Agudath Israel of America on Monday sharply criticized a bigoted promotional piece for an upcoming article published in Journal News (Lohud).
“Agudath Israel of America viewed with alarm an incendiary promotional advertisement published today for an upcoming article in Journal News (Lohud), a popular newspaper in Rockland County,” a release from Agudah reads.
“The caption, ‘Rabbi holds the strings on $76M for East Ramapo School District… Coming Feb. 9,’ appears above a puppet master using pencils and string to manipulate what appears to be children atop a pile of cash.
“While the article, or even the identity of the “rabbi” (as though his “rabbihood” is somehow germane) are unknown, the caricature evokes the worst antisemitic tropes, and is categorically unacceptable. The concept of the Jew as a conspiratorial puppet master, covertly manipulating the world economy and events, harks back to at least the 1700’s, as further amplified upon in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Its imagery and underlying implications have stoked pogroms for hundreds of years, and was employed as recently as by the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter, who killed 11 worshippers in the largest modern mass shooting against Jews in America, at Tree of Life in 2018. We wonder how any article which emerges from an editorial board that approved such a hateful cartoon can pretend to be free from bias.
“Agudath Israel calls for a full apology, and actionable commitment by Lohud to avoid bigoted imagery and coverage of the Jewish community in Rockland County in the future.”
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5 Responses
so by “blasting ” you give the cartoon 10x the publicity & now instead of on a little local paper like lohud its everywhere !
There is truth in the article. The buildings are falling apart. Spring Valley high school had to go remote for mold and asbestos abatement. Children are not graduating and it gets worse by the year. The public school children have no representation on the board.
If we start focusing on the public school community, it would make a huge kiddush HaShem.
If you’re don’t want anti-Semites to accuse you of certain actions, there is a easy fix… just don’t do those actions.
stop acting like victims and look inward – blame this “rabbi” for firstly portraying himself as a Rabbi to everyone and secondly stop him and his cabal (yes, i said it) from controlling the school district. You’re not going to do that, which makes this entire statement absolutely worthless.
Yes, the article is antisemitic. So besides pointing that out and demanding an apology, what else can we do to prevent being attacked? Perhaps we can learn a lesson – that we need to avoid flexing our political muscles in foolish ways that antagonize non-Jews. If we aren’t careful, the antisemites are 100% guaranteed to attack us in droves.