Long shot for NYC mayor would track antisemitism using ADL map

Former Comptroller Scott Stringer says the tool will help law enforcement act against threats “before tragedy strikes.”

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Former New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, a long-shot Jewish candidate in the crowded Democratic mayoral primaries, said on Saturday that if elected, he would use an interactive map produced by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to push back against Jew hatred.

Speaking to a religious Jewish audience in a Manhattan synagogue, Stringer said that he would adopt the ADL’s H.E.A.T. (Hate, Extremism, Antisemitism, Terrorism) Map, an interactive tool that provides monthly updates on all four types of criminal incidents, broken down by city and state.

In New York City, the information is further broken down by borough.

Stringer said that the tool would not be used in a Big Brother fashion, “setting up databases… of people who don’t agree with us.”

“It would flag content that incites violence or signals coordinated threats,” Stringer noted, and “provide the tools for law enforcement, community leaders, and institutions like this one to act before tragedy strikes.”

“Jewish schools, synagogues, and cultural centers face waves of threats,” he added. “Our families – whether it’s young children at school or elders walking in or out of shul, are in the crosshairs.”

The ADL says its 2018 tracker, which uses open-source information including victim testimony, police reports and its own Center on Extremism investigations, will help people “better understand tactics extremists use,” by providing such detailed data.

Although Jews are only 10% of the population of NYC, they were the victims of over 62% of the hate crimes reported in the first quarter of 2025, reflecting the huge surge in antisemitism in the state and entire country over the last two years, after the Hamas-led invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023.

Unlike Mayor Eric Adams, who announced earlier this month that he was creating a new Office to Combat Antisemitism, Stringer said his initiative would be folded into the New York Police Department and the municipal Office of Emergency Management.

Stringer is considered a political progressive, but he has moved more towards the center in these elections, especially on Israel.

In his last run for mayor in 2021, he had had some support from the extreme leftist Democratic Socialists of America, who boast such leaders as US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, a prominent member of the vehemently anti-Israel “Squad” in the Democratic party.

After the party celebrated the Hamas terrorists’ massacre of 1,200 people and abduction of 251 Israelis and foreign nationals 20 months ago, he called them “antisemitic idiots” and said he had to “build my new coalition.”

He criticized the anti-Israel encampments and protests on university campuses, and promised in a November interview with the Forward newspaper that he would have a “zero-tolerance approach” to all forms of hate.

“When that protest turns into a riot targeting individuals, that’s when you have to say, enough is enough,” he told the Jewish paper.

According to a report last week in The New York Post, the founder of the Guardian Angels crime prevention organization Curtis Sliwa, the presumptive Republican mayoral nominee, has a war chest that does not even contain $200,000, so the victor of the Democratic primary is the likely next mayor of New York, unless Adams pulls out the win, running this time as an independent to avoid the Democratic primaries.

In those primaries, set to take place June 24, Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani, who is vehemently anti-Israel, is currently polling second to ex-New York governor Andrew Cuomo, a strong supporter of the Jewish state.

They are far ahead of any of the other contenders in the race.