"You humiliated yourself with your ludicrous run for president last year, and every time you open your mouth now, Andrew Cuomo runs over and drops a stick of dynamite in it to remind you who’s boss."

Writes John Podhoretz in "Bill de Blasio’s new low: blaming the Jews" (NY Post).

The headline refers to De Blasio's harsh reaction to a specific event: a large gathering of Jewish mourners that took place in Brooklyn. De Blasio blamed those Jews for that one thing that they did. The headline makes it sound as though de Blasio had engaged in classic anti-Semitism, blaming Jews in general for things that go wrong.

For example, during the Black Plague in the 1300s, Jews got blamed and murdered on the theory that they were causing the disease. I don't think de Blasio is much good as a mayor and he should never have joined the overcrowded Democratic presidential race, but it's awful to characterize him as "blaming the Jews."

Podhoretz writes:

There’s no way to read your tweet from Tuesday night in an exculpatory fashion. Here it is: “My message to the Jewish community, and all communities, is this simple: the time for warnings has passed. I have instructed the NYPD to proceed immediately to summons or even arrest those who gather in large groups. This is about stopping this disease and saving lives. Period.”

Now, there really is something stupid about that tweet. De Blasio refers to the "Jewish community" when he meant the Hasidic Jews in Williamsburg, and they are a small proportion of the much larger set of Jewish residents in New York City. Podhoretz writes that there are 1.2 million Jews in NYC. I had to look up the number of Hasidic Jews in Williamsburg, who are not even 10% of the total who belong to "the Jewish community" in New York.

But maybe Podhoretz is seeing into de Blasio soul. Why did he get so mad at the Jews who came out onto the street in mourning? Why did that provoke him into posturing about a strong show of police force? Why did he look at one Jewish community and see "the Jewish community"?

And what a terrible visualization — Cuomo sticking dynamite into de Blasio's open mouth. Where does that violent imagery come from?

"I am a chronically ill rabbi who offers spiritual care to those with illness, and elders coming to the end of life."

"Almost no one in my personal or professional world would 'earn' care if the United States were to come to a scenario like Italy. Not my 102-year-old client with brilliant blue eyes and ferocious curiosity who survived Auschwitz; not my friend who is a wickedly smart writer, activist, and wheelchair user currently recovering from major surgery; nor me, with my immune system that doesn’t work well, or works too hard, attacking my own tissues. In the United States, most of my disabled and sick friends believe we are racing to a similar situation as Italy.... The Nazis called chronically ill and disabled people 'useless eaters,' and killed us first.... As a disabled, Jewish, second-generation Holocaust survivor, the words 'useless eater' are practically in my DNA. I can taste the tang of them in my mouth as I read the news, in the bitterness of Italy’s policies, in this country’s callous health care, in affluent people refusing to listen to sick and disabled voices and stay home when they can afford to, in the dismissive internet comments that only the sick and old need to worry, so who cares?... Jewish mysticism holds that the letters of a Torah scroll are black fire on the white fire of the parchment. In this moment, we must find a way to make the spaces between us holy. In this pandemic it is the white fire that will hold our abundant love, our exquisite care, and our unwavering belief that each of our lives is worth saving."

From "My Life Is More ‘Disposable’ During This Pandemic/The ableism and ageism being unleashed is its own sort of pestilence" by Elliot Kukla (NYT).