Jessica Tisch to stay on as Mamdani’s NYPD commissioner, reassuring some Jewish leaders

NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who comes from a prominent Jewish family, has accepted the offer to stay in her current role under Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect announced Wednesday morning.

“Together, we will deliver a city where rank-and-file police officers and the communities they serve alike are safe, represented, and proud to call New York their home,” Mamdani said in a statement.

The announcement comes about one month after a mayoral debate where Mamdani declared that he wanted to keep Tisch in her role, and on the heels of speculation that Tisch, who did not publicly comment on the offer until Wednesday, might decline.

Tisch is the first Jewish member of Mamdani’s administration, which he has only begun to fill out after passing over a key Jewish ally during the election, Comptroller Brad Lander, for a role.

A pair of major Jewish organizations’ leaders called the appointment of Tisch reassuring for the city’s Jews.

“We’re deeply grateful that Jessica Tisch has agreed to continue serving as Police Commissioner,” said Eric Goldstein, CEO of UJA-Federation of New York, in a statement. “Amid escalating antisemitism, our community is reassured by her strong leadership.”

Mark Treyger, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, said Tisch remaining in her role was an “excellent and reassuring decision that will help protect not only the Jewish community, but all of New York’s diverse communities.”

Two-thirds of the city’s Jewish voters did not vote for Mamdani. His Jewish critics have expressed nervousness about being led by a mayor who is opposed to Israel as a Jewish state and who has been accused by a number of Jewish leaders of feeding into antisemitism amid a continuous rise in anti-Jewish hate crimes.

Mamdani has said that his administration “will protect Jewish New Yorkers on the street, on the subway, and in their synagogues.”

There are many differences between Mamdani, a democratic socialist and anti-Zionist; and Tisch, a billionaire heiress whose family members donated over $1 million to a super PAC supporting Andrew Cuomo in the election Mamdani won.

Mamdani participated in pro-Palestinian protests for a ceasefire in Gaza as early as October 2023, whereas Tisch has spoken critically of those protests. She spoke at the Anti-Defamation League’s summit in March and said that many “college campus protests were especially despicable, with open blatant displays of intolerance” toward Jewish students; Mamdani has sparred with the ADL, saying its CEO does not represent Jewish New Yorkers..

The decision to work together indicates a willingness by both Mamdani and Tisch to overlook those differences, which include not only Israel and antisemitism, but also certain aspects of police work.

“Now, do the Mayor-elect and I agree on everything? No, we don’t,” Tisch wrote in a department-wide email. “But in speaking with him, it’s clear that we share broad and crucial priorities: the importance of public safety, the need to continue driving down crime, and the need to maintain stability and order across the department.”

Tisch has drawn praise for cracking down on corruption in the upper ranks of the NYPD, as well as for the city’s reduction in crime and record-low shooting incidents so far in 2025. In a contentious general election, retaining Tisch — who was originally appointed by Mayor Eric Adams — was a rare point of agreement among Mamdani, Cuomo and the Republican Curtis Sliwa. The New York Times reported that Lander, who ran in the primary, was the first candidate to float the idea that Tisch could be retained under a progressive mayor.

Major Jewish organizations in the city responded positively to Wednesday’s announcement.

Treyger, head of the JCRC, said Tisch “has consistently shown up for Jewish New Yorkers facing unprecedented levels of antisemitic attacks and has worked to strengthen community partnerships, which is central to JCRC-NY’s mission to build a more interconnected New York.”

He added, “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.”

Mamdani’s decision to retain Tisch also drew praise from a pair of pro-Israel New York congressmen who did not endorse Mamdani, and are facing primary challenges where support for Israel could be a factor: Dan Goldman and Ritchie Torres.

Some of Mamdani’s most prominent Jewish critics said they support Tisch keeping her job — but that they remained steadfast in their skepticism of the mayor-elect.

“The decision to retain Commissioner Tisch is a welcome sign from the mayor-elect. Her record on public safety is strong, and New Yorkers depend on that stability,” said Jonathan Schulman, founder of the Jewish Majority, the group behind the letter decrying anti-Zionism and Mamdani that garnered more than 1,100 rabbis’ signatures.

