Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) President Morton A. Klein and ZOA Chairman Mark Levenson, Esq. released the following statement:

The ZOA demands that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio retract and apologize for his tweet singling out and attacking the entire Jewish community for an issue with a Jewish funeral, in a manner that can encourage antisemitism.  The mayor’s tweet is especially dangerous at this time, when Jew-haters are spreading blood libels falsely blaming the Jewish people for the coronavirus.   

The Jewish community was the only group the mayor specifically mentioned in his tweet that also threatened: “I have instructed the NYPD to proceed immediately to summons or even arrest those who gather in large groups.

The mayor’s apparent pattern of unfair adverse treatment of the Jewish community needs to stop. De Blasio sent in massive police forces to disperse Jews (most of whom were wearing masks) who gathered for a funeral of a Rabbi in Brooklyn – while doing nothing about large groups of other New Yorkers who gathered close together in New York City parks and to watch the Blue Angels show. Why didn’t the mayor send in those masses of police when fringe Black radicals and criminals repeatedly attacked Jews in the streets of Brooklyn last year? And the mayor properly never attacked all Blacks because some Blacks were regularly attacking Jews. 

We also note that the mayor has provided too few kosher meals to New York’s impoverished, suffering Jewish communities, while, for instance, making sure to provide sufficient Ramadan food for New York’s Muslim communities.

Our message to Mayor de Blasio is: “You need to act as the mayor of everyone in New York City – including the Jewish community.”