Three Jewish business owners in Williamsburg will face trial Tuesday in front of the New York City Human Rights commission for alleged discrimination, by posting a dress code in storefront windows.
In order to establish a discriminatory case, the Human Rights commission commissioned a survey designed to prove that the neighborhood residents found the dress code sign unwelcoming. However, according to The World Net Daily, one of the commission’s lead witnesses has a lengthy history of expressing anti-Israel sentiment.
Out of those 600 people who were surveyed, the commission has chosen to have a man named Joshua Wiles testify about their survey’s findings that the dress code signs are discriminatory. The problem is that Joshua Wiles seems to have preexisting and extremely biased opinions that would strongly color his views about Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish community.
According to the report, Wiles, a public school teacher in nearby Bedford-Stuyvesant, made headlines when he was arrested during an Occupy Wall Street protest in 2011. Wiles’s Facebook page was also littered with items expressing a deep anti-Israel sentiment.
In one Facebook post on November 27, 2012, Wiles accused Israel of “robbing” land from Palestinians. A similar post in December, 2013, accused Israel of practicing apartheid.
While many in the Williamsburg Ultra-Orthodox community are not considered pro-Zionist, that fact is that Mr. Wiles’ opinion may of Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish neighborhood may be colored by Wiles’s animosity toward Israel.
(Jacob Kornbluh – YWN)
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5 Responses
conact rabbi Rabbi Haskel Lookstein [email protected]
or 212-774-5650 and Rabbi Joseph Potasnik at joseph potasnik@congregationmountsanai they both sit on the New York commission board, I have no idea why they are allowing this to go to court.
Does anyone see the irony here? Anti-Israel sentiments? As if the store owners he testifying against are pro Israel?
A non Jew who is anti-Israel is not an adherent of the satmar rebbe Rav Yoel. He is just a pure anti-Semite. Thus his testimony should be inadmissable.
If you were able to make it all the way to the end, you would have realized that the author addressed that.
This article and commenters 1-4 are mincing their words. What is really of concern is that Joshua Wiles might be anti-Semitic. If he were merely anti-Zionist, Satmar defendants would feel as if they have a friend in Mr. Wiles. I know nothing about Mr. Wiles other than what is written in this article, and I draw no conclusions about him from the limited information in this article.
There is a hard legal issue here: to what extent can the private owner of a public accommodation ask the public to honor his religious beliefs?
Would a Jew feel insulted, intimidated or discriminated against if a devout Christian required patrons of his store to listen to the owner warn Jewish-looking customers that they will go to gehinom if they do not accept the Christian savior? Suppose that Christian owner greeted customers the way Chabad schlichum greet Jewish-looking pedestrians: “Excuse me, are you Jewish.” The Chabad folks offer tefillin or Shabbos candles or a shake of the lulav and esrog if the answer is yes. The hypothetical Christian store owner in this discussion would offer a message of redemption that would require adoption of Christian belief.