Mamdani vows changes to vetting process after appointee resigns over antisemitic comments

New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani vows changes to his administration’s vetting process, after a high-level appointee resigned yesterday when her old antisemitic posts on social media surfaced.

Mamdani had named Catherine Almonte Da Costa as his administration’s director of appointments on Wednesday. Da Costa resigned yesterday after her posts on X from more than a decade ago came to light in which she referred to “Money hungry Jews,” “Rich Jewish peeps,” and referred to a subway in a Jewish area as “the Jew train.”

“Our administration will operate under a standard of excellence and setting that standard is not only about fulfilling it, it’s also about holding yourself accountable when you are not doing so and we are currently underway at making changes in our vetting process,” Mamdani says at a press conference.

“There are clear changes that need to be made and that’s exactly what we’re doing right now,” he says.

Mamdani added that he was not aware of Da Costa’s posts and “would not have hired had I been aware.”

The mayor-elect also repeated his “commitment to keeping Jewish New Yorkers safe and a commitment also to asking more of ourselves than simply protecting Jewish New Yorkers, but also celebrating and cherishing Jewish New Yorkers.”

Tying recent antisemitism to the Hanukkah holiday, he says, “There is a feeling of a diminished sense of light.”

“What I have found inspiration in is the story of the Macabbees themselves and the importance of understanding that impossibility is something you can in fact confront,” he says.

“My hope is that in leading this city, that it will be a city where Jewish New Yorkers are not only safe to leave their homes and go to work and spend their lives as they would like, but also in celebrating their own faith and lighting their menorah and in knowing this is a city that cherishes them,” he says.