Legislative Advocacy
NYJA engages on advocacy on city, state, and federal legislation around key issue areas such as addressing the migrant crisis in a fair and just manner; fighting antisemitism effectively while emphasizing nuance and pushing back on its weaponization, criminal justice reform, protecting our immigrant neighbors in the face of ongoing threats, and more.
Our legislative advocacy largely takes place at the grasstops level through direct advocacy and advising of allied city, state, and federal elected officials on the issue areas above. As it relates to specific legislation, our advocacy takes two main forms; championing pieces of legislation as one of its key Jewish organizational advocates, or working in coalition with other organizations, leaders, and elected officials to support or oppose legislation. We also organize Jewish communal leaders and clergy in our network to support bills that are aligned with our shared liberal Jewish values when it can help garner broader support for or help ensure the passage of a bill. You can read more about our work in Albany in 2025 in our recap on Substack here.
This year, during the New York State legislative session, NYJA is focused on advancing legislation that effectively combats antisemitism in New York, alongside key protections for our immigrant neighbors. Our advocacy on these issues will include our second annual NYJA lobby day, leadership of JIAC-NY (see more below), rallies in NYC and Albany, and more. We also support other pieces of legislation that align with our platform, including promoting a quality and affordable education for all New Yorkers, protecting access to reproductive health care, affordable housing, and more; we do this by authoring memoranda of support for consideration by elected officials and committees in Albany, as well as by leveraging our partnerships with elected officials, coalitions, and other organizations engaged on these issues.
This year, we will launch the Jewish Immigration Advocacy Coalition – NY (JIAC-NY), which NYJA anchors in partnership with RAC-NY, HIAS, and the Synagogue Coalition on the Refugee and Immigration Crisis, with other partners to be announced.
Webinars: On the Agenda and Navigating Complexity
It is vital for our core constituency to be well-educated about the critical issues we are tackling. To that end, we launched our On the Agenda webinar series in 2020, featuring a diversity of speakers, including politicians, academics, and Jewish thought leaders. Then in 2023 and 2024, we hosted a series called Navigating Complexity specific to the post-October 7th landscape.
Our series of webinars have responded to issues of import to our community of liberal and progressive Jewish New Yorkers, and range from rapid response (watch our post NYC mayoral election webinar, Inside the Jewish Vote, here) to broader conversations aimed at helping our community navigate the complexities of this moment and ways to get involved (watch our webinar on the 2025 World Zionist Congress here). Please sign up for our email list here to be notified of future webinars, events, and to receive other NYJA communications.
Engaging Young Leaders
NYJA aims to be a political home for liberal and progressive Jewish New Yorkers, where they can bring their full political selves as it relates to domestic and local politics, and Israel/Palestine. This is an urgent need across our community, but for young people especially given how fraught this moment has become for those grappling with and coming of age in a different political reality than previous generations. To do this, we launched our Young Leaders Network in 2025, which is a community of Jewish New Yorkers aged 21 – 35 who are passionate about social justice and civic engagement. Participants come together to learn, connect, and take action. You can find out more and apply here.
Thought Leadership
NYJA provides our community with content that is of interest and that meets their needs at this complex and divisive time. We also serve as an expert, injecting the communal and wider discourse with our unique, nuanced take on issues of import to liberal and progressive New York Jews. This includes our regular NYJA newsletter, the NYJA Substack, which features writing and analysis from NYJA leaders and staff, along with serving as an ongoing resource for elected officials, communal leaders, and media (see our Mentioned in the News page)
Rapid Response
The NYJA network’s readiness to respond quickly and decisively when critical issues arise lies at the heart of our organization’s mission. With the depth and breadth of our connections across New York, we can mobilize a meaningful response to breaking news quickly.
A Nuanced Approach to Fighting Antisemitism
NYJA works to ensure that New York leaders understand and take antisemitism seriously, combating it with nuance and avoiding its weaponization by illiberal actors. We know that zero-sum stances that don’t take context and intent into account oftentimes result in the mischaracterization or mishandling of potentially antisemitic incidents, having the adverse effect of not countering–or even promulgating–antisemitism in our city and state. In contrast, we work with NY leaders to better understand the question of what is antisemitic in such a way that effectively combats it. NYJA looks to inject this nuanced approach across the political spectrum, including fighting its co-optation by the right, as well as where it shows up in Israel-Palestine discourse on the left. We advise elected officials and communal leaders on how best to identify and respond to antisemitic incidents, and help take down the temperature and maintain key relationships across divides when the threat of rising antisemitism heightens communal polarization.