The National Council of Young Israel (NCYI) Tuesday denounced the Lincoln Project, a political action committee dedicated to defeating President Trump, calling billboard ads they posted in Times Square in New York City targeting Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump anti-Semitic and urging that they be taken down.
One billboard features a photo of a smiling Kushner and the other one contains a photo of a smiling Ivanka Trump, each of which seemingly links the two to the coronavirus deaths suffered by New Yorkers and people throughout the United States.
“At a time of rising anti-Semitism, when Jews are unjustly being blamed for the spread of COVID-19, for the Lincoln Project to place the onus of over 220,000 deaths squarely at the feet of two Jewish officials who were not central figures in the White House response is an outrageous act of moral malpractice,” said NCYI President Farley Weiss. “These shameless ads contain outrageous inferences that go far beyond politics and cross over into the dangerous realm of hatemongering and anti-Semitism, and we therefore call for their immediate removal.”
Weiss noted that Kushner was part of a successful push to secure much-needed personal protective equipment at the outset of the pandemic and was in close contact with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo when the state was besieged by the coronavirus. In addition, the federal government assisted New York by offering the Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort and transforming the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center into an emergency hospital when the New York hospitals were overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients.
“Jared Kushner’s actions demonstrate a desire to help the people of New York and a willingness to roll up his sleeves and get to work in order to do so,” Weiss said. “Attacking him and assailing his wife, who was by no means tasked with crafting and carrying out the administration’s pandemic-related protocols, is an appalling attempt to deprecate two proud members of the Jewish faith and make them scapegoats for coronavirus deaths in the United States.”
