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(JTA) – Officers in Rochester, New York, this week condemned a cartoon depicting the pinnacle of the native Jewish federation and the Jewish majority chief of the county legislature in crude antisemitic caricatures that was despatched out in a mass mailer.
The cartoon appeared to object to an Israeli flag that has flown exterior a county authorities workplace since shortly after the Oct. 7 Hamas terror assault. It additionally got here because the Rochester Metropolis Council was debating a decision to endorse a ceasefire in Israel and the Gaza Strip, which it handed late Friday.
“This kind of unacceptable and ugly conduct should be known as out each time it occurs,” Michael Yudelson, the Jewish majority chief of the Monroe County legislature and one of many figures depicted within the cartoon, stated in a press release signed by 25 out of 27 members of the county legislature.
“We cannot normalize actions by those that search to divide the group somewhat than discover widespread floor,” added Yudelson, who can be government director of Temple B’rith Kodesh, a Reform synagogue within the suburb of Brighton. “All of us pray for an finish to the lack of life within the area. Nonetheless, this blatant antisemitism can’t be allowed to face.”
Meredith Dragon, the CEO of the Jewish Federation of Larger Rochester and the first goal of the cartoon, advised the Jewish Telegraphic Company that the cartoon was “actually, actually problematic.”
Despatched to native leaders on March 12 and leaked to social media this week, the cartoon depicts Dragon in a dominatrix outfit adorned with the Israeli flag. Subsequent to her, Yudelson is depicted holding a model emblazoned with the brand of the Jewish Federations of North America.
The 2 are depicted as controlling county government Adam Bello and threatening to “get the ADL concerned” if the Israeli flags are faraway from the county legislature constructing. The “ADL” is an obvious reference to the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish civil rights group that opposes antisemitic and anti-Israel exercise.
The textual content of the mailer accompanying the cartoon, most of which argued for the Israeli flag’s removing, additionally included language that appeared to justify the Oct. 7 assault. “The October seventh assault was despicable… but in addition well-earned due to Israel’s determination to resolve the ‘Palestinian Query’ with state terror and apartheid,” it reads.
The letter goes on to say that flying the Israeli flag for every week or a month after Oct. 7 was “completely understandable,” however to proceed flying it six months later “is just to have interaction in propaganda on behalf of our nation’s most conspicuous vassal state.” The letter-writer in contrast the act to flying a Accomplice flag.
The mailers had been unsigned, however Jason Yungbluth, an area cartoonist who has drawn for MAD Journal, later took credit score for the cartoon and the textual content. On his web site, Yungbluth stated he despatched them “to do my small half as an American to assist finish the Gaza Genocide,” and that he was impressed after attending a rally in opposition to the flags hosted by the native Inexperienced Get together. He described Dragon as a “native flag hag” who heads “a Rochester-based Israeli stress group who provides the flags to the county.”
He added logos for the native Inexperienced Get together and the Get together for Socialism & Liberation to the mailer; these celebration leaders have since stated they didn’t authorize the mailer and condemned it. Rochester’s Inexperienced Get together has additionally been vocal about eager to take away the flag, calling it “genocidal.”
Dragon stated she objected not simply to the cartoon’s use of antisemitic tropes, but in addition to its crude nature.
“The antisemitism is dangerous sufficient, however the sexualization of it’s extremely degrading,” Dragon stated concerning the cartoon. “As a lady, as an expert, it’s gross.”
Dragon additionally stated that neither she nor the federation ever requested the county government to fly the Israeli flag. As an alternative, she stated, the manager reached out to her shortly after Oct. 7 to ask if the federation had one they may fly. The county then flew the federation’s flag for the following two months, till native activists ripped it down in December and destroyed it; the county then procured one other flag, after which one other after the second was torn down just a few weeks in the past.
“The county government flew the flag as a result of they selected to fly the flag,” Dragon stated, including that the cartoon “calls on the trope of Jews having energy and management, and it makes me seem like I’ve some type of energy and management over the county government, which clearly I don’t. And it’s his alternative.”
The nationwide federations umbrella group additionally spoke out in opposition to the cartoon’s concentrating on of Dragon. (The group has made the mailer, together with the cartoon, obtainable on its web site.)
“These appalling photographs depend on the sorts of antisemitic tropes that had been commonplace in cartoons in Nazi Germany,” Evan Bernstein, vp of group relations for JFNA, stated in a press release. “We can’t enable this pernicious antisemitism to change into normalized and pervade our civic areas.”
Monroe County is way from the one native authorities to have flown the Israeli flag for the reason that Oct. 7 assaults. The size of time it has left the flag up is extra uncommon, however the county government’s workplace additionally flies flags from different nations.
In his personal assertion, Bello defended the county legislature flying the flag. “We fly the flag of Israel as a logo of help for these viciously attacked, murdered and brought hostage on October 7, 2023,” he wrote, saying the cartoon and letter “reveal a degree of enmity and evil that has no place in our group.”
Dragon and the federation had campaigned in opposition to a ceasefire decision that went earlier than the Rochester Metropolis Council this week, writing on Fb, “The Metropolis of Rochester has no place in worldwide issues.”
The federation additionally known as the decision antisemitic. “All of us need the battle to finish – with Hamas defeated and all hostages returned,” the assertion reads. “The issue is that this decision demonizes Israel, and legitimizes help for Hamas – a terrorist group. A ceasefire wouldn’t assist Israelis or Palestinians–solely terrorists.”
Dragon advised JTA that, as a result of the federation by no means advocated for the Israeli flag to be flown regionally, she seen its stance on the ceasefire decision as suitable. “Had we gone to Monroe County and stated, ‘Please fly the flag,’ after which we rotated to town council to say, ‘Don’t signal a ceasefire decision,’ that’s hypocritical,” she stated.
After showing to vote down the ceasefire decision earlier within the week, town council president signed onto two completely different “memorializing resolutions” Friday with comparable wording, each calling for a everlasting ceasefire. One references “Hamas’ brutal assault and seize of hostages on October seventh,” whereas the opposite refers in additional normal phrases to “the October seventh assault by Hamas and the following incursion by Israel into Gaza.”
Each additionally state, “The US has spent billions of {dollars} on Israel’s navy operations in Gaza for which there isn’t any believable navy resolution, and the continuation of navy motion will solely make the humanitarian disaster in Gaza extra dire, and additional hurt the Palestinian folks.”
The council president, Miguel A. Meléndez Jr., stated in a press release that he signed each resolutions as a result of “I made a decision it was necessary to permit all councilmembers with a voice on the matter to maneuver ahead and to memorialize the language they like.” Collectively, the signatories on the 2 resolutions characterize all 9 metropolis council members — a change from what Dragon stated her conversations with the council had been on Tuesday, when a few of them pledged to not signal onto any ceasefire decision in any respect.
The creator of the revised decision that describes the Hamas assault as “brutal” is Mitch Gruber, the one Jewish member of town council. Earlier within the week, Gruber had defended the primary decision — authored by Councilmember Stanley Martin — from prices of antisemitism.
“I believe it’s essential to be clear, because the lone Jewish individual on council, that I don’t assume what council member Martin put ahead is in a bit, if there’s a shred of antisemitism in there,” Gruber stated on the time. “And I don’t assume there was ever an intent of there to be antisemitism.”
He additionally used language that, deliberately or not, echoed the cartoon and its creator.
“I need to be extremely clear that I believe the people who’re arguing that it’s antisemitic are taking speaking factors from the Anti-Defamation League, and the Jewish federation — not really studying the language itself,” Gruber advised native information shops.
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