NY clergy meets with Hochul, urging gov to keep NYC Mayor Eric Adams in office
Hizzoner has a prayer to stay in office.
A group of top New York faith leaders met with Gov. Kathy Hochul Tuesday and urged her to have divine patience before deciding to remove embattled Mayor Eric Adams from office, The Post has learned.
'Clergy are concerned about an immediate and unthought-out response from anyone to the Eric Adams situation and appreciated the governor meeting with us to include different perspectives in her deliberation,' said Rev. AR Bernard, pastor of the Christian Cultural Center megachurch in Brooklyn.
Joseph Potasnik, executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis, who was also at the Tuesday meeting, said Adams deserves to be treated fairly.
He said he still supports Adams, citing the embattled mayor's fullthroated support of the Jewish community in the wake of rising antisemitism set off by the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas' attacks in Israel and subsequent war in Gaza.
'Eric Adams has been a very important voice who has stood up for the Jewish community during an important time when others were silent,' Potasnik said.
Both thanked Hochul for soliciting their input and categorized the meeting as productive.
Adams has faced calls for his resignation and removal after the Trump Department of Justice moved to drop a federal corruption case against him until at least after the election in November.
Critics have raised concerns that Adams would be beholden to Trump and his hardline immigration policy in a quid pro quo deal for dropping the case — though the mayor has denied any agreement.
Four of his deputy mayors resigned in protest.
Meanwhile, eight black legislators wrote Hochul, saying they see no reason to remove Adams.
'As black legislators we have seen this over and over again: double standards and an unfair process when it comes to our leaders,' said the legislators, including Assemblywoman Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, an Adams ally and Brooklyn Democratic Party chairwoman.
'If a move is made against the mayor without a justifiable legal reason, our communities will not forget it,' the lawmakers said.
Signatories included state Sens. Roxanne Persaud, Leroy Comrie, James Sanders and Assembly members Nikki Lucas, Alicia Hyndman, Clyde Vanel and Al Taylor.
Dov Hikind, founder of Americans Against Antisemitism, also urged Hochul to back off Adams.
He said Public Advocate Jumaane Williams — who accused Israel of committing 'genocide' in Gaza –would become the acting mayor if Adams is removed.
'Governor Hochul, I beseech you and plead with you not to make the greatest mistake of your political life in crowning Williams as Mayor of our city,' Hikind said.
'He represents a dangerous element not only for the Jewish community but for all law abiding citizens of New York. You, and only you, will be held responsible and New Yorkers will not forgive you…Let the people decide the future of New York in the upcoming elections.'
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Newsweek
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Capital Jewish Museum's LGBTJews Exhibit is About Pride and Preservation
Leaders of Jewish institutions rarely need a reminder that antisemitism, like other forms of discrimination, still exist. But when Washington, D.C.'s Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum launched its new exhibition, "LGBTJews in the Federal City," in May, they had no idea that a deadly attack would unfold on their doorstep. On May 21, Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Milgrim, 26, two Israeli embassy staffers attending an event at the museum, were shot and killed. The suspect, Elias Rodriguez, 31, allegedly told police as he was apprehended: "I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza." In contrast, Lischinsky and Milgrim were at the museum to attend an annual interfaith event held by the American Jewish Committee for young people in diplomatic service, to promote peace and understanding despite differences of beliefs and opinions, specifically focused on humanitarian diplomacy. Rodriguez was charged the following day with murder of foreign officials, amongst other serious federal offenses. "Such acts of terror attempt to instill fear, silence voices and erase history—but we refuse to let them succeed," Dr. Beatrice Gurwitz, executive director of the museum, said in a statement after the shooting. "The Capital Jewish Museum was built to tell the centuries-old story of the greater Washington region's vibrant Jewish community. We are proud to tell these stories of Jewish life. In our work, we share Jewish stories in the service of building bridges and opening dialogue in our beautiful city." Building those kinds of bridges is what the museum is especially proud of, and what its new exhibit represents. Shortly before the killings, Newsweek spoke with Gurwitz in conjunction with WorldPride 2025 for a previously planned story about the new exhibit. While the quotes in this story are from before the shooting, the tone of "LGBTJews in the Federal City" reinforces Gurwitz's sentiment about the importance of resisting fear and not being silenced, and is consistent with how they addressed the attack afterward. "There's going to be debate and disagreement embedded in [what to exhibit]," Gurwitz told Newsweek. "And then the other thing that we take seriously as an institution is doing our best to capture those debates right. There is never one opinion. There is never one approach. And I think that we have a responsibility to not only document Jewish political engagement, but also showcase the ways that people have come at it from diverse perspectives over time." And for much of these debates, no matter the issue, it's the backdrop of Washington, D.C., that gives it its weight and national implications, said Jonathan Edelman, collections curator. "No matter what city people were living in when they fought for their rights, people gathered in Washington." Jewish Allies march in the DC pride parade, 1990s. Jewish Allies march in the DC pride parade, 1990s. Gift of Bet Mishpachah with thanks to Joel Wind & Al Munzer, Lillian & Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum Collection Telling a Complicated History "I feel like my whole curatorial practice for the last 30 years has been leading to this moment," Sarah Leavitt, director of curatorial affairs for the Capital Jewish Museum, told Newsweek. "I think, increasingly, stakes are really high and it's really on us as museum professionals to really be doing part of that work to tell America's story in a much more complicated way. And that includes to tell, in our case, a local Jewish story in a complicated way." The exhibit—with hundreds of artifacts provided by the community, a large portion of which came from the local LGBTQ+ Bet Mishpachah synagogue—maps LGBTQ+ history and its intersection with Jewish history in Washington, D.C., through images, archival protest campaign posters, Washington Blade archives, a panel of the AIDS Memorial Quilt and oral histories produced with the Rainbow History Project. "A big part of this exhibition and this collecting effort is to capture more of this history, especially LGBTQ history, which has either been erased intentionally by people trying to protect themselves, or by people who don't believe that history should be preserved," Edelman said. As a recent transplant to D.C. while in graduate school, he found that "in every aspect of the Jewish community, there were large amounts of out LGBTQ people," unlike where he grew up in the Midwest. "I want everyone to see themselves in this exhibit and see that LGBTQ history is Jewish history." 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During the height of the anti-Communist movement of the mid-20th century, thousands of queer federal employees were either fired or forced to resign because of their sexual orientation. One of these fired workers, Frank Kameny, became an influential activist in the gay rights movement. He would go on to form the influential Mattachine Society of Washington in 1960 and, in 1965, organized protests outside the White House advocating for gay rights and the reinstatement of federal works. The story of Kameny, a Jewish man, is one of the many told about this period. "To me, it's so important that my generation understands what people before us had to go through and what they fought for beyond the story of Stonewall, beyond Harvey Milk," Edelman said. "Washington was such an epicenter in its own way and had its own unique aspects." 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