CEDARHURST, N.Y. (1010 WINS) — The state Health Department has halted a campaign urging New Yorkers planning a Passover trip to Israel to get the polio vaccine after complaints that it invoked a decades-old antisemitic trope.
The initiative was launched earlier this month, with Passover starting on April 5, after the Israeli Ministry of Health confirmed that four children in northern Israel tested positive for the poliovirus after one unvaccinated child presented with paralysis symptoms.
Officials said the department sent an LED mobile truck on Friday to predominantly Jewish neighborhoods where travel to Israel was likely, including the Five Towns — Lawrence, Cedarhurst, Woodmere, Hewlett and Inwood — as well as parts of Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and Rockland County.
A billboard on the truck, parked Monday outside the Gourmet Glatt supermarket in Cedarhurst, read: "Polio is spreading in Israel. Get immunized now."
While one man told 1010 WINS that he didn't think the ad was antisemitic because it was for the "benefit" of those who live nearby, according to Sam Miller, the state health department's associate commissioner of external affairs, the campaign was canceled on Tuesday after some residents complained.
"After hearing feedback that mobile van ads intended to reach New Yorkers in their communities could be interpreted as blaming the communities themselves for the spread of polio, the department immediately pulled those ads," Miller told Newsday in a statement on Tuesday. "The Department of Health remains committed to serving New York's State's diverse communities, and we strongly condemn anti-Semitism. We will continue to work with our partners to stop the spread of a once-eradicated disease that causes preventable, life-threatening paralysis."
Opponents, including Republican State Assemblyman Ari Brown, claimed the message revived a Nazi-era antisemitic cliche.
"It's the same 'Jews spread disease libel,'" wrote Brown, who is also Cedarhurst's deputy mayor, in a letter to Health Department officials on Monday objecting to the truck.
"I will fight antisemitism and will not be silent whether it’s from a government official, media, academic institution, or whomever," wrote Brown, who said he had received hundreds of phone calls from residents complaining about the campaign.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, who is Jewish like Brown, said the ad "contained wording that could be perceived as anti-Semitic rhetoric."
Blakeman also praised Brown and Governor Kathy Hochul "for immediately correcting this troubling message."
Related
Related
Related
