Adrienne Adams, the current New York City Council speaker, will soon jump into this year’s mayoral race, rumor has it.
Adams, who is about to be term-limited out of office, joined other elected officials this week at Gov. Hochul’s office to discuss removing Mayor Eric Adams (no relation) from his post.
The speaker herself condemned the mayor in no faint terms on Monday, calling for him to resign over the “scandal, selfishness and embarrassment” his federal bribery charges and notorious personnel issues have brought the city.
She would be joining the mayoral race at a time when antisemitism continues to gain a frightening foothold in Gotham.
On Tuesday, an anti-Israel mob targeted one of the city’s densest and most visible Jewish communities in Borough Park, Brooklyn. Rioters banged drums, shouted pro-Hamas slogans and chanted “Zionists go to hell” as they waved Palestinian flags, their faces hidden behind keffiyeh scarves.
Some broke through police barricades to charge at nearby Jews and pro-Israel demonstrators, leading to a violent scuffle.
Alarmingly, Speaker Adams as a mayoral contender would compete for the title of candidate most in thrall to the antisemitic far-left.
As speaker, she has shown her willingness to use her office to condemn Jews — and her unwillingness to safeguard them.
None of this bodes well for the way a Mayor Adrienne Adams would use her perch at Gracie Mansion to protect New York’s most targeted identity group.
Adrienne has consistently rejected opportunities to use her leadership position to show concern and support for New York’s Jewish community following the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in Israel and the immediately ensuing rise in attacks on American Jews.
In just the first half of last year, hundreds of anti-Jewish hate crime incidents were reported in the Big Apple — more than those against all other identity groups combined, and a 70% increase over the same period the year before.
Yet the Adrienne Adams City Council stayed troublingly mum, on both the the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas terrorists and the antisemitism mounting in New York.
On top of these signals of disparate disregard for Jews, Speaker Adams in June drafted and promoted a City Council resolution demanding a cease-fire in the Gaza war — to the disgust of many Jewish councilmembers and New Yorkers.
Her move to denounce Israel’s defensive war — an entirely unnecessary statement on foreign affairs — was reportedly done in part to appease “progressive” lawmakers.
But Adams’ disdain for New York Jews went further.
Days after her cease-fire resolution was made public, the council’s information technology team began blocking and redirecting the wave of angry messages constituents sent to lawmakers urging them to vote against the anti-Israel measure.
Rather than take New Yorkers’ opinions under consideration, the speaker simply silenced their voices.
And those are just a few of the reasons to think a Mayor Adreinne Adams would utterly fail to prevent future Borough Park brawls — or pretend to try.
The speaker showed her sympathy for the socialist left’s antisemitic politicking by allowing the preposterous appointment of Councilwoman Shahana Hanif as co-chair of a new City Council Task Force to Combat Hate.
Hanif is a poster child for the normalization of vitriolic anti-Zionism among New York progressive pols.
She has blamed the Jewish state itself for the bloody 2023 Hamas attack — and has even been arrested at a pro-Hamas demonstration sponsored by the Democratic Socialists of America.
Speaker Adams apparently feels no compunction at all about empowering Hanif — who opposed a council resolution creating an “End Jew Hatred Day” — to steward the city’s efforts to combat hate.
Would a Mayor Adrienne Adams feel differently? There’s no reason to think so.
Adams would join a fairly crowded Democratic primary, which includes Zohran Mamdani, a Queens assemblyman who has garnered support among the anti-Zionist far-left, from the DSA to actress-turned-professional-Israel-baiter Cynthia Nixon.
Both choices would be disastrous for the future of a safe, pluralistic New York.
The next New York City mayor will be facing a serious challenge when it comes to rising antisemitism in Gotham — most of it spewing from the far left and enabled by the soft-on-crime criminal-justice policies that “progressives” entrenched.
Speaker Adams is not the candidate to right that ship.
Hannah E. Meyers is a policing and public-safety policy expert and former New York Police Department senior counterterrorism analyst.
