Following Zohran Mamdani's inauguration as New York City mayor on Jan. 1, 2026, people on social media — many of them critics of Mamdani and the policies on which he campaigned — claimed the new mayor's first actions as leader of the largest city in the United States
Posts (archived) on social media platforms such as Instagram (archived) and X (archived) asserted that Mamdani revoked the city's adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of antisemitism and overturned an executive order targeting Boycott, Divest, Sanctions actions meant to protest Israel's policies regarding Palestinians and their land. (The IHRA is an intergovernmental organization "focused on addressing contemporary challenges related to the Holocaust and genocide of the Roma.")
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Mamdani's first executive order as New York City mayor was to immediately revoke all ongoing, non-emergency executive orders issued by former Mayor Eric Adams since Sept. 26, 2024 — the date on which Adams was indicted on federal bribery charges. That criteria included an executive order codifying the IHRA's definition of antisemitism and one that prohibited city employees from boycotting and disinvesting from Israel.
For this reason, we are rating this claim as true. However, it's important to note that Mamdani revoked these orders as part of a wider set of Adams-era orders based on their date, rather than content or policy.
For example, Adams issued his last executive order on Dec. 31, 2025. That order required licensed carriage horse owners to submit to regular examinations of their horses at penalty of having their licenses revoked. Based on its date, Mamdani's Day 1 order revoked this order as well, even though Mamdani publicly expressed support for similar policy a day prior to Adams issuing the order.
Snopes has reached out to Mamdani's office to confirm the specific set of executive orders revoked by Mamdani's first order. We will update this story if we receive a reply.
Among the pair of Adams-era executive orders the social media posts highlighted, the first codified the IHRA's non-legally binding definition of antisemitism, which some people have criticized for its focus on the state of Israel rather than Jewish people in general
The other order, concerning BDS, prohibited "mayoral agency heads, agency chief contracting officers, and any other mayoral appointees with discretion over contracting from engaging in procurement practices that discriminate against the State of Israel, Israeli citizens, or those associated with Israel." Adams signed that order on Dec. 2, the same day as an executive order directing the New York Police Department to consider proposals that included not allowing protests within 15 to 60 feet of any house of worship.
In May 2025, Adams created the Mayor's Office to Combat Antisemitism. That fell within the time period of the revoked executive orders, but Mamdani's second executive order, which established offices in Mamdani's administration, included the reestablishment of the Mayor's Office to Combat Antisemitism.
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