|
John,
Today marks one year since the horrors of October 7 committed by Hamas. I wrote an op-ed in our local paper reaffirming my support for Israel and the Jewish community here in the Lower Hudson Valley. Please take a moment to read it below, and then share it with your friends: I will stand with Israel and Lower Hudson Valley Jews "As we mark the one-year anniversary of the horrors of Oct. 7, I write to reaffirm my long-standing support for Israel and our Jewish community here in the Lower Hudson Valley. As I said at the time, I condemn the atrocities committed by Hamas during the worst assault on Jews since the Holocaust, and I join people of good conscience in demanding that the terrorist organization release the hostages it cruelly took from Israel and other nations, including the United States. I also condemn the equivocation in support for Israel’s right to self-defense that we have seen from some elected officials, including here in New York. That is why I stood with the Jewish community and endorsed Westchester County Executive George Latimer over Rep. Jamaal Bowman in the Democratic primary for the 16th Congressional District. I caught hell from people and organizations on the far left, but it was the right thing to do. Moreover, I condemn those protestors — whether on college campuses or in the streets — who would blame Israel and in some instances the Jewish people rather than Hamas for starting this war and the humanitarian crisis that has ensued. I became a better legislator when I visited Israel in November 2021. It was the most educational trip of my life. For several days, I glimpsed and got to experience the palpable anxiety that people feel on a daily basis throughout the nation. I have been to the Iron Dome facility in Sderot, just miles from the Gaza border. I spent time at Zikim, a kibbutz that also sits along the Gaza border, and that exemplifies the principles of equality and communalism that the Jewish state of Israel was founded on. And of course I had the chance to visit, reflect, and pray at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. Having spent time in Israel and the West Bank, it is clear to me that the only way to achieve a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians is for the hostages to be released and for Hamas to be defeated once and for all. The past year, in which we have seen a surge in acts of antisemitism throughout America and the world, has been especially painful for our Jewish brothers and sisters. As I said in my remarks at Westchester Reform Temple in the days following Oct. 7, I am heartbroken by this hatred and bigotry and I am not Jewish. As someone who is Black and gay, I know what it is like to be discriminated against and to be targeted. No community deserves this. As a Black American, I feel a special kinship with the Jewish community. I know that many of the freedoms I have today were secured through the efforts of Blacks and Jews working together as part of a civil rights coalition, whether it was the founding of the NAACP in 1909 or the thousands of young Jewish Americans who joined the struggle for racial justice in the 1960s, some even sacrificing their lives. For example, the courageous work of allies like Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner registering Black people to vote in Mississippi in 1964 — Freedom Summer — helped lead to the passage of the original Voting Rights Act. I am reminded of Martin Luther King’s expression of solidarity to the American Jewish Congress in 1958: “My people were brought to America in chains. Your people were driven here to escape the chains fashioned for them in Europe. Our unity is born of our common struggle for centuries, not only to rid ourselves of bondage, but to make oppression of any people by others an impossibility.” In Congress, I was a champion for my Jewish constituents in combating antisemitism and supporting Israel. I did this through the legislative process and through using my platform as a U.S. representative. For example, I voted for every single appropriations bill containing U.S. aid to Israel, including for the critical Iron Dome and David’s Sling defense programs. I have been consistent in this regard throughout my time in public life. Nevertheless, in the heat of an election here in the 17th Congressional District that will determine whether Democrats or Republicans control Congress next January, my opponent, Rep. Mike Lawler, and his allies are working mightily in the eleventh hour to distort that record. Lawler voted in the days leading up to Oct. 7 for an appropriations bill that would have cut security aid to Israel by nearly $1 billion. I would ask that no one allow themselves to be manipulated by the disinformation campaign of Trump and Lawler. The future of American democracy has a big question mark next to it. Trump already tried to overturn the last presidential election, which I lived through as a freshman legislator at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. In his own words, he aims to ‘terminate’ the Constitution. My Republican opponent supports him for the third consecutive presidential election cycle. It is no surprise that the same people and organizations who would end democracy itself are now working to divide our civil rights coalition. We cannot allow them to succeed.” Former Rep. Mondaire Jones is the Democratic candidate for the 17th Congressional District.
|