On heels of Trayon White and “fake Jew” controversies, @BrianneKNadeau says she and the mayor are coordinating a May 16 event to learn about Jewish and African American histories. “This will be an opportunity for us to move forward,” she says.
And @ChmnMendelson says a large guided tour of the Holocaust Museum is planned for July. This comes after @TrayonWhite left a guided tour of the Holocaust Museum early, later blaming the presence of a reporter
Now Council is debating whether to proceed with a resolution condemning hate generally, which is opposed by @tweetelissa (the lawmaker who was called a fake Jew).
In emotional remarks, @TweetElissa says the city needs to have hard conversations about race, class and bigotry and that an anti-hate speech resolution alone would be “meaningless”
Also worth noting that @TrayonWhite, whose conspiracy mongering started the anti-Semitism controversy in DC politics and hasn’t said anything about a supporter calling a colleague a “fake Jew,” is the only lawmaker absent from this DC Council breakfast
.@tweetelissa also stressed that Trayon White’s comments about Rothschilds shouldn’t be conflated with the NOI leader who called her a “fake Jew.” White did not have malicious intent, the NOI leader did, she said
Council member @cmdgrosso says the hard conversation lawmakers should be having is whether Josh Lopez should still have a city position after organizing rally where speaker denounced “fake Jews”: “Why do some of us still feel like it’s ok for this guy to represent us?”
“We have to regularly say hate speech is not acceptable in our community,” says Council member @BrianneKNadeau, one of two Jewish members. Interestingly, she and Trayon White were the only lawmakers who declined to comment on our story about the “fake Jews” comments at rally
Josh Lopez comes up again for his role in organizing “unity rally” that ended in “fake Jews” comment. @marycheh very fired up in insisting on his removal: “We all know what he is”
So @TrayonWhite did enter the Council breakfast about 30 minutes in. So far, he is he only lawmaker who hasn’t said anything in this discussion about anti-Semitism
Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld crashes Council breakfast to criticize them for not censuring @TrayonWhite
Now the Council is heading to the steps of Wilson Building to condemn anti-Semitism in the same place where @tweetelissa was called a “fake Jew”
After considerable debate over how to respond to recent anti-Semitism in DC and a lawmaker being called a “fake Jew,” all 13 members of the Council held an impromptu press conference to condemn it
