Is NYC Mayor Adams Going To Israel To Discuss Battling Antisemitism?

New York City is home to the largest Jewish diaspora. It is also home to some of the worst antisemitism in the world.

According to the ADL, 2022 was the worst reported year of antisemitic attacks since it started tracking incidents in 1979, and New York State and New York City had record breaking numbers of incidents. The NYPD data showed that Jews were the most targeted ethnic group by a wide margin.

The city now has members on the city council (left-wing DSA member Shahana Hanif) who refuse to condemn Jew hatred in the city saying Jews don’t care for anyone but themselves. Two DSA-supported members of congress from the NYC area, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman are both openly hostile to the Jewish State, a phenomenon never seen in the metropolitan area’s history.

So it was curious to see how the news reacted to New York City mayor Eric Adams visiting Israel in August 2023.

The Jewish sites zeroed in on the current wave of Jew hatred. The Times of Israel led with the mayor coming to Jerusalem to combat antisemitism. The Algemeiner led with the same, and added a bit about learning about Israeli technology. The Forward also focused on the same issues. The Jerusalem Post captured Adam’s first day of touring discussing his meeting with various faith groups to fight against antisemitism. 

The New York Times went in the opposite direction. It made the trip predominantly about Adams seeking reelection and wanting to win over Orthodox Jewish voters in New York. The NYT article didn’t delve into the trip’s focus on antisemitism until the third to last paragraph. Much of the article was about political crises and New Yorkers being unhappy about the direction of the Jewish State “who fear Israel is abandoning its democratic traditions.” When it wrote about the mayor’s visit to an interfaith group it was to “address global problems, such as migrant crises and wars,” not Jew hatred.

While The New York Post also led with a focus on politics, it had a very different narrative than the NYT. It spent time discussing antisemitism towards the top of the article: “Adams spent Monday speaking with Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Druze representatives in Israel, saying now is the time to act on one’s faith, according to the Times of Israel. “What we learn in our churches, synagogues and mosques cannot remain in the sterilized environment of our places of faith,” the mayor said. Hizzoner’s visit also comes as antisemitic violence continues throughout the five boroughs, although hate crimes citywide declined by approximately 8% compared to last year, based on a recent NYPD report.” It tied the meeting with interfaith group to fighting antisemitism, not migrant crises as the Times opted to write.

The exact same story told from three different perspectives: Jewish publications focused on rampant antisemitism in NYC; New York’s right-leaning paper implied a city broadly supporting Israel and worried about antisemitism; and the left-wing Times which conveyed that New Yorkers generally disliking the current Israeli government and not very worried about global or local antisemitism.

The media writes for its audience, and The New York Times’ readers do not like Israel and aren’t very concerned about antisemitism.

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“An anti-Semitic Tinge”

CNN Willfully Whitewashes Palestinians Thirst For Jewish Blood

CNN posted an article called “Palestinian leader calls on world to ‘protect us,’ and his people respond with bitter laughter,” which highlighted how much the Palestinian Arab street dislikes its acting President Mahmoud Abbas. It cited various media posts that mocked the old man and his visit to the UNRWA camp in Jenin which housed Arab terrorists killed by the Israel Defense Forces.

The article continued that Palestinian people had “frustrations and aspirations” that were not met by the unpopular leader, and referenced a poll conducted by PCPSR in September 2022 that showed how dissatisfied people were with his leadership.

There have been three polls since that time, so it is unclear why CNN chose to highlight the one from September 2022. In that poll, Palestinian support for another intifada was at 48% (Q46_5), 56% favored NOT engaging in peace talks under international sponsorship (Q55) and 45% supported killing Jewish civilians inside Israel (Q65). The June 2023 poll showed an even greater desire for violence, with 53% supporting an intifada (Q38_5) and 57% support violence against Israeli Jews (Q70).

CNN wrote an article that made Palestinian Arabs “aspirations” seem peaceful and “frustrated” by an inept leader who has not advanced their appeal for sovereignty. The reality is that Arabs’ aspiration is for a land free of Jews and their embrace of violent jihad to achieve such aims.

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New York Times Doesn’t Care About Drowning Boys

The New York Times wrote an article about deaths by drowning on July 8, 2023. It made sure to follow its particular progressive editorial bent while quoting statistics from the Center for Disease Control.

The Times wrote that CDC research “shows that Black children between ages 5 and 9 are 2.6 times more likely to drown in swimming pools than white children, and those between ages 10 and 14 are 3.6 times more likely to drown. Disparities are also present in most age groups for Asian and Pacific Islander, Hispanic, and Native American and Alaska Native children.” Those CDC facts fit well within the Times orientation of a racially discriminatory society that hurts minorities.

