When Mayor Mamdani announced that he would skip New York City’s annual Israel Day Parade, he broke with a tradition that every mayor has honored since the event began in 1965 – standing shoulder to shoulder with members of the New York Jewish community at a parade celebrating their cultural heritage.

His absence wasn’t the result of some kind of scheduling conflict. It was an ideological assertion and a disgraceful one. This would be true at any time, but it is particularly notable at a time when New York Jews – and Jews around the world – find ourselves under threat to a greater degree than at any time since the Holocaust.

And tragically, when we are under siege, the city with the largest Jewish population in the world is governed by a mayor who gaslights us at every turn. At best, he pays lip service to confronting antisemitism. At worst, he deliberately fuels the fire.

It’s also very telling that on the day he skipped the march, Governor Hochul signed legislation that ADL championed to protect worshipers from harassment, intimidation and threats to our houses of worship. This follows Mamdani’s lack of support for similar efforts at the city level and his vetoing of local efforts to protect us against threats outside educational facilities.

Like tens of thousands of Jewish New Yorkers, I made a different decision from Mayor Mamdani. Simply put, I marched. In fact, I did so for the very first time because the moment demands that we stand up, with pride, and be counted.

Three distinct and worsening phases

ADL knows something about counting. We have been measuring antisemitic attitudes in the US since 1964. We have systematically tracked antisemitic incidents in America since 1979. Our research shows that the hatred we’ve witnessed over the........

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