Congressional Candidate Charles Barron Slammed
Several current and former New York Jewish elected officials gathered to denounce the congressional candidacy of Charles Barron for his anti-Israel views.
Ex-Mayor Ed Koch, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), City Councilman David Greenfield and state Assemblyman Dov Hikind, among others, gathered in front of the Museum of Jewish Heritage-A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in downtown Battery Park at a news conference Monday to call Barron, a Brooklyn Democrat, an “enemy of the State of Israel” and the New York Jewish community.
Barron, a city councilman, is facing state Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries in a June 26 Democratic primary in a bid to succeed 24-year incumbent Rep. Edolphus Towns, also a Democrat, who is retiring at the end of this year.
The politicians at Battery Park expressed support for Jeffries and called Barron an “anti-Semite,” “hateful” and a “bigot.”
Barron has compared the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians to the Nazi treatment of Jews during World War II. He also has publicly praised foreign dictators such as the late Muammar Gadhafi of Libya and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.
“To compare Israel to Nazis, calling what Israel’s doing genocide? Israel’s trying to survive in a tough neighborhood,” Nadler said during the news conference, according to Politicker. The longtime congressman added that Israel is “not doing anything like Nazis. To even put them in the same universe is a disgrace to the English language.”
Nadler said Barron’s election to Congress, “to some extent would legitimize this kind of anti-Semitic discourse, and we don’t need that.”
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!