Yet the Times failed to quote another statistics from the CDC that “Nearly 80% of people who die from drowning are male,” meaning males are four times more likely to drown than females.

Picture from CDC website about drownings

We should all want to prevent everyone from drowning. That the NY Times should pen an article to exclude the disproportionate number of male drownings highlights a deeply ingrained and noxious bias that has taken over the paper.

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NY Times Sees Neither Antisemitism Nor Dead Jews in Reporting on Murder of Two Jewish Cousins Outside A Synagogue During Religious Pilgrimage

Two Jewish cousins, Aviel and Biyamin Hadad, as well as three guards were gunned down near the Djerba Synagogue in Tunisia. The cousins were part of a large Jewish contingent which came to the synagogue as part of Lag B’Omer festivities.

Binyamin Haddad, left, and his cousin, Aviel Haddad, who were killed in a shooting in Djerba, Tunisia on May 9, 2023. (Courtesy of the family)

The Jewish community in Tunisia is a shadow of its former self, as the Islamification of the country at its independence in 1956 made the Jews unwelcome, as they were relegated to second class “dhimmi” status. For example, from that time, all Jewish businesses were forced to take on a Muslim partner.

In 1957, the old Tunis Jewish cemetery was expropriated, and in 1960, the great Tunis synagogue was destroyed. Jews began to flee the country in 1961 as they were throughout the Muslim Arab countries. Tunisia only allowed Jews to take one dinar with them, as the country confiscated the rest of their possessions, in a massive theft as part of its ethnic cleansing.

These are plain facts. All rewritten in The New York Times telling of the horrific shootings.

According to the Times, the killer “shot indiscriminately near the synagogue”, “killing two visitors and two guards.” It then added color that there was “no motive for the shooting, in which a 42-year old French national, whom the authorities described as a French-Tunisian, and a 30-year Tunisian were killed.”

No mention that the two visitors were Jews and no mention of anti-Semitism.

Instead, the synagogue is referred to as a tourist site, which came under attack much like other tourist sites had been attacked in Tunisia. The synagogue was simply a “tourist attraction” which had also been attacked in April 2002, “killing 21 Western tourists.” The Times worried that “Tuesday’s shooting could harm the country’s crucial tourism industry,” a real problem, as the country is “in a political and economic crisis.”

In regards to the routing of the country’s Jews, the paper said that the “community shrank as Djerban Jews migrated to Israel or France,” and “in general, the Jews and Muslims of Djerba have coexisted peacefully.”

A complete disregard of the Islamic nationalism which routed the Jewish community.

As for that attack in 2002 which the Times said “militants detonated a truck bomb at the synagogue,” it is worth telling some uncomfortable truths about that event, as detailed by Aaron Zelin in his work “Fifteen Years after the Djerba Synagogue bombing.” To summarize:

  • The mastermind of the April 2002 attack was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), one of the masterminds of the attacks of 9/11 and responsible for the beheading of Jewish journalist Daniel Pearl.
  • The attack was conducted by a Tunisian, Nizar Nawar in conjunction with al Qaeda. While trained in Afghanistan, he received logistical support in Spain and France.
  • A statement of responsibility was released after the attacks by Jaysh al-Islami Li-Tahrir al-Muqadisat (JITM, or the Islamic Army for the Liberation of the Holy Sites, a front name for al-Qa`ida) via fax to the Arabic newspapers Al-Hayat and Al-Quds al-Arabi, “that Nawar carried the attack out in the name of Palestine against the Jews” 
  • Zelin noted a connection between the training and choice of targets of jihadi attacks. “Global jihadis have retained a focus on Jewish-related entities. Nawar chose to attack a Jewish synagogue in Tunisia, while more recently, Mehdi Nemmouche attacked the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels. Part of this trend is due to the continuing resonance of the Palestinian plight within the broader Muslim world, which jihadi groups co-opt to gain legitimacy, support, and new recruits.”
  • “In the aftermath of the Djerba synagogue bombing, the Tunisian government was initially dismissive of any ties to terrorism, suggesting the attack was only an accident. A sense of denial about the threat contributed to a fundamental lack of understanding within Tunisia’s political establishment of jihadism.”
  • “Tunisians have long been involved in international terrorism plots, attacks, and foreign fighting. This trend is likely to continue, especially as so many Tunisians have gone to train in Libya, Iraq, and Syria over the past six years. The Nizar Nawars of today are finding a melting pot of contacts and networks they can tap into, just as Nawar himself did more than 15 years ago.”

