At a time when antisemitic attacks are on the rise here at home and around the world, we must stand together as a community, not fall prey to misinformation.
By ISAAC FRANKELThree people are killed in a kosher supermarket in Jersey City by two members of the anti-Semitic Black Hebrew Israelites movement on December 10, 2019.(photo credit: SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTRE)
Last week our community was attacked. In Jersey City, New Jersey, two people targeted a police officer and a kosher supermarket, and four people were killed: a brave police officer, Detective Joseph Seals; Moshe Deutsch; Mindy Ferencz; and Douglas Miguel Rodriguez.The attack was purposeful and hateful, and intended not just to cause harm and loss of life, but to terrorize an entire community – our community. As a volunteer Jewish chaplain for the Newark Police Department, it felt deeply personal.In the wake of that horrific attack, our Jewish community and our police community was met not just with support, but with action from our leaders here in New Jersey, including and especially Senator Cory Booker, who is also running for president.That is why I was shocked and disappointed to read Rabbi Shmuley Boteach’s unfounded and misleading piece in The Jerusalem Post just a few days ago that painted what was clearly a false and misleading picture of Sen. Booker, his response to the terror in Jersey City and his relationship with the New Jersey Jewish community.At a time when antisemitic attacks are on the rise here at home and around the world, we must stand together as a community, not fall prey to misinformation, or worse, launch baseless insults and grossly untrue allegations at our strongest allies.Boteach’s depiction of Sen. Booker’s leadership in the wake of the attack in Jersey City and throughout his career in public service is demonstrably false at best, and at worst, uses the excuse of a horrible tragedy to make strange and untrue attacks on Cory’s character.The truth that was so willfully ignored in that piece is that in the wake of the terrorist attack in Jersey City last week, Sen. Booker immediately and forcefully stood up for and stood with our community, just as he always has.The piece started with the grotesque headline: “As Jews are gunned down in New Jersey, Cory Booker tours Iowa’s cornfields,” – a vile and demonstrably false accusation. Boteach cites a New York Times story published the day following the attacks, but all you have to do is read the story itself to know that Cory was in Iowa the week before the attack.THE PIECE also claims that all Sen. Booker did on the day of the attack was “tweet” – and that couldn’t be further from the truth. The fact of the matter is, in the wake of the attack in Jersey City, Sen. Booker immediately left the campaign trail to be in Jersey City.The piece even took issue with one of Sen. Booker’s tweets itself, claiming, “He tweeted only that he was ‘closely monitoring the situation.’” My question to Boteach is this: What else are you supposed to say when bullets are still flying?Just after the attack, Sen. Booker was on the phone with officials at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives working to determine the origin of the weapons used.And that evening, just three hours after the gunfire stopped, Sen. Booker was in Jersey City at the police command center – I know this because I was there, and I saw him meet with community leaders near where the attack occurred along with New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, New Jersey Attorney-General Gubrir Grewal, and other officials.The truth – in direct contradiction to claims made by Boteach’s piece – is that in addition to immediately showing up to comfort a grieving community, Sen. Booker has not just issued multiple strong statements condemning the antisemitic, anti-police attack – including on television – but he has personally reached out to leaders in the Jewish community here in New Jersey and sent staff representatives to an interfaith roundtable at Temple Beth El in Jersey City and a Students Demand Action Rally on Gun Violence, also in Jersey City.Here in New Jersey we can see that Sen. Booker has always been an advocate, a friend and a fighter for our community. I have strongly disagreed with him on matters of policy from time to time, and that’s OK, because I know where his heart is and that he does what he believes is right.What we must never do is use misleading and counter-factual attacks when we disagree with someone. Doing so, particularly when the target is a United States senator and presidential candidate who has been a strong ally to Jews and to Israel, may be personally satisfying to some, but it is a true detriment to our community.The writer is a businessman in NJ who dedicates countless hours to building the relationship between the community and law enforcement across the state. He has been actively involved in Jersey City, NJ, and spent the day of the attack and the following day there.
