Nyack, New York – Congressional candidate Mondaire Jones, running to reclaim his former seat, tweeted a comment about ex-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s meeting last spring with the Skverer Rebbe, then deleted the tweet after some said it was antisemitic.
“Well this was a waste of everyone’s time,” Jones, a Democrat, tweeted Tuesday, along with a Hamodia photo of McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) meeting with the Skverer Rebbe in New Square last March.
The tweet was posted shortly after McCarthy was ousted as speaker amid a fight with several members of his party over a spending bill.
Jones came under criticism for the tweet – including from fellow Democrats.
“This disgusting post is insulting to Jewish people and every person of faith,” tweeted Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.). “Meeting with religious leaders is critical to understanding the needs of our communities. This antisemitic rhetoric is deeply concerning.”
“This was not a waste of time,” tweeted Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) “It is never a waste of time to meet with religious leaders. Additionally, I doubt your choice of religion to highlight here was coincidental.”
Jones previously represented the 17th Congressional District, which includes Rockland County and portions of Westchester County, from 2021 to 2023. After the 2022 redistricting, he ran in the 10th District (Brooklyn and Manhattan), but lost the Democratic primary. In 2024 he will go back upstate and challenge Lawler in the 17th District, if he can first beat back several other Democratic challengers.
When Lawler ran in the 17th last year against Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y., who had previously represented the 18th District but decided to run in the 17th following redistricting), Skver endorsed Maloney, despite a personal visit to the Rebbe on the eve of the election by then-Minority Leader McCarthy seeking an endorsement of Lawler. As Hamodia reported, however, at the meeting the Rebbe emphasized that McCarthy’s visit was not a waste, and that the community would build a strong relationship with him in the years to come, and McCarthy, in turn, said he would like to return as speaker.
Indeed, following Lawler’s victory, (which came via strong support from Rockland’s Orthodox Jewish community other than New Square), Lawler and then-Speaker McCarthy visited New Square last March.
After Jones’ tweet Tuesday following McCarthy’s ouster, Lawler criticized Jones’ comments, saying in a statement, “Mondaire Jones tweeted the quiet part out loud. His comments are shocking but not surprising for a guy who pals around with anti-Semites like Pramila Jayapal, Jamaal Bowman, and the rest of the Squad … Unlike dog-whistling Mondaire Jones and his Israel-hating friends, I’ll always stand up for Israel and for our Jewish communities. Mondaire Jones’ comments are disqualifying. He has no place being in Congress, let alone representing one of the largest Jewish populations in the country in the 17th District.”
On Wednesday, Jones deleted the tweet, and made a new post on Twitter (currently called X) saying, “Yesterday, I posted a tweet that was too open to misinterpretation. My point was to communicate that Kevin McCarthy, and by extension Mike Lawler, cannot possibly deliver for communities in Rockland because he’s no longer Speaker. Regrettably, I did not make this point clear enough, and so I have deleted the tweet. I am proud of my record of combating antisemitism in Congress and after Congress. In a time of rising anti-semitism, we must be crystal clear where we stand: I continue to be a strong ally of our diverse Jewish communities.”
Moskowitz and Gottheimer appeared to accept Jones’ apology, both deleting their tweets critical of Jones — though the deleted tweets were preserved in a screenshot by Kiryas Joel Schools Superintendent Joel Petlin. In a new post, Moskowitz wrote, “I appreciate this clarification and removal of the tweet. With the rise of antisemitism imagery is sensitive. I want to be clear, after speaking to him I do not believe that was his intent. I appreciate his record in Congress of standing with the Jewish community in his district.”
David Greenfield, a Democratic former New York City Councilman, told Hamodia on Wednesday, “It was an unfortunate tweet and never should have been sent with that photo. However, I certainly give Mondaire credit for acknowledging his mistake and deleting the tweet. It’s rare for politicians to acknowledge their mistakes these days.”
But not all were so forgiving.
Petlin wrote, “Mondaire Jones’ Tweet was correctly interpreted by many of his supporters as Antisemitic, because it was. In a time of rising Antisemitism, it’s mindboggling that a candidate for Congress would post such an inappropriate comment, insulting the people he wants to represent … he only offered an apology once he was called out by his former Congressional colleagues.”
