The antisemites come out in a town hall in Brighton, NY

During the war in May, as hundreds of thousands of Israelis were forced to run to bomb shelters as Hamas sent thousands of rockets towards them, a member of the Brighton NY town board, Robin Wilt, posted on her Facebook page "Free Palestine" and featured a picture of her with her arm around Linda Sarsour, who has spoken out against humanizing Israelis under attack and who has defended antisemites like Louis Farrakhan.

When the Jewish community raised their voices in concern, Wilt doubled down. She spoke at an anti-Israel rally (43.25) where the speaker before her told a ridiculous story that there are separate checkpoints in Gaza with signs for Jews and non-Jews. Wilt herself gave herself a pat on the back, saying that she supports Palestine even though there are lots of Jewish voters in town. (That part was edited out.) 

She, and other town board members, attended a Zoom session against antisemitism, and Wilt showed not the slightest amount of empathy for Jews nor regret for how uncomfortable she made her Jewish constituents feel.

Which brings us to the town hall that was in Brighton last week. 

For hours, there were Jews arguing that they have a right to be upset at Wilt while Wilt's supporters argued that the Jews were racists and white supremacists for attacking her. As usual, the lies from the pro-Palestinian contingent were legendary, like Israel has expelled 1500 residents of Sheikh Jarrah to build a theme park.  

When Jews spoke, they were routinely interrupted and shouted at. 

At the end, when Wilt spoke, she made herself into the victim and again took no responsibility for hurting a large number of residents of Brighton with her words.

But the story isn't an idiot councilmember who opposes Jewish nationhood. It is the many people who felt comfortable publicly attacking Jews as racists and baby-killers. The town hall has made the Jews of Brighton even more uneasy and feeling under attack than they were beforehand. The councilmembers seemed to listen, but no one on the other side in the audience (from the portions I watched) showed any empathy, instead many of them played the victim card themselves as they attacked the Jews, as if someone who is Black cannot possibly have done any wrong.

This is a heavily liberal, supposedly tolerant town. As we've seen in recent years, leftist tolerance usually has a Jewish exception. 

(h/t kweansmom)

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