NEW YORK — A video of Willie Cotton, Socialist Workers Party candidate for lieutenant governor of New York, speaking at a June 24 protest against Jew-hatred outside the Poetica Coffee shop in Brooklyn has been viewed more than 32,000 times. End Jew Hatred, the organizers of the action, had posted it on their Facebook and Instagram pages. Fox News aired part of Cotton’s speech as well.
The rally was called in response to anti-Jewish comments posted on the Poetica Facebook page by its owner, Parviz Mukhamadkulov, after Democratic Party Congressman Dan Goldman, who is Jewish, bought coffee there June 21.
“We see that you stopped by our shop today,” the post said next to a photo of Goldman inside the store. “We don’t serve racists, fascists, homophobes, genocide enablers or anyone in between. Too bad we didn’t recognize you right away, or we would have turned you away.”
Mukhamadkulov announced the shop had issued Goldman a refund, saying, “We don’t need your money (it’s probably coming from AIPAC anyways).” AIPAC is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a lobbying group.
As word got out about the Jew-hating post, the cafe owner took it down.
“No New Yorker should have to pass an Israel loyalty test to buy a cup of coffee,” Michelle Ahdoot, director of End Jew Hatred, said at the protest. “They don’t need to denounce Israel or AIPAC or Zionism in order to be served at this counter, just like everybody else.”
“The Jewish people standing up for civil rights won’t be silent,” she said.
The coffee shop “denied Goldman not because he was Zionist, but because he was Jewish,” Cotton told the protest. “Jew-hatred must be fought.”
End Jew Hatred printed an introduction to the video saying Cotton’s message “should resonate far beyond one coffee shop or one borough.”
“Drawing on his own family’s experience fighting anti-Black discrimination in Mississippi during the height of the civil rights movement more than 60 years ago, Willie reminded the crowd that the fight against hatred has always depended on people being willing to recognize injustice and refuse to look away,” the group’s introduction says.
“Willie also spoke powerfully about why Israel matters, not as an abstract political issue,” but as the only state where Jews are “protected from the violent hatred they’ve faced across continents and generations. In that context, he referenced the horrific terror attack on Jews during a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach (in Australia) in December, underscoring the reality that anti-Jewish violence is not theoretical or isolated.”
Organizers of the protest had invited Cotton to speak after seeing him and a campaign supporter with signs saying, “Fighting Jew-hatred is a life-and-death question for the working class. Socialist Workers Party.” Adoot introduced Cotton as “an ally with moral clarity.”
You can view the video at: www.instagram.com/endjewhatred/reel/DaAzeozqbhY/