Congressional Candidate Charles Barron Slammed

By JTA June 12, 2012

Several current and former New York Jewish elected officials gathered to denounce the congressional candidacy of Charles Barron for his anti-Israel views.

Ex-Mayor Ed Koch, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), City Councilman David Greenfield and state Assemblyman Dov Hikind, among others, gathered in front of the Museum of Jewish Heritage-A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in downtown Battery Park at a news conference Monday to call Barron, a Brooklyn Democrat, an “enemy of the State of Israel” and the New York Jewish community.

Barron, a city councilman, is facing state Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries in a June 26 Democratic primary in a bid to succeed 24-year incumbent Rep. Edolphus Towns, also a Democrat, who is retiring at the end of this year.

The politicians at Battery Park expressed support for Jeffries and called Barron an “anti-Semite,” “hateful” and a “bigot.”

Barron has compared the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians to the Nazi treatment of Jews during World War II. He also has publicly praised foreign dictators such as the late Muammar Gadhafi of Libya and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.

“To compare Israel to Nazis, calling what Israel’s doing genocide? Israel’s trying to survive in a tough neighborhood,” Nadler said during the news conference, according to Politicker. The longtime congressman added that Israel is “not doing anything like Nazis. To even put them in the same universe is a disgrace to the English language.”

Nadler said Barron’s election to Congress, “to some extent would legitimize this kind of anti-Semitic discourse, and we don’t need that.”

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO