In bid to unseat D’Esposito, Gillen eyes Jew-hate

The Democrat seeking to unseat a pro-Israel Republican in Nassau County’s 4th CD staked her claim to pro-Jewish bonafides last week.

Former Hempstead Town Supervisor Laura Gillen presented “an action plan” to combat antisemitism and criticized her rival, Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, for voting to cut resources needed for that fight.

The 4th CD is home to a large number of Jewish voters, including those in the Trump-leaning Five Towns.

Gillen said she would introduce legislation that goes beyond “harsh words and stern warnings” to establish “enforceable policies that will tackle the antisemitism problem.”

“When I send my kids off to school each semester, I expect and hope, at a bare minimum, that they’ll be safe and secure on campus,” she told a press conference outside the home of a supporter in East Meadow on Wednesday. “And beyond the college campus, the explosions’ hatred has targeted synagogues and run rampant on social media.”

She said that D’Esposito joined fellow Republicans in voting to slash funds for the FBI and the Department of Justice “whose assistance is necessary to coordinate responses to the threats we’re seeing.”

D’Esposito in April introduced the Define to Defeat Act, which gives federal officers with an objective, contemporary definition of antisemitism, providing them with needed tools “to fully assess, investigate and prosecute this criminal behavior,” a spokesperson for the congressman told the Nassau Herald.

Meanwhile, Gillen said, “Congress has failed to rein in social media platforms where our residents are exposed to unchecked propaganda, hate speech, promoting Oct. 7 denialism, conspiracy and violence.”

“Schools that do not comply with Title Six of the Civil Rights Act … and fail to address violence and threats on campus, should lose their federal funding,” she said. “We will compel colleges to implement and enforce codes of conduct.”

Gillen’s media event opened with statements by Alisa Baroukh, whose daughter attends Cornell University and whose son is a high school senior applying to colleges; Seth Koslow, who represents portions of Freeport and Merrick in the Nassau County Legislature; and Michael Stanger, spiritual leader of the Old Westbury Hebrew Congregation.

Baroukh said she was pleased with Gillen’s “results oriented plan.”

“We need strong enforceable policies to ensure the well-being of students as well as to stop disinformation on social media,” she said.

“My daughter’s freshman year was marred by widespread antisemitic intimidation, which was hard considering we chose Cornell for the warm and inclusive environment that we saw during our tours,” Baroukh said.

“This macro-level intimidation included online death threats towards Jewish students that resulted in the FBI swarming campus, a professor on Oct. 7th claiming he was exhilarated and happy about the massacre, and culminating with a pro-Palestinian encampment right in the center of the quad.”

She said she was pleased that Congress conducted hearings to hold college leaders to account but was “dismayed by the lack of meaningful change that could help our students feel safe.”

“Last year, my daughter was forced to walk to class on sidewalks that had ‘Zionism is Nazism’ and other antisemitic slurs spraypainted on them. It got so bad that Cornell cancelled classes one day so students could focus on their mental health.”

“Laura’s plan to increase funding for the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights would allow students like my daughter to seek redress if they suffer antisemitic abuse,” Baroukh continued. “Unfortunately, House Republicans recently voted to cut funding for this crucial resource. I think we can all agree that now is not the time to cut this funding.”

Koslow said that he’s supported adding local resources to the fight, more help was needed on the federal level.

He urged “stricter regulations of social media companies failing to remove antisemitic memes and conspiracy theories,” something, he complained, Congress has not done.

“This Congress has failed to enact these safeguards. Which is why I’m glad Laura Gillen is proposing content control.”

Rabbi Stanger spoke about how his synagogue — along with other Jewish institutions — have had to increases its budget allocation for security.

“You have these pro-Palestinian / pro-Hamas / pro-terrorist / pro-Jew-hatred protests happening almost daily,” he said. “Just because a group says they’re anti-Zionist doesn’t mean they’re not anti-Jewish. It is essentially the same thing.”

“Being Jewish means supporting the concept of a Jewish state, that is all Zionism means,” Stanger continued. “People who try to hide behind anti-Zionist rhetoric are basically saying you can only be a Jew on our terms. We should not have to check our values, our politics, at the door.”

Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Zionist group active on campuses, “does not speak for me. I can assure you that 90 percent of the Jews today are Zionist — as they have every right to be.”