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(New York Jewish Week) — A brand-new Jewish entrant to a crowded New York congressional race obtained an enormous amplification this week when the chief of the Anti-Defamation League, the nationwide non-partisan civil rights advocacy group, shared his Twitter thread condemning a neighborhood progressive Jewish activist group.
Brian Robinson, a Jewish businessman who’s certainly one of 17 Democrats vying to signify New York’s newly drawn District 10, put up a 16-post-long Twitter thread that referred to as Jews for Racial & Financial Justice and its political arm, the Jewish Vote, a “far-left rip-off.”
“We have to have an sincere dialog about JFREJ,” Robinson started, with a tweet that reached his 4,500 followers.
“We have now allowed this pro-dystopian group to LARP on behalf of the mainstream Jewish group for much too lengthy,” Robinson went on, utilizing a time period referring to role-playing. “Throughout main time, JFREJ instantly pretends to be liberal and pro-Jewish when they’re constantly in opposition to each mainstream Jewish values and pursuits.”
The next day, the ADL’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt — who has near 350,000 followers on Twitter — retweeted Robinson’s thread, main many who noticed it to wonder if Greenblatt was endorsing what Robinson had mentioned.
The reply was sure — however not each phrase.
Greenblatt’s retweet, which was of the primary message solely, mirrored “settlement with the bigger view {that a} group calling itself The Jewish Vote isn’t consultant in any means of the vast majority of the Jewish group,” an ADL spokesperson confirmed to the New York Jewish Week on Friday.
“We have to have an sincere dialog about JFREJ, their help for BDS, and the way out of contact they’re with the vast majority of the Jewish group,” the spokesperson mentioned.
However, the spokesperson added, “It was not meant to suggest settlement with all points of the thread and, to be clear, we reject any assaults on the Jewish identification of individuals now we have disagreements with.”
The ADL has historically monitored and responded to antisemitism and hate speech. Greenblatt’s retweet and the ADL’s assertion is consistent with the ADL chief’s latest speech equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism.
JFREJ’s communications director, Sophie Ellman-Golan, famous that the ADL’s assertion was inaccurate as a result of JFREJ doesn’t have a place on BDS, the motion to boycott Israel.
“Our members maintain a variety of views,” she mentioned. “We have now members who’re absolutely on board with BDS, now we have members who should not on board, and now we have members all over the place in between.”
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She mentioned Greenblatt had appeared to condone criticism impugning JFREJ’s members as probably not Jewish — and that his choice to take action had penalties for the group’s members.
“The ADL is an even bigger group than JFREJ,” Ellman-Golan mentioned. “There’s energy in that. It’s all good and nicely to say in a press release that you just reject assaults on Jewish identification, however as an alternative they’ve used the ADL to legitimize assaults on us.”
Publicly, the group responded to the thread in a light-hearted method, with a cat image and a sunny assertion whose viewers was implied.
“At JFREJ, we affirm that each one Jews … are Jewish! We draw that means & energy from a plurality of relationships to Judaism. Most of us discover the juiciest inspiration at intersections of some: historic, cultural, spiritual, political, familial,” the group tweeted. “It’s good! Extra individuals ought to attempt it.”
However privately, members and different critics of the retweet had been dealing with harsh private assaults. After critiquing Greenblatt’s retweet this week, Harry Reis, the previous coverage director of the New Israel Fund who beforehand labored as Greenblatt’s particular assistant on the ADL, was publicly called a member of “the Judenrat left” in addition to a “kapo” on Twitter, referring to Jews who collaborated with Nazis throughout World Struggle II.
One other member who requested for anonymity due to harassment mentioned she locked her account after receiving threatening messages that referred to as her a “self-hating kapo.”
“I believe there’s an effort total to say who’re the true Jews and who’re the not actual Jews, that the one individuals who rely are the individuals who agree with us,” Ellman-Golan mentioned. “That’s actually distressing and unhappy.”
In some methods, JFREJ’s outlook does map to that of the broader Jewish group, together with in New York Metropolis. In accordance to a survey from the Jewish Voters Institute, a non-partisan assume tank devoted to understanding American Jewry, 70% of American Jewish voters lean Democratic and favor points akin to local weather change, voting rights, jobs and well being care — all points which can be a part of JFREJ’s activism.
On Israel, multiple latest surveys have discovered that youthful U.S. Jews are much less emotionally connected to Israel than older ones and that Jews total more and more agree with harsh criticism of Israel.
The Jewish Vote, which JFREJ launched in 2018 to become involved straight in electoral politics, endorses progressive candidates in New York. It has backed Metropolis Comptroller Brad Lander, who’s Jewish, and former mayoral candidate Maya Wiley. Within the present District 10 congressional race, the Jewish Vote endorsed Yuh-Line Niou, a progressive who has supported the BDS motion all through her marketing campaign.
Ellman-Golan mentioned JFREJ — which launched in 1990 and claims 6,000 members, 4,500 of them within the metropolis — and the Jewish Vote don’t faux to be the house for all American and New York Jews. Slightly, they’re the house for “the New York Jewish left,” Ellman-Golan mentioned, including, “Increasingly more Jews are shifting into settlement in our course.”
Polls present Robinson, the candidate who kicked off the kerfuffle, garnering 1% of the District 10 vote. On Wednesday, he picked up an endorsement from the Orthodox Jewish firebrand Heshy Tischler, a Republican. The first is Aug. 23.
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