NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – Newly resurfaced video shows Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee for New York City mayor, slamming Orthodox Jews during a meeting in the Hudson Valley several years ago.
The video was posted to the Facebook page “United Hudson Valley” in October 2018. It shows Sliwa speaking at a meeting for the Reform Party, of which he was a member before joining the GOP.
In the video, the Guardian Angels founder blasts the “bloc vote” of Orthodox Jews, according to the Times of Israel.
“They don’t vote the way normal Americans vote,” Sliwa said. “They’re being told by the rebbe or rabbi this is who you vote for.”
In the video, Sliwa also describes the Orthodox community as abusing welfare.
“We’re not talking about poor, impoverished, disabled people who need help, we’re talking about able-bodied men who study Torah and Talmud all day and we subsidize them,” he said. “And then all they do is make babies like there’s no tomorrow, and who’s subsidizing that? We are.”
Sliwa also claimed Orthodox Jews are moving into areas and taking tax money from public schools.
“If somebody comes in and tries to take over your community lock, stock, and barrel and break all the rules and expect the tax dollars to go to their community, and they’re taking away from you, and their kids aren’t even being serviced in the public schools, but they want all the money in the public schools to go to the yeshivas, then you got to righteously stand up and say no, it ends right here,” he said.
In the video, Sliwa addressed the fact his comments could be seen as anti-Semitic.
“The moment you bring this to somebody’s attention, you’re called an anti-Semite,” Sliwa said. “You’re not anti-Semites, you’re trying to preserve your community.”
Asked about the video, Sliwa told the New York Post that he’d reach out to the Orthodox community and noted that his Guardian Angels have been patrolling Jewish areas for years.
“I’ve been your friend, I’ve been there — always,” Sliwa said in a video to the Post. “But please don’t call me an anti-Semite… C’mon. Even my worst critics out there would recognize that is a 'shanda' [shameful].”
Agudath Israel of America, an organization that represents Orthodox Jews, released a statement saying Sliwa should apologize for his “anti-Semitic rant.”
“Agudath Israel of America, like all New Yorkers of good will, is outraged at current mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa’s recently publicized rant against Hassidic Jews,” the organization said in part. “Our outrage is accompanied by great surprise, considering how Mr. Sliwa and the Guardian Angels group he founded have shown great concern for the safety of Jews.”
“Aside from the misleading nature of Mr. Sliwa’s accusations, with violent attacks on Jews, like those in Monsey, Pittsburgh and Jersey City, still in recent memory, words like his only add fuel to the fire of Jew-hatred,” the group also said in the statement.