Jersey City’s outgoing Jewish mayor signs antisemitism laws as ‘guardrail’ for successor |
JTA — As he leaves office after nearly 13 years, Jersey City’s Jewish mayor Steven Fulop is leaving his successor “guardrails” he hopes will help protect the city’s Jewish community.
Fulop, who has served as Jersey City’s mayor since 2013, signed two executive orders on December 22: one banning the city from participating in efforts to “boycott, divest from, and sanction the State of Israel,” and the other to protect houses of worship and congregants from protest.
Fulop said in an interview that he assigned the orders to ensure that the “next administration doesn’t go in a direction that I think is adverse to some of the communities in Jersey City.”
James Solomon, who is being sworn in on Wednesday after being elected in November, has not publicly commented about Israel or the war in Gaza. But Fulop said he expected Solomon to soon face “pressures from a lot of different people, including the city council.”
New members elected to Jersey City’s city council last month include Jake Ephros and Joel Brooks, who are both members of the Democratic Socialists of America, a leading critic of Israel. Ephros, who is Jewish, has been a vocal pro-Palestinian advocate and co-organized a October 2023 letter titled “Not in Our Name! Jewish Socialists Say No to Apartheid and Genocide,” which compared Israel to Nazi Germany.
“For me, it was important to set Jersey City in a place that, even with a new council coming in, that it was set on a path to protect a large and growing Jewish community in Jersey City so that they do not feel that there’s any discrimination,” Fulop told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Fulop’s executive orders echoed those of former New York City mayor Eric Adams, who also signed executive orders shortly before leaving office banning BDS and regulating protests outside of synagogues, knowing that his successor, Zohran Mamdani, is a staunch critic of Israel.
Mamdani swiftly repealed Adams’........