Progressives Go After Andrew Yang For Supporting Israel

By IsraelNationalNews and COLlive

New York City mayoral hopeful Andrew Yang‘s Monday statement in support of Israel was met with a flurry of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic tweets, some from supporters now denouncing him and demanding their donations returned.

Yang was also accused of soliciting the support of a white supremacist. One user threatened to “slap (Yang) through the Internet.”

Jewish and pro-Israel replies to Yang’s statement expressed thanks for his stance, as well as shock and outrage that so many comments were hateful of Israel and Jews, and made baseless anti-Israel accusations and ignored the barrage of hundreds of Hamas rockets being launched at Israel.

Yang, a Democrat who ran for president in the 2020 election, has been a frontrunner throughout the New York mayoral race.

Now that he has come out in support of Israel during a time when the Jewish State has come under attack from hundreds of Hamas rockets, many of his “Yang Gang” progressive supporters are outraged.

“I’m standing with the people of Israel who are coming under bombardment attacks, and condemn the Hamas terrorists. The people of NYC will always stand with our brothers and sisters in Israel who face down terrorism and persevere,” tweeted Yang who has been endorsed by prominent local Jewish leaders, including high-profile Brooklyn Jewish politicians and rabbis.

Judging by the Twitter backlash, it appears that though Yang had criticized the BDS movement, and his campaign has picked up the support of many prominent New York City Jewish leaders, his campaign has nonetheless attracted many voters who are vociferously anti-Israel and anti-Semitic.

Those supporters are now attacking Yang on Twitter, some calling him nasty names.

The StopAntisemitism.org organization thanked Andrew Yang for doing the right thing.

“Thank you Andrew Yang for standing up for what’s right – condemning Hamas terror attacks on innocent civilians. And for those that are vilifying you for this are siding with terrorism. Shocking this is what it’s come to in America 2021,” StopAntisemitism tweeted.

Yang has recently been endorsed by a coalition of Jewish activists and groups representing the Jewish community in Borough Park, including Bobov, Belz, Satmar, Pupe and Klausenburg.

Yang has aggressively courted the city’s Orthodox Jews in recent months. He defended the yeshiva education system, took a bold stance labeling the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement as antisemitic and hired a member of the Chassidic community as his campaign’s Jewish outreach director, the Forward reported.

The endorsers include: Heshy Dembitzer, Joel Rosenfeld and Chaskie Rosenberg of Bobov; Yaakov Yosef Steinmetz, Chesky Blau and Naftuli Reiner of Bobov-45; Efrayim Fink of Benos Chaya, Yitzchok Mechil Moskowitz and Meir Kuperstein of Belz; Chaim Friedman of Munkatch, Aron Welz and Jacob Landau of Satmar; Berl Lefkowitz and Naftali Tzvi Schwartz of Satmar; Joel Friedman of Pupa, Moshe Weissman and Gershon Weiss of Klausenburg; and Moshe Shia Kramer of Rachmastrivka.

“I am so deeply proud to have earned the endorsement of this incredible group of community leaders, many of whom I’ve met and gotten to know on a personal level in recent weeks,” commented Yang, who is leading the polls in the Democratic primaries scheduled for June.

”New York’s Jewish community is not only core to who we are as a City, it is also going to be critical to New York’s comeback,” Yang said. “I have had such an amazing time visiting Borough Park, bumping into people on 13th Avenue, visiting local shops — where everyone I met was so optimistic about New York’s future. The vibrancy, hope and joy felt on the streets in Borough Park is a palpable reminder of who we are as New Yorkers.”