DE BLASIO UNDER FIRE FOR SINGLING OUT JEWISH COMMUNITY IN TWEET:
Reaction: Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt blasted de Blasio for “generalizing against” the more than 1 million Jews in New York City at a time “when so many are scapegoating Jews.” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) called out the Democratic mayor for targeting religious faith. Lis Smith, who served as de Blasio’s press secretary during his 2013 race for mayor and the beginning of his term, noted, “NYC has been a refuge for Jews fleeing persecution and death for decades and more. How on earth does the mayor of NYC single them out for persecution in the middle of a pandemic?”
Double standard: New York City Councilman Chaim Deutsch, chairman of the New York City Jewish Caucus, accused de Blasio of a “double standard” against one community while ignoring violations in other neighborhoods across the city. “The mayor shouldn’t have singled out the Jewish community, and if he’s going to do it, he should make sure that the city as a whole practices social distancing,” Deutsch told Jewish Insider. “He should call everyone out when they see it. I am not condoning anything that happened, but as mayor of the city of New York he cannot pick and choose one ethnic group, or one particular group, over another.
Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt told JI, “Had the mayor condemned just that, there would’ve been nothing wrong with such a condemnation. But to condemn an entire community is just wrong. It’s also a perfect invitation to antisemites to do their work.”
Poor choice of words: Councilman Kalman Yeger (D-Brooklyn) said he was “very disappointed” with de Blasio’s language because “he has always been a good friend of the community” and “it’s language he would never have used about any other ethnic group in the city.”
QED:
Related: De Blasio is stoking anti-Semitism. He’s not alone. “It was grossly anti-Semitic, casting New York City’s 1 million Jews with the brush of a few hundred. And it was doubly offensive given the mayor’s failure to protect Orthodox Jews last year as they suffered daily physical attacks on the streets of New York City. Unsurprisingly, de Blasio had no opprobrium for the thousands of New Yorkers who, like himself, were tempted by the weekend’s warm weather to enjoy the city’s parks. Couple all that with the fact that Satmar Headquarters is claiming that the mayor’s office initially approved the funeral and coordinated it with the NYPD, and you have a truly shameful debacle.”