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OP-ED: Dear Jerusalem Post, DeSantis speaking at the Museum of Tolerance is intolerable

OP-ED: Dear Jerusalem Post, DeSantis speaking at the Museum of Tolerance is intolerable

OP-ED: Dear Jerusalem Post, DeSantis speaking at the Museum of Tolerance is intolerable

Passover starts at sundown next Wednesday and Jewish Floridians in particular face a daily plague known as Ron DeSantis, the tiny man in high heels who points his finger at drag queens and kids in masks and threatens teachers with rainbow flags with prosecution while allowing Nazis to make Florida their warm, welcome safe space where swastikas fly next to flags that read, “DeSantis Country.”  So why did  The Jerusalem Post and Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem invite him to give a keynote speech in Israel next month?

It’s a question many Americans–not just Jewish ones–are asking.

The newspaper says Reichstag Ron, the one who bans books and whitewashes Black history because it makes his fragile white base squirm in their own filthy guilt, is going to address tensions in Israel. That’s almost as rich as Trump claimed he was, but not nearly as rich as getting owned by an animated rodent (L’chaim Mickey!).

The crass culture warrior who peppers his speeches and fundraising emails with antisemitic screams of “Soros,” the one whose state, according to the ADL, has faced an unprecedented increase in antisemitism and neo-Nazi activity under his tenure, has been invited to speak at a museum of tolerance when, in fact, the only tolerance he seems to have is for, well, neo-Nazis.

Perhaps it would make more sense if someone as loathsome and intolerant and far right as DeSantis were to speak at a rally for Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, who cowered to hundreds of thousands of protesters rejecting his dictatorial plans to overhaul Israel’s judiciary, but a MUSEUM OF TOLERANCE?

The hypocrisy is, as we Jewish folk say, a shanda. Truly disgraceful.

Many of us did what we do in these cases, sadly, no we don’t join hundreds of thousands en masse in the streets, but we do it in the tattered town hall that is Twitter.

Some wrote to The Jerusalem Post directly asking wtf (Welcome to Florida)?

Here was the answer:

 

Now, Shalom Rabbi Cooper, but NU?

A man who has attacked marginalized people, made his state unsafe for them and remains silent on Nazis in Florida, is going to speak at a MUSEUM. OF. TOLERANCE?

A Proud Boys pinup who got his name checked in the far-right neo-fascist group’s January 6 manifesto is giving the keynote speech. On what? How to befriend a Nazi?

Yes, we know Lindbergh is dead, but come on. This is like asking Nick Cannon to speak at a conference on abstinence.

Actually that would make more sense considering Cannon was indeed once celibate, he says, while DeSantis has yet to prove that he gives a flying Buc-ee’s about Jewish Americans unless they are of the far-right and very wealthy kind.

It’s a joke, but really it’s gross. Just gross.

Next week at my seder, I am devoting all four questions to ASKING WHY this is happening? HOW this is happening? HOW COULD you have this happen? And, last but not least, ARE YOU KIDDING?

https://twitter.com/lesleyabravanel/status/1628098683412615168?s=20

 

Lesley Abravanel

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