Anti-Defamation League (ADL) New York and New Jersey Regional Director Evan Bernstein released a statement on Dec. 18 calling for Jersey City Board of Education (JCBOE) Trustee Joan Terrell-Paige to resign in light of her remarks calling Jews “brutes.”
Terrell-Paige wrote in a since-deleted Dec. 15 Facebook comment responding to an op-ed on the Dec. 10 Jersey City shooting, “Where was all this faith and hope when black homeowners were threatened, harassed by [the] I WANT TO BUY YOUR HOUSE brutes of the Jewish community?” She also wrote that the shooters were trying to send a message and it was worth looking into what that message was. Terrell-Paige told Politico on Dec. 17 that she doesn’t regret her comments.
Bernstein condemned Terrell-Paige’s remarks as anti-Semitic.
“By insinuating that Jewish ‘brutes’ have taken Jersey City, waving ‘bags of money’ to force people out of their homes, Ms. Terrell-Paige has invoked deeply painful anti-Semitic stereotypes related to wealth, greed, and control,” Bernstein said. “She has also drawn gross generalizations about the Jewish community based on the actions of a few. As we all know, landlords who harm others, and people who commit crimes, do not do so because of their ‘Jewishness,’ or because they adhere to the tenants of any other faith.”
He added that Terrell-Paige’s remarks “suggested that the victims of last Tuesday’s shooting were somehow responsible for being targeted and that the attack was therefore somehow justified. It is hard to understate how reprehensible, and how harmful, this is to a community still reeling from the attack.”
Additionally, Terrell-Paige has not shown any contrition over her remarks, thus making her “unfit to continue to serve on the Board of Education—a body entrusted with modeling our shared values of diversity, tolerance, and inclusion for students in our local Jersey City public schools,” Bernstein said.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) and Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop have also called on Terrell-Paige to step down from her position.
We will not let anti-Semitism and hate go unchallenged in our communities. In light of Ms. Terrell-Paige’s comments, I urge her to immediately resign from the Jersey City Board of Education.
— Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) December 18, 2019
I also said I’m not going to mix words. My opinion is she should resign. That type of language has no place in our schools and no place amongst elected officials. Imagine she said this about any other community – what would the reaction be? The same standard should apply here https://t.co/QMLOlBuarR
— Steven Fulop (@StevenFulop) December 17, 2019
According to NJ.com, the JCBOE was going to consider a resolution censuring Terrell-Paige and calling on her to resign at their Dec. 19 meeting; however, the meeting was canceled.
“With hundreds of people planning to attend tonight’s meeting, a decision was made to be proactive and ask the BOE to postpone the meeting,” Jersey City Public Safety Director Jim Shea said. “To be clear, there were no security risks specifically identified, only the interest of public safety as is the case with any large gathering.”
