Hoboken, NJ – Mayor Ravi Bhalla denounced antisemitic comments made at Wednesday’s meeting by a resident during the public comment section directed at member Phil Cohen.
Resident Melissa Blanco first angrily addressed the meeting about a canopy of trees on 11th Street that was never replaced. She then began talking about an earlier vote approving Scott Pennington as a Municipal Court Judge and Benjamin Choi as Chief Judge of the Municipal Court following the retirement of former Chief Judge Cataldo Fazio.
They are respectively the first African-American and Asian-American in those positions. Blanco called the diversity “a bunch of baloney” and that Cataldo was a competent judge.
“It’s about as diverse as all the people who were plucked out a synagogue and all the synagogues that run the City of Hoboken,” Blanco said, adding that she has problems with one of the judicial nominees who is involved in a legal case of her own.
Council President Emily Jabbour told Blano her time was up as she continued to speak, leading two police officers to approach in an effort to get her to leave the microphone. Blanco continued to yell from her seat as the public comment session continued on an other matter.
Later in the meeting, Councilman Phil Cohen, who said he is proud of his Jewish faith, said he received texts from people who watched the live video stream of the video expressing regret at the anti-Semetic comments directed at him.
“There is no place in our community for antisemitism. It is sadly a part of American political life today. The rise of white nationalism is happening. You’ve seen Nazis marching in Charlottesville not too long ago. It’s wrong and it doesn’t belong in Hoboken. I condemn and I would ask my council colleagues to also condemn it. And I hope we never see it here again,” Cohen said.
After the meeting, Mayor Ravi Bhalla and Jabbour issued a joint statement.
“Comments like those made at the council meeting last night will not be tolerated in our culturally diverse city, and we expect all who attend any public gatherings in Hoboken to conduct themselves with decorum and treat everyone in attendance, elected official or not, with respect and dignity,” they wrote.
The ADL of New York/New Jersey said it was “disturbed” by Blano’s remarks and praised Bhalla and Jabbour’s condemnation.
Blanco said on Twitter that her comments were not inappropriate, according to Hudson County View. She linked her tweet to an article by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance titled “What is antisemitism.”
