100 Prominent Jewish Leaders Condemn Attacks On Linda Sarsour
By Josh Nathan-Kazis June 1, 2017
More than 100 Jewish leaders condemned attacks on Linda Sarsour, the Palestinian-American activist whose Thursday speech at a City University of New York graduation ceremony has become a flashpoint.
Signatories to the letter include many of the most prominent left-leaning Jewish communal leaders, including J Street’s Jeremy Ben-Ami, Bend the Arc’s Stosh Cotler, HIAS’s Mark Hetfield, the National Council of Jewish Women’s Nancy Kaufman, and T’ruah’s Rabbi Jill Jacobs. Rabbis from Congregation B’nai Jeshurun on the Upper West Side and Congregation Beth Elohim in Park Slope also signed, as did the playwright Tony Kushner and New York City Council member Brad Lander.
“We will not stand by as Sarsour is falsely maligned, harassed and smeared, as she, her organization and her family suffer vicious public threats and intimidation,” the letter reads. “We unequivocally oppose these assaults against her, and publicly state our commitment to working alongside her for a more just and equal society.”
Sarsour, a lead organizer of the Women’s March on Washington, has received death threats in advance of her commencement speech at CUNY’s School of Public Health. Opposition to the speech was spearheaded in May by New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, and has recently been taken up by alt-right figure Milo Yiannopolous, among others.
Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at nathankazis@forward.com or on Twitter, @joshnathankazis.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