The 2002 attack was clearly an antisemitic attack by pro-Palestinian global jihadists, not a generic al Qaeda attack against tourists the way the Times portrayed. As in 2002, the Tunisian government denies the charge of antisemitism, saying “Tunisia will always remain a land of tolerance and coexistence,” and that the purpose of the attack was to “sow the seeds of discord, damage the tourist season and damage the state.”

The Global Intifada has begun, and the media will not even say that Jews died or antisemitism exists, and the Arab world is narrowly focused on the impact to their pocketbooks.

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Palestine Islamic Jihad: NY Times vs. State Department

Three leaders of the terrorist group, Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) were assassinated by the Israeli military this week. As such, on May 10, The New York Times decided to devote an article to inform readers about the organization.

The Times’ description stands in sharp contrast to that supplied by the US State Department.

IssueNY TimesState Department
Year founded1980s1970s
Purpose“to fight the Israeli occupationcommitted to the destruction of Israel and to the creation of an Islamic state in historic Palestine, including present-day Israel.”
BackersN/A“PIJ receives financial assistance and training primarily from Iran. PIJ has partnered with Iran- and Syria-sponsored Hizballah to carry out joint operations.”
HistoryLimited to last summer, when “Israeli military began the hostilities when it assassinated a leader of Islamic Jihad…. Islamic Jihad responded…”“PIJ terrorists have conducted numerous attacks, including large-scale suicide bombings, against Israeli civilian and military targets…”
New York Times and the U.S. State Department offer starkly different descriptions of Palestine Islamic Jihad

According to the anti-Israel NY Times, PIJ merely fights “the Israeli occupation,” while the State Department correctly notes that the group is “committed to the destruction of Israel.” The gap in understanding the nature of the group is enormous, and renders the entire review by the Times as a deliberate whitewashing of the terrorists’ activities.

The paper went on to describe the attacks of last summer, which it pinned on Israel killing one of its leaders making PIJ simply retaliating to the Israeli provocation. The paper paints Israel as the aggressor, when in fact, as described by the State Department, PIJ has long conducted “numerous attacks, including large scale suicide bombings, against Israeli civilians.”

All of the terrorist group’s activities are bankrolled and supported by the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is actively pursuing nuclear weapons. That important point about a group which launches thousands of missiles into Israel, went unmentioned in the Times article.

The New York Times correctly labeled PIJ as a terrorist group but turned the narrative upside down, making Israel the aggressor against an organization merely opposed to “Israeli occupation.” To read the Times, one might think that the State Department incorrectly labels PIJ as a terrorist group instead of Israel, a narrative being orchestrated by left-wing extremists in Congress, Representatives Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar.

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NY Times Does Not See Antisemitism In Texas Shooting

A horrible massacre took place in a mall near Dallas, Texas. Eight people were killed and many more injured by a 33-year old man named Mauricio Garcia. The police and the media are actively speculating about the motive for the rampage.

Many media outlets noted that Garcia had a swastika over his heart and that his social media contained posts and images espousing “white supremacist and neo-Nazi views.” But the similarity in coverage ended there.

CNN said that Garcia had posts which “espoused antisemitism.” NBC News led with a headline that the “Texas mall shooter ranted against Jews, women and racial minorities.” The ADL also led its headline that “Shooter in Allen, Texas, Embraced Antisemitism, Misogyny and White Supremacy.” The BBC quoted from the ADL, and Forbes referenced NBCNews, both covering “antisemitism, misogyny and white supremacy.”

This isn’t really surprising coming from a person praising Hitler and sporting a swastika.

What is alarming is that The New York Times excluded mentioning antisemitism as a possible motive. It only wrote that his online profile was “rife with hate-filled rants against women and Black people.”

New York Times excluding antisemitism as a motive behind massacre

The Times knows about Jew hatred, having covered the rise in antisemitic attacks in the United States in an article on March 23, 2023. That article selectively flagged white supremacist attackers, even though a great many anti-Jewish attacks were committed by Blacks and Muslims. Perhaps the paper was taking the lead from the Southern Poverty Law Center which does not want to highlight crimes by Blacks or Muslims as it fears doing so will lead to over-policing.

While the Times has long ignored rampant antisemitism by Palestinian Arabs and Black people, the paper has seemingly taken the next step in its downward spiral to hell, and now also ignores antisemitism from neo Nazis.

