She has vocally supported Israel, including marching in the city’s most recent Israel Day Parade, and has worked to combat Jew-hatred through efforts such as Holocaust education.

By Andrew Bernard, JNS

The New York City Council unanimously elected councilwoman Julie Menin, a Democrat, as its speaker on Wednesday.

The representative of parts of the Upper East Side is the council’s first Jewish speaker.

She is a moderate Democrat, who has voiced support for Israel, and who could serve as a check on New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has said that he would have Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrested in the city.

Accepting the speakership, Menin credited her upbringing as the child of a Holocaust survivor with instilling her values towards politics.

“The East Side of Manhattan was a community that welcomed my family with open arms, a community that gave them a better life after the horrors that they had been through, and with the beauty of life, brings things full circle,” she said. “I now have the great honor and distinction of representing that neighborhood.”

Menin compared Islamophobia in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks to the “hatred and violence” that are “running rampant across our country and around the world.”

“We live in a day when the first Muslim mayor of New York City and now the first Jewish speaker of the council are serving at the same time,” she said.

“What will write this interfaith leadership into the history books is if it can act as an opportunity for all of us to come together, to calm tensions, to bridge divides and to recognize we are one city, no matter the religion we practice or the language we speak,” she said.

Menin secured 51 votes for her speakership with no opposition.

She has vocally supported Israel, including marching in the city’s most recent Israel Day Parade, and has worked to combat Jew-hatred through efforts like Holocaust education.

In interviews leading up to the speaker vote, Menin said that she would seek common ground with Mamdani, who has emerged as one of the most strident opponents of the Jewish state among major American elected officials and who withdrew all of his predecessor’s executive orders relating to fighting antisemitism on his first day in office.

“I was extremely concerned about the repeal of the executive orders and other matters, and I expressed my concerns to the mayor directly about that,” Menin told the New York Post on Saturday after a phone call with the mayor.

“He indicated that he had issued a new executive order, which continues the Office to Combat Antisemitism and that also directs the police commissioner to look at protests around houses of worship,” she told the paper.

“What I’m focused on with the council is what the council can do to ensure that we are protecting New Yorkers,” she added in the interview.

Several Jewish members of the council applauded Menin as the first Jewish speaker during the vote on Wednesday.

“At a time when antisemitism has entered every corner of our society, it is especially heartening to see Julie Menin, a daughter of Holocaust survivors and an important voice against antisemitism, to be sworn in as our first Jewish speaker today,” said Inna Vernikov, one of five Republicans on the council.

“This body must be a check on the mayor’s radical, Marxist agenda,” Vernikov said, of the council.

Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis, who gave the invocation before the vote, described how Menin’s name also has a biological meaning.

“In medical terms, the word ‘menin’ is a protein that suppresses disease,” he said.

“We need more Menin to stop the spread of this disease of hatred of the other, whoever the other may be,” Potasnik said. “As Cardinal Dolan said to me recently, antisemitism is anti-Christianity is anti-Islam, and you can reverse that equation any way you want.”

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Sources tell the New York Post that several members of Mamdani’s camp had scrambled to push city lawmakers to vote for Hudson but were unable to overcome Menin’s cross-borough coalition.

By Aaron Sull, Jewish Breaking News

Jewish Manhattan Councilwoman Julie Menin is poised to take the speaker’s gavel with a broad coalition of moderates and Republicans, setting up the first real check on Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s progressive agenda.

The Council speakership is one of the city’s most powerful positions, functioning as an independent branch of government responsible for legislation, oversight, and control over key portions of the city’s $116 billion budget.

Although a formal vote won’t take place until January, Menin announced Wednesday that she has already secured a “super majority” of 36 pledges.

“I am honored and humbled by the trust and faith that my colleagues have put in me to lead the City Council as a force of action for New York families,” she said.

Her rival Brooklyn Councilwoman Crystal Hudson quickly signaled defeat as the tally became clear.

“I have always said this should be a member driven process; and today, my colleagues have made their choice clear,” Hudson said in a statement.

Sources tell the New York Post that several members of Mamdani’s camp had scrambled to push city lawmakers to vote for Hudson but were unable to overcome Menin’s cross-borough coalition.

Menin, who represents the Upper East Side and is known for her work combating antisemitism and promoting Holocaust education, would become the first Jewish speaker in the Council’s history.

Her personal story—including her mother’s and grandmother’s survival of the Holocaust—has long informed her public advocacy on Jewish issues, including support for the Israel Day Parade and a solidarity trip to Kfar Azza earlier this year.

Mamdani’s record of supporting the BDS movement and his past anti-Israel rhetoric have fueled concerns among Jewish voters—especially in Menin’s district, where resistance to his candidacy ran high.

Those fears sharpened last week when pro-Hamas demonstrators disrupted an Israeli immigration event at the Park East Synagogue.

While Mamdani criticized the synagogue for hosting an event he claimed violated “international law,” Menin condemned the protest as “not acceptable,” stressing that worshippers must be able to enter and exit their synagogue freely.

Even so, Menin says she is willing to work with the incoming Muslim mayor.

“With this broad five-borough coalition, we stand ready to partner with mayor-elect Mamdani’s administration,” she stated.

“We will deliver on a shared agenda that makes New York more affordable through universal childcare, lowers rent and healthcare costs, and ensures that families across the city can do more than just get by.”

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