The advocacy movement End Jew Hatred has formally launched a petition calling on New York Governor Kathy Hochul to initiate removal proceedings against New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani under Section 9 of the state’s Public Officers Law. The campaign follows a string of violent incidents and mounting political backlash over the administration’s public safety record and public rhetoric, according to reporting by The Jerusalem Post.

Stabbings on the Upper West Side

Organizers trace the push for removal directly to a July 23 attack in which two men were stabbed roughly four minutes and two blocks apart on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The victims, identified as Chok Sung, 57, and Moshe Grunhaus, 50, included a man who was attacked as he walked home from synagogue services, only steps from the building’s doors. Activists and community organizers have argued the administration failed to protect vulnerable minorities, noting that neither victim was protected from an attacker reportedly shouting “Allahu Akbar.”

Hate Crime Data and the IHRA Framework

Central to the petition’s grievances are claims about equal protection and hate-crime enforcement. Petitioners note that Mamdani rescinded the city’s antisemitism framework, built around the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition, on his first day in office, without putting a replacement policy in place. Roughly three months later, the city’s own police commissioner reported that citywide hate crimes had risen nearly 12 percent, with 55 percent of those incidents targeting Jewish New Yorkers, who make up about 10 percent of the city’s population.

A Viral Video and Its Fallout

The petition also takes issue with the administration’s use of official city communications channels, pointing to a video — viewed more than 90 million times — in which city platforms were used to label Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a war criminal unwelcome in New York. Mamdani later acknowledged he had no actual authority to arrest a foreign head of government. Petitioners additionally cite the mayor’s veto of school safety legislation known as Intro 175-B, questions over relaxed child welfare screening procedures, and allegations of whistleblower retaliation within the city’s Department of Probation.

AMMWEC’s Anila Ali Speaks at the Rally

The campaign’s launch featured a demonstration outside state offices, where commentator Zack Sage Fox told the crowd the group was demanding removal proceedings through legal means, saying organizers believed the law was on their side. Among the speakers was Anila Ali, President of the American Muslim & Multifaith Women’s Empowerment Council (AMMWEC), who rejected the mayor’s political rhetoric outright.

“A very toxic ideology which is the DSA, the Islamists — that’s not acceptable to the majority of Muslims living in America.” Anila Ali, President, AMMWEC

Ali told the crowd that Mamdani’s political identity became clear as soon as he was elected, and argued that the ideology he represents is rejected by American Muslims who she said value their relationships with Jewish and Christian neighbors alike. She went on to compare the rhetoric to the radicalism behind the September 11 attacks, arguing that Islam itself has been “hijacked” by such movements and describing the stakes as high enough that mothers and women were putting themselves at risk to oppose what she characterized as an ideology that is anti-American, anti-Islam, and antisemitic.

Singer and activist Ghazal Mizrahi also addressed the rally, describing her family’s escape from Iran’s Islamic regime.

“A proud Iranian Jew, but as a proud American above all of that.” Ghazal Mizrahi, Activist and Singer

Mizrahi said her family lived under Sharia law in Iran and gave up their lives there so that she and her sister would not have to grow up under the same extremism, framing her presence at the rally as an extension of that history.

A Formal DOJ Complaint and Legal Backing

Separately, New York State Assemblyman Michael Novakhov announced he had filed a formal complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice against Mamdani, releasing a video statement describing it as fulfillment of a promise to hold the mayor accountable for fueling antisemitism in the city.

“I made a promise to our community that I would hold Zohran Mamdani accountable.” Michael Novakhov, New York State Assemblyman

Jayne Zirkle, communications director for The Lawfare Project and an End Jew Hatred organizer, told The Jerusalem Post the organization stood with families of September 11 victims who have asked that Mamdani not attend this year’s memorial ceremony. Zirkle pointed to Mamdani’s past support for pro-Hamas voices and a visit to a mosque whose imam she said had ties to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, arguing that the wishes of 9/11 families “deserve to be respected.”

Mamdani’s office has not been reported to have issued a detailed response to the petition as of this writing. The removal effort marks one of the most direct institutional challenges to the mayor’s administration since he took office, and its outcome will depend on whether Gov. Hochul elects to pursue formal charges and a hearing under the cited state law.