EXCLUSIVE: Councilman Menchaca Condemned at Annual Pre-Election Agudath Election

Flash back to pre-Election Day, Nov. 2, where Jewish community activists and legislators attended Agudath Israel’s Annual Election Season Legislative Breakfast at Alliance Bernstein Global Wealth in Manhattan.

Alliance Bernstein Global Wealth Management Principal and host of the breakfast Jeffrey Wiesenfeld welcomed those in attendance and thanked Agudath Israel and the Friedlander Group for sponsoring the event. He began speaking on how “if people decide that the state of Israel and the Jewish people should be an experiment for an Islamic fascist regime with a nuclear bomb, it means we’re not speaking loud enough for our rights the way other groups do for theirs.”

Added Wiesenfeld: “Other groups would have more self-respect than to be as relatively tranquil as we have been. We’re in the midst of a threat.”

As the host of the prestigious Agudath Israel Legislative Breakfast and in front of highly-elected federal and local officials, Wiesenfeld went on to condemn a “council member” — likely directing his comments toward Brooklyn Councilman Carlos Menchaca for his support of Arab-American activist Linda Sarsour, who tweeted a photo of a Palestinian boy clutching rocks in front of Israeli troops and labeled it “the definition of courage.”

“When we praise a council member who praises a would-be council member for idolizing stone-throwers, and we’re silent, then we are failing. We have to stand up for our rights, defense and the state of Israel,” said Wiesenfeld in response to the crisis in Israel.

Menchaca, who represents a small portion of the Jewish community in Borough Park, and his public support of Sarsour’s views left many elected officials outraged.

And in an effort to bring the councilman back on “good terms” with the Jewish community, Assemblyman Dov Hikind met with Menchaca to “Kosher-ize” him to help mend fences with the community at a Ger Fathers and Sons service last week, while also bringing Menchaca to an Avos Ubanim last Saturday.

“The only person that can make Councilman Menchaca Kosher, is Menchaca himself by condemning Sarsour’s hateful, anti-American, anti-Semitic views,” Sen. Simcha Felder told JP in response to a New York Post article.