Mamdani revamps hiring after old antisemitic remarks prompt aide to quit

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani said he did not know about the antisemitic posts and would not have hired the woman who made them if he had

By Jeffery C Mays

 

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s transition team said on Friday that it would hire an outside legal team to help vet potential hires, following the abrupt resignation of an appointee over antisemitic social media posts she made more than a decade ago.

 

Mr. Mamdani said at a news conference on Staten Island that he had been unaware of the social media posts by the appointee, Catherine Almonte Da Costa, before the Anti-Defamation League brought them to light on Thursday.

 

Mr. Mamdani had named Ms. Da Costa as his director of appointments, a job in which she would have overseen City Hall hiring, the day before. He said he would not have hired her had he known what she had written.

 

Ms. Da Costa, 33, resigned hours after the Anti-Defamation League called attention to the comments in question, which included calling Jewish people “money hungry” and referring to a subway route as the “Jew train.” 

There are “clear changes that need to be made” to the transition committee’s vetting process and those changes are “underway,” Mr. Mamdani added.

 

“I was not aware of these posts and I would not have hired her,” Mr. Mamdani said at the news conference, where he announced his picks for deputy mayors of housing and economic justice.

 

The vetting of candidates for jobs in the Mamdani administration is being led by an internal team of paid lawyers and members of the transition team, overseen by the executive director, Elana Leopold.

 

An outside firm, which the transition is in the process of hiring and did not identify, will consult with the internal team about potential candidates. The outside firm will also review those who have already been hired, with a special emphasis on the top jobs.

 

“This unacceptable oversight in the vetting process does not meet the mayor-elect’s standards for this transition or the incoming administration,” Dora Pekec, a spokeswoman for Mr. Mamdani, said in a statement. “We’ve taken swift action to bring on an independent firm for additional support.” 

Two weeks away from taking office, Mr. Mamdani has named three deputy mayors, a chief of staff and a budget director and has said he would retain the police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, who has agreed to stay on. Among the key posts still unfilled are schools chancellor and health commissioner.

 

He will become the city’s first Muslim mayor when he is sworn in at midnight on Jan. 1, and has clashed with some Jewish New Yorkers because of his stance on issues like the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state and the Israeli government’s actions in the war in Gaza. New York City has world’s the largest Jewish population outside of Israel.

 

Mr. Mamdani has made efforts to shore up his relationship with the city’s Jewish residents. He has met with various Hasidic sects as well as the New York Board of Rabbis.

 

Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, the senior rabbi of Stephen Wise Free Synagogue and the president of the New York Board of Rabbis, said that while he was grateful that Mr. Mamdani had accepted Ms. Da Costa’s resignation, he was not surprised about the controversy over the social media posts because of the positions Mr. Mamdani and his supporters hold related to Israel.

 

“It was something that should have been expected because the people who are interested in supporting the mayor’s campaign and serving in the administration, that group of people, that bench, is filled with individuals who have a particular and acute animus to the existence of the state of Israel,” Rabbi Hirsch said in an interview. 

Mr. Mamdani said at the news conference that he had not only “a commitment to keeping Jewish New Yorkers safe” but to “celebrating and cherishing Jewish workers in the city.”

 

Lincoln Restler, a Democratic City Council member from Brooklyn who is Jewish, said he had known Ms. Da Costa since they both worked on Mayor Bill de Blasio’s transition team. Mr. Restler said the antisemitic posts, although unacceptable, were made when she was young and should not be used to judge Mr. Mamdani’s commitment to Jewish New Yorkers.

 

“The mayor-elect has worked to build stronger relationships with the Jewish community across the five boroughs,” Mr. Restler said. “And I know he is committed to deepening those ties, strengthening those lines of communication and ensuring the safety and well being of Jewish New Yorkers.”

 

In a statement on Thursday, Ms. Da Costa expressed “deep regret for my past statements.”

 

“These statements are not indicative of who I am,” she continued. “As the mother of Jewish children, I feel a profound sense of sadness and remorse at the harm these words have caused. As this has become a distraction from the work at hand, I have offered my resignation.”

 

Her husband, Ricky M. Da Costa, a deputy city comptroller, defended his wife.

 

“As the Jew who married Cat, I can guarantee she has grown so much since dumb tweets when she was 19,” he wrote on X. “Her remorse, like everything else about her, is deeply genuine & she works so hard for a NYC where everyone is safe.”