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In May 2016, after the deadly wave of Palestinian Arab stabbing attacks and deliberate vehicular manslaughter of Jewish civilians began to subside, the Israeli government sought to make life easier for Palestinians, hoping that good will gestures would allow for peaceful coexistence.

In response to complaints that it took hours for Palestinians to get processed through checkpoints, Yoav Mordechai, the Israeli Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) posted a note in Arabic that “It has been decided to renew and improve checkpoints in the West Bank, [to] increase the number of Palestinian workers allowed to pass through to their workplaces in Israel, improve waiting conditions and adopt advanced technology at all checkpoints.” He included an image of Palestinians crammed in line, waiting to enter Israel.

Palestinian Arabs waiting at a checkpoint to enter Israel

Israel estimated the improvements would cost 300 million shekels ($78 million), and would increase the amount of goods that pass through Israeli checkpoints by 30% and reduce wait times by 30% to 50%. The announcement was made right before Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, in an effort to lower tensions when thousands of Palestinian Muslims come to Jerusalem from the West Bank.

The Washington Post shared a video in 2019 about the new high tech facial recognition security cameras and turnstiles. It interviewed several Palestinians who were thankful that the crossings which used to take hours now only took minutes or seconds.

Israel uses almost the identical system at its airport for all passengers that enter the country, speeding up entry and reducing unnecessary manpower. People who use Global Entry to enter the United States use a similar system.

You wouldn’t know any of this by reading The New York Times or Amnesty International.

In an inflammatory piece of click bait called “Israel Tech Automates Apartheid, Critic Say,” the paper quoted a new absurd anti-Israel Amnesty International report. The jaundiced document said that Israel uses “technology against Palestinians” in “both Hebron and occupied East Jerusalem” as “part of a deliberate attempt by Israeli authorities to create a hostile and coercive environment for Palestinians.”

An absurd inversion of facts.

First, Palestinian Arabs created the hostile environment during their multi-year guerilla war against Israeli civilians from 2000 to 2004, which necessitated Israel building a security barrier.

Second, Israel put in place the high technology checkpoints to address the concerns of Palestinians that hated the long lines to enter Israel. Israel doesn’t have security cameras dotting Areas A or B in the West Bank to track Palestinians in their daily lives; it is focused on those areas near the security barrier.

Third, the technology focuses on everyone that goes before the cameras, not as portrayed by Amnesty or the Times which said “in Hebron and East Jerusalem, the technology focuses almost entirely on Palestinians.” For sinister measure, the anti-Zionist paper added “Government use of facial recognition technology to so explicitly target a single ethnic group is rare.”

But Israel doesn’t do that. It captures the images of everyone before the cameras, just as it captures the faces of everyone at the airport.

Israel was forced to spend $1.5 billion to build a security barrier to protect itself from Palestinian terrorists, and then opted to spend another $100 million to address Palestinian complaints regarding long wait times at checkpoints. No matter. Both the defensive action and the noble effort are varieties of a fictional “apartheid” for the anti-Zionist Amnesty International and New York Times.

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NY Times Uses J Street As The Source Of Its Israel Coverage And Promotes The Group

There was a time when the largest newspaper in the world did its own reporting, analysis and sourcing of news. It chose its stories and reported facts with the aim of educating the world-at-large about important matters.

Those days are long gone. The New York Times has become an activist agitator, reporting on stories from the vantage point of its far left-wing base. The news is not simply delivered as though written in the Opinion Section by progressive activists, but is actually SOURCED from left-wing groups.

Consider the paper’s reporting on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Times has long chosen to vilify him as a monster, even posting TWO close-up pictures of him in an article about a Palestinian Arab youth injured during riots, seemingly suggesting the Netanyahu himself punched the boy in the face. (For comparison, try to find a picture of President Barack Obama in a Times article about American drones blowing up people in the far East).

As the paper is online, it has become easier to track the deep bias against Israel and Netanyahu: J Street.

J Street markets itself as pro-peace and pro-Israel, when it is actually a far left-wing group headed by pro-Palestinian Jews, a counter to the Republican Jewish Coalition that is conservative and pro-Israel. J Street frequently publishes opinion pieces as it lobbies politicians to take pro-Arab actions, and the Times quotes the group’s leadership as though it spoke for the majority of American Jews.

In a recent Times’ article, “Biden’s Confrontation With Netanyahu Had Been Brewing For Years“, it described a letter written by Democratic politicians urging the president to take action against Israel. Rather than source the actual letter, the Times provided a link to J STREET’S WEBSITE praising the letter.

