Kassem has faced longstanding criticism from Jewish and pro-Israel organizations over his legal advocacy and activism.
By World Israel News Staff
Zohran Mamdani is set to be sworn in as mayor of New York City just after the ball drops in Times Square on January 1, ushering in an administration already facing sharp scrutiny over a series of controversial personnel decisions.
Hours before his inauguration, Mamdani confirmed the appointment of Ramzi Kassem as chief counsel to the mayor, placing him in the administration’s top legal advisory position at the outset of his term.
Kassem, a law professor at the City University of New York and a member of Mamdani’s transition team for legal affairs, has faced longstanding criticism from Jewish and pro-Israel organizations over his legal advocacy and activism.
He gained national prominence for representing detainees held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, including Ahmed al-Darbi, an al Qaeda terrorist convicted in 2017 for involvement in the bombing of a French oil tanker.
U.S. authorities have identified other former clients as senior or close associates of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
More recently, Kassem has defended radical anti-Israel activists on U.S. campuses, including Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a group that publicly backed Hamas’s “armed resistance” and helped organize illegal encampments calling for boycotts of Israel—protests that sparked widespread concern over antisemitism on campus.
While supporters describe his work as civil-rights lawyering, critics point to his past representation of al Qaeda terrorists and pro-Hamas activists as deeply troubling for a senior municipal post.
BREAKING: Zohran Mamdani named Ramzi Kassem as NYC Chief Counsel.
Kassem says he returned after 9/11 to defend Al Qaeda detainees. He recently defended Mahmoud Khalil, a Syrian terrorist sympathizer flagged for deportation on national security grounds.
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) December 31, 2025
The appointment has added to broader concerns surrounding Mamdani’s transition team, which has already come under fire following a report by the Anti-Defamation League finding that a significant share of appointees have histories of antisemitic rhetoric, anti-Israel extremism, or ties to groups hostile to the Jewish community.
Controversy has also surrounded Mamdani’s inaugural committee. According to a New York Post report, committee appointee Alvaro Lopez, a senior Democratic Socialists of America organizer, praised the public tearing down of Israeli hostage posters in Manhattan in November 2023, writing, “All I see are heroes.”
Lopez has also accused pro-Israel Democratic Congressman Ritchie Torres of having “Palestinian children’s blood on your hands.”
Additional criticism followed Mamdani’s inclusion of Rachel Griffin Accurso, the children’s video educator known as Ms. Rachel, whom watchdog group StopAntisemitism says repeatedly amplified unverified or debunked claims sourced from Hamas or UN-linked organizations.
Actress Cynthia Nixon, a public supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement who has signed petitions calling for boycotts of Israeli cultural institutions, has also been added to Mamdani’s inaugural circle.
Taken together, the appointment of Kassem and the composition of both the transition and inaugural teams have raised growing alarm among New York’s Jewish community, with leaders warning that the incoming administration is signaling a pattern of tolerance for figures and rhetoric widely viewed as hostile to Jewish concerns and Israel.
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