New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani (D.) is under fire for snubbing Jews from an influential judicial advisory panel and blocking the nomination of a former judge, who is Jewish, because he once represented Ghislaine Maxwell. But Mamdani tapped a left-wing attorney who has represented multiple convicted cop-killers—including two black nationalists who murdered two New York City police officers—to serve on the committee, the Washington Free Beacon found.
Mamdani selected Soffiyah Elijah, founder of the Alliance of Families for Justice, to serve on the 18-member panel, which recommends judicial candidates to “help ensure that our judicial system reflects the city it serves.” Over the course of her legal career, Elijah has represented, befriended, and advocated for a slew of convicted cop-killers, including Sundiata Acoli, Marilyn Buck, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and members of the San Francisco 8, all of whom were convicted of murdering police officers, armed robbery, or terrorism-related offenses.
Elijah has described many of her clients as “political prisoners” and has called for the “repressive racist criminal injustice system” to be “radically changed.”
Her appointment comes as Mamdani faces backlash for appointing no Jewish members to the advisory panel, which evaluates judge candidates for the city’s criminal courts.
A Jewish lawyers’ organization said it was “deeply disappointed” by the absence of Jewish representation on the panel in a city where roughly 10 percent of residents are Jewish. In a letter to Mamdani, the group said the decision follows “a troubling pattern” amid rising concerns about antisemitism. The letter also criticized Mamdani’s rejection of former appellate judge John Leventhal, who had been recommended for the panel.
According to a Mamdani spokesman, Leventhal was rebuffed because he represented Maxwell, an accomplice to Jeffrey Epstein, on an appellate issue related to her sex-trafficking case.
Reached by phone, Leventhal called the decision “hypocritical” and questioned whether his Jewish identity played a role.
“It’s hypocritical to pick on the Maxwell case when people have other unpopular clients,” Leventhal told the Free Beacon. “The fact that I’m Jewish, it has a stink about it.”
Leventhal, who helped establish the nation’s first felony domestic violence court, said he does not fault attorneys for representing controversial clients, arguing that doing so is a fundamental part of criminal defense work. “To single me out because of Maxwell, if it’s not a pretense, it’s hypocritical,” he said.
“If not me, why not another Jew?” Leventhal asked.
Mamdani’s chief counsel, Ramzi Kassem, who will oversee the advisory committee, has also represented controversial clients, including several al Qaeda detainees. Kassem is also the boyfriend of Darializa Avila-Chevalier, the socialist activist who is now a Democratic nominee for the congressional district covering Harlem and a swath of the Bronx.
Elijah spent decades representing Sundiata Acoli, a Black Liberation Army member convicted of murdering New Jersey state trooper Werner Foerster in 1973. She also represented Marilyn Buck, a Weather Underground member convicted in connection with the 1981 Brink’s armored truck robbery that left a New York police officer and two others dead. Elijah successfully advocated for the release of both Acoli and Buck, and Buck lived with Elijah until her death.
She also represented members of the San Francisco 8, former Black Panthers charged in connection with the 1971 killing of San Francisco police sergeant John Young. Two of her clients, Jalil Muntaqim and Herman Bell, were separately convicted of murdering two New York City police officers in 1971.
Beyond her legal work, Elijah has maintained close relationships with several former clients. Mumia Abu-Jamal, the former Black Panther convicted of murdering Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner, praised Elijah in a 2016 video message as a “freedom fighter in the law.”
“She laughs when I tell her I thought she was a Jewish woman years ago,” Abu-Jamal said in the message.
Elijah’s public views on the criminal justice system have also drawn attention. In a 2006 filing on behalf of Abu-Jamal, she argued that the trial judge should have recused himself because of his membership in the Fraternal Order of Police, claiming it created an appearance of bias. In a 2020 essay, she wrote of wanting “a world where punishment is not society’s default response to wrongdoing.”
She has also written sympathetically about individuals she considers “political prisoners.” In one essay, Elijah criticized the 150-year sentence given to Donald Taylor, a member of the De Mau Mau group, whose members were convicted in a racially motivated killing spree in Chicago in 1972 that included the murder of a family of four.
Elijah’s nonprofit, the Alliance of Families for Justice, has also included several former leaders of Weather Underground. Kathy Boudin, convicted in the Brink’s robbery, served as a founding board member of the alliance, while Susan Rosenberg, who was convicted in connection with terrorism-related crimes, serves on the organization’s board.
Mamdani’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
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