At CAM’s 2025 North American Mayors Summit Against Antisemitism, Mayor Eric Adams gave a powerful speech asking people to stop “outrunning the lion” of hate and instead work together to remove it from our communities. He said that while many groups face hate and injustice, this moment is focused on fighting antisemitism, especially in New York City where Jews are a small part of the population but suffer more than half of all hate crimes. Adams urged everyone—teachers, faith leaders, and community organizations—to “play their position” by pushing back against antisemitism, misinformation, and the radicalization of young people. He announced an executive order against BDS and confirmed that New York City will keep investing pension funds in Israeli companies. Adams also reminded people of the long history of Jewish support for Black civil rights and called on Jewish communities to stand proudly and openly as Jews. He ended by saying he is willing to “leave everything on the ice” in the fight against hate and asked everyone to “lace up their skates” and join him.
Transcript: Mayor Adams Delivers Remarks at CAM’s 2025 North American Mayors Summit Against Antisemitism Closing Gala Dinner
Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you so much, mayor. Throughout this afternoon, you shared something that resonated with me, and I’m hoping people didn’t miss it. A good friend of mine, Rabbi Potasnik, told me a joke about two lions. Two hunters in a jungle, hunting for big game, they came up against a lion. One hunter looked at the other and said, “Let’s run, let’s get out of here.” The other hunter replied, “What’s wrong with you, we can’t outrun a lion.” The hunter replied, “I don’t have to outrun the lion, I have to outrun you.”
And when Rabbi Potasnik told me the story, I laughed, and he had this look on his face. He said, “That’s the problem. We’re trying to outrun each other.” Yes, the lion of foreclosure took your home, but I have my home, I outran that lion. The lion of crime may have taken your child, but I outran that lion. The lion of poverty, the lion of domestic violence, the lion of hatred. As long as I outrun that lion, I’m alright.
But what the hunter did not understand is, that if you don’t take the lion out of the jungle after he devours one hunter, he’s going to devour you. You were so right. The goal is not to outrun each other. The goal is to remove the lion of hatred from our community. That’s the goal.
If you go back to what Lyndon B. Johnson did in 1964 when he signed the Civil Rights Act, there were Jewish brothers and sisters that didn’t say, “Well, that had nothing to do with me.” When you look in 2013 and the Black Lives Matter movement took place after we saw the devastation, murder of a young man in Florida, and people used to say to Black folks who said Black lives matter, they said, well, all lives matter. Well, right now we’re not talking about all lives, we’re talking about Black lives.
And so, when we come to a conference and talk about combating antisemitism, don’t start telling me about other issues. Right now, we’re talking about antisemitism. And talking about a specific incident during a time does not dismiss the other incidents. Yes, we know we have other issues, but right now the focus is on antisemitism. That’s what it’s on.
And we can engage in other conversations. I’m going to continue to lift up my Asian brothers and sisters that are dealing with Asian violence. I’m going to continue to lift up the overproliferation of abuse in young African American males and the incarceration of them. I’m going to continue to lift up what’s happening with men and women of the LGBTQ+ community. We’re going to continue to do that.
But right now we’re in this stadium talking about antisemitism. And we need to be focused on what is happening, particularly in New York City, where you have a numerical minority of the community from the Jewish community and over 50 percent of the victims are Jewish people of hate crimes. That’s a real issue. And what we must focus on is to be laser focused on that. Because when we marry talking about this issue and bridging it with the other issues that we’re facing, we will raise the standard of who we are as human beings.
But how do we do it? That’s why I grabbed the football. This is a team sport, folks. If I’m the quarterback, you should not be the running back standing behind the center. Get your ass out of the way. Each player, play your position. We all got to play our positions.
If you are a teacher, you need to be in our public school system pushing back on the radicalization of our young people who not only hate Israel, they hate America because they were taught to hate America. That’s what we saw on the Columbia campus when the protests took place. We saw flyers that said hatred for Israel and hatred for America. Now, I don’t know who’s in this room, but I think you are Americans, right?
So, my educators must play their role. My faith-based leaders, play your position. You’re not the mayor. Be the rabbi, be the preacher, be the monk, be a Sikh leader. Play your position. And to my organizations, play your positions. Play your roles. And stand outside your comfort zones. Because if all we do all the time is speak to the same people, the choir heard the song, folks. It’s time to sing to those who are singing off-key so they can learn the lyrics and chorus of ending hate in our city and in our country.
And then let’s be honest with ourselves. Folks have been hating Jews for a long time. Our Jewish brothers and sisters have been fleeing and running from the days of Moses to when Columbus left Spain and Jews had to get out because of the edict, to being in Rome and watching the Jewish quarter. You can go over and over and over again to see how Jewish people have fled and ran from particular places.
