Steve Burns
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON – (WMAL) The D.C. Council on Tuesday put a podium outside the Wilson Building in the exact spot where, five days earlier, a rally supporting embattled Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White devolved into another controversial series of remarks, and from that podium, Council Chairman Phil Mendelson emphatically denounced hate speech and antisemitism in the District as the body continues grappling with the fallout of controversial remarks from one of their own.
At the event on Thursday, Councilmember Elissa Silverman was labeled a “fake Jew,” and Jews as a whole were referred to as “termites” by one speaker.
On Tuesday, the message was much different.
“Intolerant speech, hateful speech, racist speech, antisemitic speech has no place in our city,” Council Chairman Phil Mendelson said at the impromptu press conference. “Diversity, in all of its many forms, is what we celebrate and what makes Washington, D.C. great.”
The news conference followed a breakfast meeting among councilmembers, where they debated the correct response to recent controversies surrounding White and D.C. Housing Authority Board of Directors member Joshua Lopez, who organized the Thursday rally in support of White. Lopez, an appointee and ally of Mayor Muriel Bowser, announced his resignation not long afterward.
“It became clear that this issue was becoming highly politicized and people were using it as an opportunity to attack my family and people I care about,” Lopez wrote on his Facebook page. “This was only creating more division (which is the opposite of what I wanted) and after deep reflection I decided to take the high road and remove myself from the equation.”
Bowser, in brief remarks at an unrelated event Tuesday, declined to mention White or Lopez by name.
“We need to have a conversation about how to end antisemitism, and talking about a few individuals won’t do it,” she said.
White has been the target of antisemitism accusations for over a month, following an Instagram video in which he asserted the Rothschilds family controls the weather. The Washington Post also uncovered a $500 donation out of White’s Constituent Services Fund to an event put on by Louis Farrakhan, in which he called powerful Jews his enemy.
White has remained defiant, saying in a recent Facebook Live video that he will not back down.
“I’m going to tell you right now. I’m not going anywhere. I’m not resigning. I’m not stepping down. I’m not going to be quiet. I’m just not,” he said.
White stood in the back during Tuesday’s gathering outside the Wilson Building, and did not visibly react, based on a video provided by the Washington Post, when Rabbi Schmuel Herzfeld burst in to the breakfast meeting.
“This is unacceptable. You know better,” Herzfeld yelled at the head of the table. “When there are Jews that are called termites outside of your office, I am going to stand up and speak.”
Herzfeld later expressed frustration at the Council’s response.
“They didn’t call out Trayon by name. They were afraid to,” Herzfeld told WMAL’s Larry O’Connor Show. “They don’t want to speak directly to him and say, ‘Trayon, shame on you. Shame on you for acting this way.'”
Mendelson, responding to that accusation, said White’s matters seemed to be resolved already.
“Councilmember White apologized, and there’s not one person who was in that room of Jewish leaders, councilmembers, and other officials, not one person who said they thought his apology was insincere,” Mendelson told the Larry O’Connor Show. “There is developing this cycle of, I’m going to say, statement and counter-statement and more statements. We’re trying to make it clear that we don’t tolerate this kind of hate speech, and at the same time, looking for ways to expand understanding of different faiths and to tone down the rhetoric.”
Copyright 2017 by WMAL.com. All Rights Reserved. (Photo: CNN)
