which was published on June 26 and organized by the Jewish Majority advocacy group<\/a>, which is headed by AIPAC veteran Jonathan Schulman.<\/p>\nRoland said the letter was circulating around several rabbinic listservs and \u201cwhen I received it from the Zionist Rabbinical Coalition, an important organization on whose board I serve, I clicked and read through the statement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Twenty members of the clergy from Ohio signed the letter.<\/p>\n
Eight are from the Cleveland area: Rabbi Daniel Olgin of University Heights; Rabbi Steven Denker of Beachwood; Rabbi Daniel Kasdan of Cleveland; Rabbi Richard Block of Beachwood; Rabbi Matthew Eisenberg of Mayfield Heights; Cantor Larry Josefovitz of Beachwood, Rabbi Binyamin Blau of Beachwood and Roland.<\/p>\n
Rabbi John Spitzer of Canton and Rabbi Seth Sernstein of Youngstown also signed.<\/p>\n
The Columbus area had five rabbis sign: Rabbi Morris Allen, Rabbi Cary Kozberg and Rabbi Harold Berman, all of Columbus; Rabbi Gary Huber of Dublin and Rabbi Howard Apothaker of New Albany.<\/p>\n
The Cincinnati area had five representatives: Rabbi Ezra Goldschmiedt, Rabbi Gerry Walter, Rabbi Margaret Meyer, Rabbi Gary Phillip Zola and Rabbi Lewis Kamrass.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are rabbis and cantors from across the United States,\u201d the letter said. \u201cWe serve different communities, hold different political views, and do not speak with one voice on every question concerning Israel, American politics or the war in Gaza. But we are united in our belief that Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s recent speech about pro-Israel civic participation is dangerous, unacceptable and beneath the office he holds.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the rally in Brooklyn, attended by Vermont Sen.Bernie Sanders, Mamdani said that \u201cnow is the time of monsters\u201d and that \u201cthese monsters take many forms today.\u201d He then singled out AIPAC, a bipartisan American lobbying group and grassroots organization that advocates for strong political, strategic and economic relations between the United States and Israel, as one of those \u201cmonsters.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn AIPAC, for whom the only thing more frightening than democracy being allowed to run its course is an end to genocide and Netanyahu\u2019s wars,\u201d Mamdani said.<\/p>\n
He also claimed that AIPAC moves \u201cmillions in dark money to accomplish a single goal: to preserve their power so that they can turn us against one another instead of our leaders turning towards the moral change we all know to be necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUsing the language of \u201cmonsters\u201d against political opponents is an act of dehumanization, and when the targets of that dehumanization are overwhelmingly associated with the Jewish community the consequences become especially dangerous,\u201d the letter said. \u201cHistory demonstrates that campaigns against Jews often begin with rhetoric portraying them as uniquely sinister, uniquely powerful and somehow less deserving of equal treatment. Mr. Mamdani\u2019s words invoke a familiar story about Jewish power, Jewish money and Jewish manipulation of public life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Singling out AIPAC is one of many ways that antisemites, under the guise of anti-Zionism, single out Jews, Roland said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are many reasonable arguments to be made for campaign finance reform in our country,\u201d he said. \u201cOnly one of more than 2,500 Super PACs is regularly flung about as a slur or an ideological litmus test. Not to mention Mayor Mamdani\u2019s use of well worn antisemitic tropes alongside his criticism of AIPAC.\u201d<\/p>\n
The wide array of clergy from different backgrounds coming together in this instance was important, Roland said, because it is crucial for \u201cmajority voices to rise above the noise of the news cycle.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery poll in recent history has shown that the vast majority of American Jews are supportive of the Jewish State,\u201d Roland said. \u201cReading the news, one may think otherwise. It\u2019s incumbent upon all Jews to take a stand against the misinformation campaigns that are threatening our people and its safety. I encourage my rabbinic colleagues to add their names to this important statement and I encourage affiliated Jews to insist their rabbis to do the same.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rabbi Scott Roland of Congregation Shaarey Tikvah in Beachwood has been long troubled by remarks that New York…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283169,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64701,3862,108577,97598,9267,34588,60,58189,108578,9359,2601,7702,40100,25981,9,56,63,65,64,1758,87,14761,901,9498,82],"class_list":["post-283168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-aipac","tag-antisemitism","tag-beachwood","tag-clergy","tag-cleveland","tag-ethnoreligious-groups","tag-israel","tag-israel-related-controversies","tag-jewish-movements","tag-jews","tag-jews-and-judaism","tag-judaism","tag-judaism-related-controversies","tag-letter","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-ohio","tag-politics","tag-rabbi","tag-united-states","tag-zionism","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}