But, he continued, “This single appointment doesn’t change the broader reality: Mayor-elect Mamdani’s core ideological commitments remain fundamentally at odds with the values of the overwhelming majority of the Jewish community. The test now is whether Commissioner Tisch will be empowered to do her job fully and impartially. Her mandate to protect every New Yorker, including Jews who have been singled out for supporting Israel’s existence, must be preserved without exception.”

Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch of Stephen Wise Free Synagogue said in an interview that if Mamdani “uses the bully pulpit of the mayoralty to pursue an aggressive, ideologically-drive anti-Zionism,” then there would be greater hostility toward Jews “no matter who is the police commissioner and no matter how many cops are on the street.”

In an interview before the election, Temple Emanu-El’s senior rabbi, Joshua Davidson, who signed the rabbinic letter along with Hirsch, expressed similar sentiments. Davidson said Tisch “has done a wonderful job,” but that Mamdani’s anti-Israel rhetoric would prevent him from feeling more comfortable about Jewish security.

“If we didn’t have that sort of rhetoric in the ether, then we might not need that level of security that we actually need,” Davidson said.

While the appointment of Tisch is seen as a bridge-building move, it remains to be seen what this means for some of Mamdani’s most aggressive policy promises, such as arresting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he enters New York City.

Tisch has not commented on Mamdani’s vow to arrest Netanyahu. But during his recent trip to Tel Aviv, her current boss said he believed Mamdani’s threat would come to naught. “There is no police officer in the city of New York that is going to carry out that directive from the mayor, and he knows that,” Adams told the Forward’s Jacob Kornbluh.

In her year as police commissioner, Tisch has demonstrated some willingness to push back on the mayor’s ideas.

She reportedly stood in the way of Adams’ push to impose aggressive penalties on mask ban offenders at gatherings like protests, which would result in jail time. Sources told the New York Daily News that Tisch “internally questioned how a ban as aggressive as the one pushed by the mayor’s team […] would play out on the streets.” The mayor ultimately dropped his push.

At the center of Mamdani’s public safety platform is the creation of a Department of Community Safety that would address mental health and homelessness. He has also pledged to eliminate the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group, which has been deployed to many of the city’s pro-Palestinian protests and attained a reputation of aggressive behavior.

Tisch has not publicly commented on disbanding the Strategic Response Group and has differed from him on issues like bail reform and whether to scrap an NYPD database of alleged gang members. Some of Mamdani’s supporters expressed skepticism about his retention of Tisch but said that they remain hopeful she will help carry out his agenda.

“I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t really happy about the news that he was going to keep Tisch on for the NYPD,” said activist Linda Sarsour, a Mamdani supporter, on an Instagram live video before the election.

But Sarsour pointed out that the police commissioner is expected to “execute the vision of the mayor,” on issues like disbanding the Strategic Response Group.

“Now if she doesn’t do that and goes against the mayor, that’s when we’re going to have to go to Zohran and be like, ‘You definitely made the wrong decision here. What are you going to do to hold your police commissioner accountable to the plan?’” Sarsour said.

Others on the left have criticized Mamdani’s appointment of Tisch as too great a compromise.

“Sother Mamdani has other options,” wrote journalist Ross Barkanwho ran unsuccessfully for state Senate in 2018 with Mamdani as his campaign manager, before Tisch accepted the invitation to stay on.

Leftist content creator James Rehwald lambasted the decision to keep Tisch, contrasting “Mamdani before” from “Mamdani now.”

“Mamdani before: Let’s fight the billionaires, police, and free Palestine!” he wrote on X. “Mamdani now: I ❤️ Zionist multibillionaire heiress / Eric Adam-appointed NYPD commissioner Jessica Tisch who hates me and whose family directly lobbied against me.”

For supporters eager to see Mamdani enact the full breadth of his ambitious agenda, the move to keep Tisch has prompted questions about how he’ll square their differences. During a live Hell Gate podcastMamdani was asked whether Tisch would follow his lead, even in areas where they disagree.

“I think everyone will follow my lead,” Mamdani replied with a smile. “I’ll be mayor!”