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Posted by
Olog-hai
on Thu Aug 18 12:08:56 2016
fiogf49gjkf0d NYDN
EXCLUSIVE: City Council candidate slammed for 'greedy Jewish landlords' remark in fund-raising emailBy Erin Durkin
Monday, August 15, 2016, 4:51 AMCity pols are blasting City Council candidate Thomas Lopez-Pierre for his latest inflammatory comments about “greedy Jewish landlords.”
Lopez-Pierre, who ran a fringe campaign for an uptown Council seat in 2013 that drew attention for his racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric, is now running against incumbent Mark Levine.
He blasted out a fund-raising e-mail earlier this month with the subject line “SAVE HARLEM from Greedy Jewish Landlords.”
“Greedy Landlords and NYC Council Member Mark Levine are working together to push Black and Hispanic tenants out of Harlem!” he wrote, going on to charge that Levine, “the only Jewish person in the race,” only won in 2013 because there were eight black and Hispanic candidates running against him.
City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, Controller Scott Stringer, Public Advocate Letitia James, Rep. Jerry Nadler and others penned a letter to Lopez-Pierre demanding he apologize.
“Such rhetoric has no place in our society, and certainly does not belong in a political campaign,” they wrote.
“Your repeated references to ‘greedy Jewish landlords’ in your most recent email play on a long-established anti-Semitic trope,” the group of 14 elected officials wrote.
“Your reference to your opponent as the ‘only Jewish candidate in the race’ and frequent depiction of him in religious garb amount to gratuitous targeting of him based on religion.”
Lopez-Pierre has also sent e-mails using the n-word to refer to a fundraiser backing his opponent and sparked a bizarre incident where an Assemblywoman accused him of touching her buttocks and he lashed out at her as a “political slut.”
The group also launched a petition asking New Yorkers to register their opposition to Lopez-Pierre.
“Your divisive efforts have no place in our political culture,” they wrote. “We call on you to cease this deplorable behavior at once.”
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