Anti-Semitic Slur by N.J. Lawmaker Draws Swift Backlash
The lawmaker from Trenton, who waited days to apologize, came under criticism from all 12 members of Congress from the state.
At a closed meeting, the City Council president in Trenton, New Jersey’s capital, used an anti-Semitic slur to describe the negotiation tactics of a Jewish city attorney.
“They were able to wait her out and jew her down,” the president, Kathy McBride, said, according to a recording.
The comment, made at a session on Sept. 5, came to light on Friday, drew condemnations from state and local officials. On Tuesday, after not addressing the situation for days, Ms. McBride publicly apologized at the start of the Council meeting.
“In my position, you cannot make anyone feel insulted, or you cannot be insensitive to any ethnic backgrounds, so I am apologizing to the community at large,” she said.
But that did not quell the controversy. On Wednesday, it spread to Washington, with all 12 members of New Jersey’s House of Representatives delegation calling for public apologies or resignations from two Trenton lawmakers who had come to Ms. McBride’s defense.
“Anti-Semitism is on the rise around the world and right here in New Jersey,” the lawmakers said in a joint statement. “We must never accept bigotry or hatred in any form.”
The city attorney, Peter Cohen, who was not at the meeting where the slur was used, said he was somewhat bewildered by the attention that Ms. McBride’s remarks about him had generated. He said he did not believe Ms. McBride harbored anti-Semitic views.
Still, he called her comments “disappointing,” saying they invoked a negative stereotype that was troubling in light of increasingly incendiary rhetoric used against racial, ethnic and religious groups.
The uproar over Ms. McBride’s remarks comes amid a global resurgence of anti-Semitic attitudes. Experts have tracked a rising number of crimes against Jews worldwide, including violent and deadly attacks.
New Jersey, a state with a significant Jewish population, had the third-highest number of anti-Semitic incidents in the country in 2018, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
Over the summer, two men believed to be harboring anti-Semitic views were arrested in separate cases after officers discovered they owned stockpiles of weapons and troves of white-supremacist material.
But several incidents recently where public officials used anti-Semitic rhetoric has also caused concern in Jewish communities. Last week, a councilman in Paterson, N.J., also used the phrase “jew us down” at a meeting. In August, the president of a local N.A.A.C.P. chapter was fired from his government job over anti-Semitic and anti-Latino comments he made on Facebook.
“It’s showing that maybe people are more comfortable using language they didn’t feel comfortable using previously,” said Evan R. Bernstein, the Anti-Defamation League’s regional director for New York and New Jersey.
In Trenton, a city of about 84,000, the controversy was as much about Ms. McBride’s remark as it was about the two council members, Robin Vaughn and George Muschal, who seemed to downplay the comments.
In the meeting on Sept. 5, lawmakers were discussing a lawsuit brought by a resident who had been seriously injured after tripping on a city sidewalk. The resident was set to receive about $22,000 in the settlement.
Both Ms. Vaughn and another councilman, Santiago Rodriguez, told The New York Times that Ms. McBride believed the injured woman deserved more money.
The meeting was held in executive session and was closed to the public. The city denied The Times’s public-records request for a recording, saying it was protected by attorney-client privilege. But on Monday, The Trentonian posted a recording it had obtained of Ms. McBride’s comments.
“I’m sad for her,” Ms. McBride is heard saying. “They were able to wait her out and jew her down for $22,000 with pins in her knee that can never ever be repaired.”
Ms. McBride did not respond to several requests for an interview. But Mr. Cohen said that he believed her comments were not made with malicious intent.
“I believe that was a phrase that she had heard a thousand times or more, and she did not actually believe that it was offensive,” he said.
However, he added, the use of the phrase suggested “a level of sensitivity that needs to be addressed.”
The use of “jew” as a verb meaning “to cheat” has been in English dictionaries for decades, with the Oxford English Dictionary citing its use as early as 1825, but it is considered offensive.
“This age-old stereotype needs to be put away,” Mr. Bernstein said. “Not elevated, and certainly not elevated by elected officials.”
After Trenton’s mayor, Reed Gusciora, who oversees the city’s Law Department, learned of Ms. McBride’s remark, he emailed the entire Council, saying Mr. Cohen deserved an apology.
“Comments like that are just not helpful, and should not be part of the public discourse,” Mr. Gusciora said in an interview.
Once the mayor’s email became public, Ms. Vaughn and Mr. Muschal rose to Ms. McBride’s defense.
On Facebook, Ms. Vaughn said on Sunday that the phrase was “a verb and is not anti-anything.” Mr. Muschal, in an interview with New Jersey Globe, said that the expression had been used “millions of times” and was “just a statement of speech.”
Mr. Muschal apologized privately to Mr. Cohen on Monday, both men said. In an email to The Times, Mr. Muschal added that he meant no harm by his remarks.
“If I offended anyone in the Jewish community, I hope they will accept my sincere apology,” he wrote. “There was no malicious intent.”
Mr. Muschal also said that Mr. Cohen told him that he “uses the phrase all the time,” which Mr. Cohen disputed.
In an interview on Monday, Ms. Vaughn said that she understood that Ms. McBride’s statement was inappropriate and that she did not condone it.
“I absolutely understand that it’s derogatory, that the Jewish community would be offended by it, just like I would be offended by the n-word,” said Ms. Vaughn, who is African-American.
Yet she disputed the characterization of Ms. McBride as anti-Semitic, saying the context of the remark was important.
But by Wednesday night, Ms. Vaughn decided to apologize.
“My comments were wrong,” she said in a statement. “Never was it my intention to hurt, disrespect or demean anyone when I described a racial slur or its usage, as a verb.”
She added about Ms. McBride: “I do not believe her to hate Jews nor harbor anti-Semitic feelings. Nonetheless, my defense of her behavior was an error of my judgment.”
Mr. Cohen said he had not spoken with Ms. Vaughn but anticipated a future conversation.
In general, he said, he hoped the controversy might be a teachable opportunity for Trenton residents.
“Maybe we’re all being confronted with this,’’ Mr. Cohen said, “so we can undertake more of an effort to bring our communities together.
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