NY lawmakers reintroduce Mamdani bill targeting nonprofits linked to settlements

Mayor backs new ‘Not on our Dime’ legislation, which will likely further strain ties between mainstream Jewish groups and City Hall

NEW YORK — Leftist lawmakers in the New York State government on Friday announced a bill targeting nonprofits linked to settlements, resurrecting a previous failed legislative effort by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Mamdani first introduced the so-called Not on our Dime legislation in 2023 while he was a state assemblymember, before becoming mayor.

Jewish groups opposed that bill because they said it would have punished charities that operate in settlements, but do not advance settlement activity, such as volunteer ambulances, and would have effectively stripped nonprofit status from a swath of Jewish organizations.

The far left has made inroads in New York since then, and Democrats have increasingly turned against Israel.

The bill, and Mamdani’s support for the effort, will likely further strain ties between mainstream Jewish organizations and the mayor and energize the anti-Zionist movement in New York.

With the new bill announced during the Shavuot holiday, there was no immediate response from Jewish groups.

The new legislation, also called Not on our Dime, is led by representatives Diana Moreno in the State Assembly and Jabari Brisport in the State Senate.

Moreno is a democratic socialist like Mamdani and represents Mamdani’s former district in Queens, and Brisport is a leftist ally of the mayor who, alongside him, sponsored the previous attempt to pass the legislation.

Moreno said in a statement that the new bill will “bar New York nonprofits from funding Israeli war crimes.”

“New Yorkers have a basic responsibility to ensure that our tax dollars aren’t funding war crimes and human rights violations,” she said.

No Israelis have been convicted of war crimes, but allegations of war crimes are often used as a cudgel against Jewish groups for their connections to the Jewish state.

Mamdani backed Moreno, saying in a statement that he was “grateful” that Moreno and Brisport “are carrying this work forward.”

The new bill is largely the same as Mamdani’s 2023 legislation, and another attempt he made to pass the legislation in early 2025. Both those bills failed to pass into law.

The text says the measure will “prohibit not-for-profit corporations from engaging in unauthorized support of Israeli settlement activity” by changing the state’s not-for-profit corporation law.

The bill defines support of settlement activity as “aiding and abetting” any settlement activity by Israeli armed forces, the Israeli government, or Israeli citizens.

The legislation would allow the state attorney general to dissolve the nonprofit status of groups that are “knowingly engaging in unauthorized support of Israeli settlement activities” and fine them $1 million.

Palestinians who said they were harmed by a violation would also be allowed to sue the nonprofits.

The legislation considers East Jerusalem, which includes the Old City, as “occupied territory,” as well as the West Bank and Gaza.

When Mamdani introduced the original bill, he was a little-known state representative, and the effort was swiftly rebuked by other state lawmakers and never came to a vote.

State lawmakers in 2023 called the original bill a “plot to demonize Jewish charities with connections to Israel” in a joint letter, and the speaker of the state assembly at the time dismissed the effort as a “non-starter.”

Critics of that bill included leftist Jews who oppose the Israeli government.