New York City Mayor Eric Adams hosted a Jewish American Heritage Month (JAHM) celebration at Gracie Mansion in Manhattan on Wednesday.
Referring to rising Jew-hatred in New York City and across the U.S., Adams said, “We must raise our voices. We must send a loud message that our secret weapon is our ability to live among each other.”
Adams also commented on the controversy over the recent CUNY Law School commencement ceremony at which Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) activist Fatima Mousa Mohammed delivered antisemitic remarks. The mayor spoke at the same event, but left before Mohammed took the stage.
“I will tell you, if I was on that stage, when those comments were made, I would have stood up and denounced them immediately,” Adams said. “Because we cannot allow it to happen.”
The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) was represented at Wednesday’s Gracie Mansion JAHM reception by the Director of North American Affairs Rebecca Rose.
I’m so proud to be that 1.6 million of our Jewish brothers and sisters call New York City home. Join us now at Gracie Mansion to celebrate our Jewish community! https://t.co/1jv0h56uyf
— Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) May 31, 2023
Last week, Adams was the keynote speaker at the New York Symposium Against Antisemitism organized by CAM.
“Some of our greatest legal minds need to come together and sue the social media companies that are destroying our communities and our cities and feeding our children the hate and despair they’re witnessing,” Adams — who also participated in the Mayors Summit Against Antisemitism in Athens, Greece, last year — said in his remarks at the symposium.
In 2006, the U.S. Congress passed a bipartisan resolution urging “the President to issue each year a proclamation calling on state and local governments and the people of the United States to observe an American Jewish History Month.”
Shortly thereafter, then-President George W. Bush officially declared May as Jewish American Heritage Month.
Since then, successive presidents from both parties have all released annual declarations emphasizing the integral and unique role Jewish Americans have played in the great American story over the past three and a half centuries.
In recent years, local governments — at the state, county, and municipal levels — have begun to follow suit, recognizing Jewish American Heritage Month, and implementing relevant programs, ceremonies, and activities, and CAM has made a concerted nationwide effort in the past several months to get more to do so.
Thank you @NYCMayor for hosting a fantastic celebration last night for Jewish American Heritage Month! We were honored to be there and appreciate your leadership and inspiring words! https://t.co/DAy5AD5ymr
— Combat Antisemitism Movement (@CombatASemitism) June 1, 2023
