Mamdani appoints anti-Israel NYC’s chief counsel
Mamdani appoints lawyer who coached anti-Israel protesters as NYC’s chief counsel
TheTimesofIsrael • January 1, 2026 ~ Le Monde
NEW YORK — New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday appointed Ramzi Kassem, a prominent lawyer who has supported anti-Israel protest groups, as the city’s next chief counsel.
Kassem has provided legal guidance to anti-Zionist protesters, coached some of the leading activists in the city, and represented the Columbia University protester Mahmoud Khalil and a terrorist imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay.
The Office of the Chief Counsel acts as City Hall’s in-house legal team, providing legal guidance to the mayor and other officials on compliance, ethics, legislation and policy. The chief counsel, seen as one of the leading advisory roles in City Hall, also oversees some city agencies.
New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday appointed Ramzi Kassem, a prominent lawyer who has supported anti-Israel protest groups, as the city’s next chief counsel.
Kassem has provided legal guidance to anti-Zionist protesters, coached some of the leading activists in the city, and represented the Columbia University protester Mahmoud Khalil and a terrorist imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay.
The Office of the Chief Counsel acts as City Hall’s in-house legal team, providing legal guidance to the mayor and other officials on compliance, ethics, legislation and policy. The chief counsel, seen as one of the leading advisory roles in City Hall, also oversees some city agencies.
“I grew up in war-torn countries in the Middle East, authoritarian regimes, and New York City was really my first stable and permanent home, and this is an opportunity for me to repay that debt,” Kassem said at a Tuesday event where Mamdani announced his appointment. Kassem was born in Lebanon and lived in several Middle Eastern countries before moving to the US for college and acquiring citizenship.
Kassem is a professor at the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law and the founder of Creating Law Enforcement Accountability and Responsibility (CLEAR), a legal nonprofit at the law school.
CLEAR aims to represent and advise clients against “government policies and practices deployed under the guise of ‘national security’ and ‘counterterrorism,’” its website says. The group’s services include advice for handling questioning by the NYPD.
The nonprofit provides free legal advice to some of the city’s most hardline anti-Zionist activists, such as Within Our Lifetime, a group that routinely calls for Israel’s destruction and has held disruptive protests against targets including cancer patients, libraries, and museums.
“No matter what situation you find yourself in, do not answer questions from the police,” Kassem told the activists at a legal rights briefing ahead of protests marking the first anniversary of the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel, according to footage recorded by researcher Stu Smith.
CUNY Law has been a hotbed of anti-Israel activism. Two of Within Our Lifetime’s leaders, Nerdeen Kiswani and Fatima Mohammed, are graduates of the law school and CLEAR alumni. The two activists gave inflammatory anti-Israel graduation speeches at the law school’s graduation ceremonies in 2022 and 2023. Mohammed’s 2023 speech set off a national uproar.
Kiswani is critical of Mamdani but applauded his appointment of Kassem.
Within Our Lifetime and the Columbia University anti-Zionist protest coalition, which is not recognized by the university, have worked together and have both instructed followers to contact CLEAR for legal assistance.
Announcing the appointment, Mamdani said CLEAR “has been on the front lines of providing legal defense for students detained by ICE and supporting many more at risk.”
Kassem represented Columbia’s Khalil in his battle against deportation after his arrest by the Trump administration, as well as another student activist, Yunseo Chung, who sued the Trump administration earlier this year against her deportation.
In 2018, Kassem was a volunteer lawyer for Ahmed Muhammed Haza al-Darbi, who was detained at Guantanamo Bay after pleading guilty to terrorism in a 2002 al-Qaeda attack on an oil tanker near Yemen.
Kassem is an alum of Columbia who wrote articles for the campus newspaper in the late 1990s and early 2000s that attacked Zionism, protested an “Israeli wrap” at a campus dining hall, and opposed the two-state solution.
From 2022 to 2024, Kassem served as a senior policy adviser at the Biden White House.
On Tuesday, CUNY Law responded to a Times of Israel Freedom of Information Law request filed two years ago. The request sought emails on CUNY Law leadership’s handling of the anti-Israel commencement speeches and the college’s response to the October 7 attack on Israel. In the documents provided by the law school, including dozens of emails sent to Kassem, the contents of the administrators’ emails are almost entirely redacted.
Jewish teachers’ advocate applauds Mamdani’s chancellor pick
Mamdani’s appointees are a mix of veteran political operatives, centrist public servants such as NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, and members of the far left like Kassem.
Mamdani is expected to announce Kamar Samuels as the chancellor of the city’s public school system, a key position. Samuels is a veteran educator who serves as the superintendent of Manhattan’s District 3 on the Upper West Side.
Moshe Spern, a Jewish educator and activist with the United Jewish Teachers advocacy group, backed Samuels as chancellor.
“He’s a good guy, he’s been a good superintendent, he’s done a lot of good things. I’m going to be positive on this one. There’s a lot of room to be negative on everything else,” Spern said.
Spern added that, around two years ago, he sat in on a Zoom call Samuels hosted that was focused on Jewish issues.
“It wasn’t super pro-Israel, but it wasn’t anything negative or bad. It was pretty solid,” Spern said.
“I’ll reserve the right to criticize him when they do something wrong, but for the time being, I think this is a good appointment,” he said.
Mamdani has focused his policy proposals on affordability in housing, transportation and child care. He has been less vocal about his plans for the school system.
Mamdani has said he supports Hidden Voices, a curriculum program on minority groups, including Jews, as a way to combat antisemitism.
He has also opposed cutting funding to yeshivas that are out of compliance with state education standards, a priority for some Hasidic groups.
Mamdani takes office with the start of the new year.
Joel
A Prophecy of Esau and Jacob 