An appointee of New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, Catherine Almonte Da Costa, reportedly resigned Thursday after a cache of antisemitic social media posts from the past surfaced online, including comments about “money hungry Jews” and a defund-the-NYPD stance accused of targeting police, the New York Post reports.
The abrupt departure followed pressure from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of New York and New Jersey, which asked Mamdani’s team to explain whether they were aware of Da Costa’s posts before appointing her as the city’s next director of appointments.
Da Costa, named just Wednesday to the role, had several inflammatory posts from 2011 and 2012 that the ADL highlighted in a post on X. Examples cited include: “Money hungry Jews smh” (January 2011), “Promoted to the upstairs office today! Working alongside these rich Jewish peeps” (June 2011), and “Far Rockaway train is the Jew train” (June 2012). The posts remained visible until Da Costa appears to have deleted her account Thursday afternoon.
The ADL stated that Da Costa’s past remarks echo antisemitic tropes and demean Jewish people, adding that while she has ties to the Jewish community, the posts demanded a clear explanation from both Da Costa and the mayor-elect.
Shortly after the fallout, Da Costa resigned, describing herself as a “distraction.” In a statement, she apologized and said the tweets do not reflect who she is, expressing sorrow as a mother of Jewish children. She added that she could not allow the controversy to hinder the work ahead and offered her resignation.
“I spoke with the Mayor-elect this afternoon, apologized, and expressed my deep regret for my past statements,” Da Costa said in a statement, according to The Post. “These statements are not indicative of who I am. As the mother of Jewish children, I feel a profound sense of sadness and remorse at the harm these words have caused. As this has become a distraction from the work at hand, I have offered my resignation.”
According to The Post, “Da Costa had previously worked under former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration for its census team. She’ll be leaving her current job as head of culture at the Orchestra to ‘bring top talent’ into Mamdani’s administration, the mayor-elect’s team has said.”
Additional posts uncovered by The Post included anti-NYPD sentiments, such as “F— the police,” later paired with a claim about “piggy banks” to cover debts, which Da Costa clarified as referencing the police in 2012. She also supported the defund-the-police movement during the 2020 George Floyd protests, posting calls to cut NYPD funding and reallocate resources to communities.
Mamdani’s team condemned the remarks as unacceptable and unrepresentative of his administration’s values. Mamdani commented that Da Costa’s expressions of remorse were acknowledged and that her resignation was accepted. The unfolding events have complicated Mamdani’s plans for appointing top talent to his administration, however, as a number of appointees have come under scrutiny for questionable anti-Semitic sentiment.