of hate crimes.
PATH works with six other organizations. One of them is the Arab American Association of New York, or AAANY. That partnership has put the mayor’s antisemitism strategy under fire because of AAANY’s record of advocacy against Israel and its past leadership under Sarsour, a longtime Mamdani ally.
Fox News Digital reported the structure of the grant and the criticism that followed. The mayor’s office did not immediately respond when asked whether the AAANY link could undercut the stated goal of protecting Jewish New Yorkers.
NYPD figures for the first eight months of 2026 show why the issue carries weight. Hate crimes citywide rose 16 percent over the prior year. Incidents targeting Jews totaled 181, including 131 felonies. By comparison, the department logged 21 hate crimes against Muslims and 29 in the homosexual category. Antisemitic acts made up roughly 9 percent of the city’s hate-crime tracking, the largest slice.
Mamdani framed the spending as a duty to Jewish residents. In the strategy document he said his administration must keep New York a place where Jewish New Yorkers can live peacefully and safely.
"My administration has a responsibility to ensure New York City remains a place where Jewish New Yorkers can live their lives peacefully and safely, where they can walk down the street, enter their houses of worship and build their lives knowing that this city will stand with them,"
That language sits alongside a funding path that runs through a partner organization with a very different public record on Israel.
The PATH arrangement is not brand new. In 2021, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a $3 million grant distributed among PATH’s partner organizations. A May 27, 2021, press release listed AAANY among those partners and described the groups as anchor organizations working with the Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes.
De Blasio cast the effort in broad terms at the time.
"In New York City, we do not tolerate hate, violence, or bigotry in any form. As we drive a recovery for all of us, we must lift up the community leaders standing up against America’s hate epidemic. We are taking action to make sure the hate in our beloved city is eliminated, once and for all,"
He also said the anchor groups would work closely with city agencies on a community-based approach to preventing hate crime. Mamdani’s larger $6.4 million PATH grant builds on that same partner list, including AAANY.
Critics now argue the continuity matters less than the politics of the partner. AAANY has pressed New York to distance itself from Israel, recognized Israel’s war in Gaza as genocide in its advocacy, and rallied around legislation Mamdani backed as a state lawmaker.
Linda Sarsour formerly served as executive director of AAANY. She later became a co-founder of the Women’s March and was pushed out amid allegations of antisemitism and her embrace of Louis Farrakhan. She has supported the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.
The Anti-Defamation League rejected her positions in a 2017 statement.
"We profoundly reject Linda Sarsour’s positions that delegitimize Israel. We have vigorously opposed efforts like the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which she supports, and we oppose her stance that one cannot be simultaneously a feminist and pro-Israel,"
Sarsour endorsed Mamdani’s 2020 run for the New York Assembly and called him her "favorite guy." She was a major backer of his mayoral campaign. In an Instagram livestream she said she "will hold him accountable."
That personal and political history is why the PATH-AAANY link has become a flashpoint in coverage of the mayor’s record on Israel, including Israeli leaders’ condemnation of his attacks on Netanyahu.
Current AAANY executive director Marwa Janini has kept the group’s focus on Gaza and U.S. policy. She visited Cairo to pack food aid for Gaza and support Palestinian refugees, then called on the New York City Council to go further.
"I visited Cairo to pack food aid for Gaza and support Palestinian refugees. Despite their resilience in the face of the unimaginable loss and hardships they are facing, it is evident that merely sending aid to Gaza is not enough. The NYC City Council must pass a ceasefire resolution to end this U.S.-funded genocide and bring hope and stability to Gaza,"
Janini’s language matches the group’s broader push for the United States to pull back from Israel. During Mamdani’s time as a state legislator, AAANY rallied around his "Not On Our Dime" bill, which sought to stop New York nonprofit donations from supporting Israeli settlement activity and cited what it called a violation of the Geneva Conventions.
Reporting on AAANY also notes financial support flowing the other direction. The group has reportedly given more than $223,000 to CAIR-NY since 2021. National CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator by federal prosecutors in the 2007 Holy Land Foundation terrorism-financing case, the largest such prosecution in U.S. history.
Those ties do not appear in the mayor’s public defense of the antisemitism package. The administration has not detailed whether any portion of the new $6.4 million PATH grant reaches AAANY directly, or how PATH’s six partners divide the work. The gap leaves taxpayers with a clear headline number and an unclear chain of custody.
Jewish New Yorkers already face the bulk of the city’s hate-crime caseload. A strategy that advertises protection while routing prestige and resources through a coalition that includes a vocal anti-Israel partner invites the skepticism now surrounding the plan. Similar questions have followed other Mamdani moves on Israel, from his handling of the Oct. 7 anniversary to broader diplomatic blowback.
The NYPD data leaves little room for abstract debate. One hundred eighty-one anti-Jewish incidents in eight months, most of them felonies, dwarf the totals for other tracked categories. Overall hate crime is up double digits. In that environment, city money is supposed to reinforce safety, reporting, and trust.
Instead, the largest single grant in the package lands at an organization whose partner list still includes AAANY. The same AAANY once run by Sarsour, still led by an executive director who labels the war in Gaza a U.S.-funded genocide, and still tied to six-figure support for CAIR-NY. That is the record the mayor’s office has so far declined to address on the record.
Mamdani’s own legislative past compounds the optics. The "Not On Our Dime" effort treated Israeli settlement activity as a target for New York nonprofit restrictions. Pair that history with a mayoral antisemitism initiative that elevates PATH’s existing AAANY relationship, and the political incentive structure comes into focus: symbolic spending for Jewish safety alongside institutional comfort for activists who reject Israel’s legitimacy.
Coverage of the funding design has already drawn comparisons to earlier reporting on how the antisemitism strategy expands support for coalitions with anti-Israel ties. The pattern is the point of contention, not a single line item.
Other episodes have kept the Israel file open at City Hall, including scrutiny of outside affiliations close to the administration and sharp rebukes from Israeli officials. An Israeli ambassador’s public accusations against the mayor over Hamas and Iran further illustrate how far the trust deficit extends beyond one grant.
PATH’s stated mission remains awareness and reporting of hate crimes. No one disputes that Jewish New Yorkers need both. The dispute is over whether a $30 million package that leans on a partner network still carrying AAANY, Sarsour’s legacy, Janini’s genocide rhetoric, and CAIR-linked dollars can deliver credibility where the crime numbers are worst.
City Hall can release the full partner breakdown, the dollar flow, and a plain explanation of how an anti-Israel advocacy group advances Jewish safety. Until it does, the plan’s largest grant will keep reading as politics first and protection second. Jewish New Yorkers living with 181 incidents in eight months deserve better than a coalition contradiction dressed up as solidarity.
