by Alexander Burns and Michael M. Grynbaum

March 4, 2015

Two weeks ago, Mayor Bill de Blasio stood shoulder to shoulder with France’s chief rabbi at the Park East Synagogue and challenged European leaders to break their “atmosphere of indifference” toward anti-Semitism. A few days later, he slipped out of New York City to attend the wedding of a Hasidic leader’s grandson. Last week, he loosened city regulations on a medically questionable ultra-Orthodoxcircumcision ritual.

Amid rising anti-Semitic violence abroad and his own political travails at home, Mr. de Blasio has embarked on a furious campaign to define himself as an international spokesman for Jewish concerns, and to deepen his relationship with New York’s often fractious Jewish community.

Come this summer, Mr. de Blasio will take another momentous step: He intends to visit Israel, in his first trip to the Jewish state since taking office.

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