Will a new antisemitism task force do any good?

                                                                                       

Hempstead Supervisor Don Clavin and new town anti-semitism task force


Is anyone not horrified by the growing antisemitism that has been publicly displayed --usually by protestors who hide their identities behind masks and keffiyehs -- on college campuses and city streets since Oct. 7 -- when Hamas terrorists massacred 1,200 Israeli civilians while taking more than 200 men, women and children hostage?

Sure, there has always been antisemitism. But for decades. after the the World War II holocaust, the slurs were whispered behind closed doors or in private sanctums. It wasn't acceptable to be publicly anti-Jewish or to oppose the existence of Israel.

But it's as though the gruesome Oct. 7 attack made Jewish hatred acceptable again as pro-Hamas, anti-Israel rallies fill streets and campuses.

Matthew Schweber, a lawyer with the Columbia University Jewish Alumni Association, told the New York Post that the pro-Palestinian and Pro-Hamas movement in the city is the “modern manifestation of the Ku Klux Klan.”

Members of the Klu Klux Klan, an American-bred terrorist group that targeted mostly Black Americans after the U.S. Civil War, also hid their identities with hoods covering their faces -- until many states made such Klan face coverings illegal.

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Jewish Republican,  and the Republican majority on the county legislature have again banned mask wearing in public except for medical or religious reasons, but civil rights activists contend the ban violates free speech and puts the medically vulnerable at risk.

Political leaders, including President Joe Biden, have condemned the rising antisemitism, but little seems to dispel the anti-Jewish vituperation. 

Last week, Hempstead Town supervisor Don Clavin announced the formation of a town-sponsored antisemitism task force, described in a news release as "a collection of community and spiritual leaders who will identify emerging trends and proactively combat antisemitism through education and community outreach."

The release noted that Hempstead Town 'is home to the second largest Jewish population in the country,
second only to the neighboring New York City."

Nassau County also created an antisemitism task force in 2021 at the urging of Legis. Arnold Drucker, a Jewish Democrat from Plainview. It was signed into law by then County Executive Laura Curran. It had an April 2022 deadline for submitting a report about antisemitism in Nassau, 

But Blakeman, Curran's successor, in January 2022 amended the make up of the task force to make himself chairman and expanded its membership. The April 2022 report deadline was dropped. If the task force has produced any public reports, none has been publicized.

Asked if the new Hempstead task force would actually do anything, a Clavin spokesman said, "The task force, which will be filled with community leaders, elected officials and spiritual leaders, will hold educational seminars, historical education programs, public forums, etc. in the coming months. Education and community outreach will be the key for the task force."

So let's see what happens.

                                                                                           





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