And I’m saying to my Jewish brothers and sisters, your legacy in this generation is to say we run no more. We stand and fight. We don’t live in fear hoping that it goes away. We don’t allow certain groups to take to the streets and determine that you should be eradicated. And you’re sitting back contemplating what block you take off your yarmulke or what morning you remove your star of David. If you want to win this fight, then you need to stand up, stand firm, and say, “I am Jewish and there’s not a darn thing you can do about it.”
And you need to be strong in your faith and your belief. And people should see it in your presence and in your posture and in your stance. And that’s what we must do as a team. And then you need to lift up those who stand with you and let them know you support them. Because many of these mayors in this room will lose their races because they’re standing tall with you and not with the numerical loud minority that have hijacked the narrative.
They will be targeted, they will be focused, and they will go after them one at a time. That’s the hate that has swept our entire country and globe. You are being targeted. And we have to be as intelligent and as focused, as strategic as possible. That’s why we put the IHRA definition in place in New York City.
That’s why I am signing an executive order today to deal with BDS so we can stop the madness that we should not invest in Israel. That is why we’re going to sign an executive order stating that our pension funds will invest in Israeli companies because we’re getting a high return on our investment because they’re doing the right thing.
But Israel and Jews must tell their story. When I talk about ending antisemitism, you know what I talk about to that young African American man that’s in Brownsville? I tell him about the device that was discovered in Israel that helped his mother deal with a medical condition that she’s facing.
When I talk about ending hatred, you go look at who has the highest number of Nobel Peace Prize winners. Go look at the technology that’s coming out of Israel today because of the partnership that we have with New York City and Israel that is saving the lives of people from communities across the globe.
So, when you eradicate Israel and when you put them on an island and don’t allow their companies to go to trade shows and don’t allow their companies to participate in innovation, it is impacting us directly because it impacts us every day and the health and welfare of our communities. That’s what we have to do today. Don’t just talk about stopping antisemitism because it stops attacks on Jewish people. Stop antisemitism because we are all connected together and we’re all involved in this together.
I was sitting in a restaurant, as I conclude. It must have been October 10th. I’m sitting down at the table having a meal and a young African American woman walked in with a Howard University shirt on. She looked at me and said, “You’re one of those Zionist lovers. We know what you’re about. I just came from the march. We know what you are about.”
And while she’s saying that, I’m on my phone. I’m Googling Howard University. And I handed her my phone. And she looked at the founder of Howard University, Julius Rosenwald. And I told her, “Read on.” And she read on and she looked at the fact that almost 40 percent of the children in the Deep South were educated in schools that he opened, a Jewish philanthropist.
When segregation was the norm in the Deep South, he was opening schools so Black and Brown children could go to school and become teachers and educators to go into the Black and Brown communities and deal with segregation. And I said, “Read on.” And she saw how he was one of the original co-founders of the NAACP.
And I said, let’s go talk about the two Jewish young men who were down in Mississippi and lost their lives. But let’s not stop there. Let’s talk about when young white students went to the Deep South, 51 percent of them were Jewish, putting their lives on the line. And so yes, call me a Zionist. But what you can’t call me is mis-educated. And if you are going to denounce what gave birth to the college that you’re in right now, then they’re not educating you.
So, the next time you go in the street to celebrate October 7th, buy a plane ticket and go see what happened there. The next time you believe that you should eradicate from the river to the sea, first know where on the map you’re talking about. The next time you want to align yourself with groups who are proliferating hatred and talking about genocide, go look at what’s happening in Sudan and the thousands of lives that are being lost.
Lift up your educational understanding so you can properly fight a fight on the right side of the issue. That’s where we are missing this. They have indoctrinated and radicalized our children in the social media generation that is taking them down the road of devastation, of not knowing who their allies and brothers and sisters have historically been.
And you’re right, mayor. You are our cousins. You marched with us for Dr. King. You committed and volunteered your lives throughout the generations to stand side by side. But now your story can no longer be a tree that falls in a forest where no one hears a sound. It’s time for you to tell your story. Because if you don’t tell your story, people will distort your story.
So, I’m going to play my position. I may not be the best at it, but I’m going to do everything possible. We had a hockey player called Wayne Gretzky. They called him the ‘Great One.’ I loved his story. Wayne lost his first Stanley Cup. That’s a championship for hockey players. And he went into his locker room and all his teammates were pointing the finger at each other. “Who missed the puck? Who didn’t do their job?”
And then Wayne, being the gentleman that he is, walked down the hall to the opposing team’s locker room. It was quiet. He thought they went home. He peeked his head inside. They were laid out on the benches, bloody and bruised. They left everything they had on the ice. He knew then, that’s how you win.
And I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. But I’m going to fight hate. And I’m going to be battered, I’m going to be bruised. I’m going to leave everything I have on the ice. And all I’m asking all of you, lace up your skates and get on this ice with me. And let’s win.
December 3, 2025 Manhattan, New York
Sources: NYC.gov , Big New York news BigNY.com
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