On His First Day in Office, Mayor Mamdani Scrapped the IHRA Definition of Anti-Semitisim and Triggered a Free Speech Firestorm
Day One: Mayor Mamdani Overturns New York’s IHRA Policy, Putting Free Speech Back on the Table
Before You Read
If you care about civil liberties, free speech, and how vague “definitions” quietly become enforcement tools, this reporting matters.
Independent, document-driven journalism takes time and legal care. If you value work that separates law from outrage and evidence from propaganda, consider subscribing to support continued investigations.
On his first day in office, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani moved to scrap the city’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism. Within hours, Israel’s Foreign Ministry accused him of lighting “antisemitic gasoline on an open fire.” Conservative media figures followed suit, warning that New York had just sanctioned hate.
The outrage was loud. The legal substance was missing.
Because the IHRA definition is not law, it was never enacted through binding legislative procedure in the United States, and has repeatedly been criticized by civil liberties groups for its vagueness and chilling effect on protected speech.
This is not a culture-war story. It is a governance story.
What the IHRA Definition Actually Is
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance is an intergovernmental organization, not a legislative body. Its “working definition of antisemitism” was adopted as a non-binding guidance document, accompanied by illustrative examples that explicitly blur the line between hatred of Jewish people and political speech about the state of Israel.¹
Those examples are the problem.
They are not statutory. They are not judicially tested. They are not constrained by constitutional safeguards. Yet in practice, they have been used by governments, universities, and agencies to discipline speech, cancel events, deny funding, and investigate political activity that would otherwise fall squarely under First Amendment protection.
Even the IHRA itself states that the definition is “non-legally binding.”²
That caveat is often omitted when the definition is wielded as an enforcement tool.
Why Blind Adoption in New York Would Be Legally Reckless
In the United States, boycotts are protected speech. The Supreme Court affirmed this clearly in NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co.³ Political advocacy targeting states, governments, and institutions is core First Amendment activity.
Yet the IHRA examples repeatedly frame certain forms of boycott advocacy and criticism of Israel as presumptively antisemitic, without requiring intent, animus, or discriminatory conduct.
That creates a constitutional collision.
New York City does not have the authority to enforce vague, foreign-drafted standards that contradict settled U.S. free-speech doctrine. Doing so would expose the city to immediate litigation and more importantly, would place the government in the role of adjudicating political opinion.
That is precisely what the First Amendment forbids.
The UK’s Mistake Is Not New York’s Obligation
Defenders of the IHRA often point to its adoption in the United Kingdom as proof of legitimacy. That argument collapses under scrutiny.
The IHRA definition was adopted in the UK through executive acceptance, not through comprehensive parliamentary debate establishing clear enforcement limits. Since then, it has been cited in disciplinary actions later criticized or reversed, and has drawn sustained opposition from British academics, legal scholars, and Jewish organizations who warn it conflates antisemitism with political dissent.⁴
Importing that model into New York, without statutory guardrails or constitutional reconciliation, would be governance malpractice.
Why This Is a Free Speech Issue, Not a Moral One
Antisemitism is real. It is rising. It must be confronted directly and aggressively.
But diluting the term by attaching it to protected political speech does not combat antisemitism. It weakens it.
As civil liberties groups have warned for years, weaponizing antisemitism accusations against speech about Israel cheapens the concept and undermines efforts to address genuine hatred and violence.⁵
When definitions become elastic, enforcement becomes political.
That is the danger Mamdani moved to avoid.
READ THE IHRA DEFINITION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES FOR ANTI-SEMITISM HERE:
🔗 READ NOW
The Pattern Readers Should Recognize
This is not an isolated fight. It mirrors a broader trend you’ve seen in prior Allen Analysis reporting: non-binding frameworks quietly transformed into disciplinary regimes, enforced through reputational pressure rather than law.
Readers familiar with our previous investigations into political branding and speech constraints will recognize the pattern, including our earlier reporting on how moral language is leveraged to suppress dissent under the guise of “safety” and “order.”
(See: Vivek Ramaswamy Didn’t Just Hype a Company — He Built a Narrative Machine and Inside the Kriya Therapeutics Money Pipeline.)
Different subject, same tactic.
RELATED ARTICLES:
Vivek Ramaswamy Didn’t Just Hype a Drug, He Perfected the Exit
·This article is part of AllenAnalysis’s ongoing examination of how capital, politics, and regulatory opacity intersect in American biotech and venture finance.
The Bottom Line
Rejecting the IHRA definition is not antisemitic.
It is legally correct.
New York can and should combat antisemitism through clear laws targeting discrimination, harassment, and violence, not through vague examples that collapse political speech into hate by implication.
Free societies do not outsource their speech rules to foreign bodies. They write their own, bound by constitutional limits.
That is what happened here.
What Comes Next
Expect pressure campaigns. Expect moral framing. Expect attempts to relabel this as extremism.
And expect the legal arguments to quietly disappear from the conversation.
They shouldn’t.
Footnotes
International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, Working Definition of Antisemitism (2016).
IHRA, “Non-Legally Binding Nature of the Working Definition,” official guidance notes.
NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U.S. 886 (1982).
UK Lawyers for Israel, Academic critiques and university policy disputes, 2019–2023.
American Civil Liberties Union, statements opposing adoption of vague antisemitism definitions that chill speech.
I am LOVING following your coverage recently. Your hard work is appreciated. Hoping to be able to financially support soon because this is important work!