Half of New York Lawyers are Jews, But Mamdani Judicial Panel of 18 Includes No Jewish Lawyers

If you needed evidence that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is an anti-semite, this is it.

The Mayor's newly appointed Mayor's Advisory Committee on the Judiciary has drawn sharp criticism after it was revealed that none of its roughly 18 members are Jewish, despite the historically high representation of Jewish attorneys in the city's legal profession.

The panel screens and recommends candidates for judgeships in New York City courts. Jewish bar associations, including the Brandeis Association of Queens, the New York County Jewish Lawyers Guild, the Brooklyn Brandeis Society, and the Bronx County Jewish Bar Association, sent a letter to the mayor expressing deep disappointment. They described the omission as neither reflective nor inclusive of the city's demographics and part of a broader pattern that has left many Jewish New Yorkers feeling marginalized.

Estimates place Jewish lawyers at roughly 35 to 50 percent of New York's bar. Jews make up about 10 to 12 percent of the city's population, yet no Jewish attorneys, former judges, or legal professionals appear among the current panelists-the first such complete absence reported since the committee's establishment decades ago.

Ken Shapiro, a lawyer who posted about the issue on X, stated: "I am a lawyer by profession. Jewish lawyers in NY are common as 50% of all lawyers in NY are in fact Jewish. The NYC judicial panel advises who should be a judge. Mamdani failed to include a single Jewish lawyer. The statistical odds are .55 to the 18th power that this is random."

Mamdani's administration has rejected claims of religious motivation. A spokesperson said the mayor has appointed Jewish judges among roughly a dozen selections so far and that the advisory committee's composition was based on merit. Officials specifically noted that one Jewish candidate, retired Appellate Division Justice John Leventhal, was not advanced after the administration learned he had previously worked on Ghislaine Maxwell's legal team.

City Hall has described the panel as a "truly representative cross-section" of the legal profession. Critics argue the absence of any Jewish members undermines that claim in a city with the largest Jewish population in the United States and a legal community in which Jewish lawyers have long been prominent.