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(JTA) – Going through criticism about her use in 2014 of the antisemitic phrase “Jew you down,” the Republican nominee for a aggressive state Senate seat in Ohio this week stated she was simply making an attempt to reward Jews’ frugality.
Michele Reynolds, a enterprise proprietor and former public sector worker operating because the GOP candidate within the state’s third Senate district, self-published a guide for enterprise house owners in 2014. In it, she wrote, “I realized from different cultures on how they spend their cash. Have you ever ever heard the time period ‘Jew you down’? This tradition has a popularity for not losing sources.”
The guide, “The Dreambiz Blueprint: 101 Enterprise Tips about Tips on how to Develop and Function Your Dream Enterprise,” is just not simply out there on-line. The passage was reported Wednesday by Cleveland.com reporter Jake Zuckerman and publicized by the Ohio Senate Dems caucus on social media.
The Reynolds marketing campaign’s preliminary response, issued to the Columbus Dispatch, stated the candidate had meant to highlight “what she realized from the knowledge of the Jewish group and the way they’re respected for constructing profitable companies with a basis of stable cash rules.”
However by late within the day Thursday, Reynolds had issued a more straightforward apology from her Twitter account, writing, “Whereas it was by no means my intent to be hurtful or disrespectful once I wrote the guide in 2014, I humbly apologize to the Jewish group and anybody offended by the expression. I gained’t reference this phrase once more, and if the guide is ever republished, I’ll make certain it’s eliminated.”
“I understand there are higher methods to precise my respect for my fellow brothers and sisters within the religion,” Reynolds added.
Reynolds, who has the endorsement of mainstream Republicans and enterprise leaders in her state, tweeted a Rosh Hashanah message final month. An internet biography identifies her as “first woman and government pastor” of Widespread Floor Future Heart Church, the place her husband is the lead pastor. She has beforehand directed Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s workplace of faith-based and group initiatives.
Her different earlier roles embody commissioner of Ohio’s Fee on Fatherhood, and dealing within the Akron mayor’s financial improvement workplace.
Ohio’s third state Senate district contains components of Columbus, its most populous metropolis. The seat is at the moment held by a Democrat. In a earlier native race, for county fee in 2018, Reynolds misplaced to the Democratic candidate by a large margin.
Reynolds is just not the primary U.S. politician to attract fireplace this yr for utilizing the phrase “Jew you down,” a phrase that persists within the Twenty first-century American lexicon, regardless of repeated pleas from Jewish organizations to kill it off due to its roots in antisemitic concepts about Jewish stinginess. Two Kentucky GOP state lawmakers additionally used the phrase whereas making a joke throughout a gathering of the state legislature in February, earlier than apologizing.
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