Threats to NYPD’s pro-Israel commissioner are an inflection point for New York Jews

Fans of New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch must have been unsettled when, in a Sunday interview on cable news, Mayor Zohran Mamdani wouldn’t say whether he was about to fire her.

The question didn’t come out of nowhere. Mamdani’s base has had its knives out for Tisch since ICE agents shot an undocumented immigrant in the Bronx on Thursday, whereupon police clashed with protesters at the scene. The next day, 17 far-left officials and candidates in the city signed a letter calling for her to be replaced unless she undertook major police reforms.

The shooting, and the NYPD’s response to it, have no direct connection to Israel or antisemitism in the city. But the protest against Tisch — and the uncertainty over how long she’ll remain in her job — predate Thursday’s events, and carry deep implications for the city’s 1 million Jews.

Mamdani’s nine months in office have been punctuated by clashes with the city’s leading Jewish organizations, but a Tisch ouster could produce the biggest breach yet. Her exit would remove an official seen by pro-Israel Jews as their bulwark in City Hall, once again raising questions as to whether Mamdani’s oft-stated commitment to fighting antisemitism extends to anti-Zionist spaces.

The NYPD commissioner, a pro-Israel Jewish moderate from a billionaire family, always made an odd couple with the socialist, anti-Israel mayor. Not a cop herself, Tisch came into the job nearly two years ago after a career in city government and with a reputation as a competent manager. She earned praise for her performance under Mamdani’s chaotic predecessor Eric Adams, and when the new mayor asked her to stay on, she agreed, reassuring the city’s moderates and its business community.

The relief was especially palpable among pro-Israel Jews in New York, many of whom had spoken out against, and then voted against, the mayor who has said that pro-Palestinian activism is at the core of his political identity. Keeping Tisch at the head of the NYPD meant that she’d be helming the department that often acts as a first responder to antisemitic acts and polices anti-Israel protests.

Tisch “has consistently shown up for Jewish New Yorkers facing unprecedented levels of antisemitic attacks and has worked to strengthen community partnerships,” Mark Treyger, CEO of the city’s Jewish Community Relations Council, said upon her reappointment, according to JTA. “We look forward to working closely with her to deepen community trust and advance our shared goal of ensuring every New Yorker is safe and supported.”

Since then, Tisch has formed a working relationship with Mamdani, without backing away from her pro-Israel sentiments or vocal commitment to Jewish safety. When a protest outside an Israeli real estate event at a synagogue included calls for violence and some antisemitic remarks, Mamdani gave an equivocal response. Tisch delivered a well-received apology at the congregation the next week, pledging to respond differently next time a similar protest happens.

When Tisch was asked about Mamdani declining to participate in the city’s pro-Israel parade in May, she responded matter-of-factly, “It’s the mayor’s decision not to march and it’s my decision to march proudly.”

And when there was an antisemitic attack at Tisch’s own Central Synagogue in August, she spoke from the pulpit the next Friday night.

“Jewish institutions will not be left to protect themselves without a partner in the New York City Police Department. Jewish families will not be told to accept fear as the price of practicing their faith in New York City,” she said.

Tisch has also done something Mamdani has not — explicitly calling out the ways the groundswell of anti-Israel sentiment has contributed to rising antisemitism in the city over the past three years.

“Many of the college campus protests were especially despicable, with open, blatant displays of intolerance,” she said in a 2025 speech to an Anti-Defamation League conference. “In many cases, the protesters’ target was not and is not Israeli policy or geopolitics, or even the horrors of war, but the Jewish people themselves.”

It’s that approach, and the policing policy downstream from it, that drew the ire of Mamdani’s progressive, pro-Palestinian supporters even before Thursday’s ICE shooting. The city’s leading pro-Palestinian groups supported anti-Israel protests on campus or on the streets, and detest the police crackdown on them. Pro-Palestinian organizations that say they’re committed to fighting antisemitism are adamant that opposing Israel does not constitute discrimination against Jews.

Mamdani took that same approach in his recent strategy to combat antisemitism, which mentioned Israel only in passing, did not include the word “Zionism” at all, and did not address instances in which hatred of the Jewish state could spur harm to Jews. That omission drew a rebuke from the same groups that have praised Tisch’s approach. Mamdani’s statement on October 7, also maligned by many of the city’s Jewish groups, only briefly commemorated the victims of the Hamas-led attack and likewise did not include the word “Jewish.”

The third anniversary of the attack last week, which saw a large anti-Israel street protest, also raised the temperature on Tisch, and the heat only got more intense with the ICE shooting the next day. In both cases, far-left groups castigated the NYPD’s response to protests and singled out Tisch for rebuke.

Notably, the socialist officials taking aim at Tisch following the ICE shooting made the same demands as pro-Palestinian protesters on October 7: to disband the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group, a unit that polices protests, and to deliver an ultimatum to Tisch, or fire her altogether.

On Friday night, the socialist officials’ statement demanded, “Jessica Tisch must end police assistance for ICE operations and disband NYPD’s Strategic Response Group — and if she won’t, she must be fired.” The city’s chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, to which Mamdani belongs, made similar demands.

On October 9, in its own statement, the Palestinian Youth Movement, one of the organizers of the October 7 protest, said Mamdani “has allowed the city’s police department to continue to be led by Jessica Tisch, who works to protect Zionist interests and the NYPD’s links to Israel.” It called for her to be fired and for the SRG to be disbanded.

Will Mamdani — who was once a fixture at pro-Palestinian rallies, only to now be heckled by them — acquiesce to the pressure? He has said previously that Tisch will remain in her position but wouldn’t repeat that commitment on Sunday. The next day, he announced a “comprehensive review of NYPD use of force,” with zero mention of Tisch or the SRG.

Mamdani’s relationship with the city’s major pro-Israel Jewish groups is likely to stay sour whether Tisch stays or goes. They have repeatedly slammed his rhetoric and made clear, to put it mildly, that they don’t see him as a faithful partner in combating rising antisemitism in the city.

But with Tisch at the NYPD’s helm, they’ve also been able to rest on the assurance that their city’s top law enforcement official has their back. If Mamdani fires her, or if she decides she’s had enough and steps down, it will bring Jewish New Yorkers into a new, uncharted era that, for many, will be even more uneasy.