Not only does the “Gray Lady” not go to source documents to draw its own conclusions in writing articles, it acts as a REFERRAL TO LEFT-WING ANTI-ZIONIST SITES.

The radical jihadist group Students For Justice in Palestine said that J Street is a gateway for Jews to become anti-Zionist. The New York Times is providing them a global megaphone.

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Killing Pronouns

There was another terrible shooting at a school in the United States, the latest in Nashville, TN. Teachers and young children were gunned down and the victims’ stories are being told.

According to the Associated Press, the killer’s name was Audrey Hale, a.k.a. Aiden Hale. In describing the shooter the media said “Police gave unclear information on the shooter’s gender. For hours, police identified the shooter as a 28-year-old woman and eventually as Audrey Hale. Then at a late afternoon press conference, the police chief said that Hale was transgender. After the news conference, police spokesperson Don Aaron declined to elaborate on how Hale identified.”

The confusion was at least made clear to readers. The dead assailant was initially identified as a woman who had attended the school, and it was later learned from online profiles that Hale’s preferred gender pronouns were he/him and used the name Aiden.

The New York Times opted to avoid sharing facts and took to wordsmithing about the killer.

Front page New York Times article on March 29, 2023

The Times neither wanted to call out the murderer as being transgender, nor did it want to use a pronoun that Hale hadn’t chosen. Instead, it omitted using any pronouns for Hale, and used “the assailant” or “the perpetrator” throughout the piece.

The Times also avoided using any guesswork about the motivation for the killing rampage, and opted to only share that Hale had “an emotional disorder,” even as the paper normally attributes motivations of misogyny or racism for other mass murderers, even before facts are unearthed.

It is without debate that there was another horrible tragedy in which innocents were gunned down. As a society trying to deal with seemingly ubiquitous mental illness and anger, we should all be able to speak clearly about the facts to help usher a safer and saner world.

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Looking At Data Ignored By NY Times In New York’s Kiryas Joel Hasidic Schools

The New York Times did a series on the Ultra-Orthodox schools and how they “fail and steal tax dollars on purpose.” The hit pieces were designed to show that the schools bilk taxpayers of hundreds of millions of dollars and then fail to teach basic subjects like English and math.

All of the work was done by Times researchers and the data is therefore their own, as are their conclusions.

On February 20, 2023, The Times extended the effort and came for the suburban town of Kiryas Joel with what it claimed were public records.

So it with interest to read a report from WalletHub that ranked “2023’s Most & Least Educated States in America.” While New York came in at #14, WBLK posted the New York districts with the worst college graduation rates. The bottom five were:

  • Mount Pleasant-Cottage Union Free (Westchester County) – 6% Graduation Rate In 2022
  • Kendall Central (Orleans County) – 3% Graduation Rate In 2022
  • Kiryas Joel Village Union Free (Orange County) – 0% Graduation Rate In 2022
  • Greenburgh-Graham Union Free (Westchester County) – 0% Graduation Rate In 2022
  • Mount Pleasant-Blythedale Union Free (Westchester County) – 0% Graduation Rate In 2022

    Tied for the bottom was Kiryas Joel, seemingly confirming the conclusion of the New York Times, that Hasidic schools are failing with 0% of the students graduating college.

It is curious that the school wasn’t an outlier but had company of non-Hasidic school districts, which begs further inspection.

Students in Kiryas Joel

Mount Pleasant-Blythedale is a school set up inside a children’s hospital, enabling sick students to learn. According to U.S. News, the school has 126 students which are 70% minority. All of the teachers are certified and about 91% have at least three years of experience. The test scores show about 10% of the students proficient in math and 10% in Reading. The cost per student is roughly $55,000.

Greenburgh-Graham school district was established to help students who were failing in other schools due to academic or emotional challenges. The school is estimated to have around 300 students with a 1:1 student ratio. U.S. News does not have a breakdown of the students but shares that 75% of the students have Reading proficiency but no data on mathematics. The cost per student is roughly $210,000.

Before getting to the statistics on the Ultra-Orthodox school, a review of the other two non-religious schools is worthwhile for comparative purposes.

Kendall is a large school district with 712 students according to U.S. News, of which 10% are minority and almost 49% are economically disadvantaged. All of the teachers are certified and 97.5% have three or more years of experience. The student: teacher ratio is 10:1. The district has elementary, middle and high schools with mathematics and reading scores in each that are higher than state averages, and has a very different message than WalletHub, showing a 92.7% high school graduation rate. If only 3% are graduating college, it likely means many cannot afford to attend. The cost per student is about $26,000.

Mount Pleasant-Cottage school district was set up for students with emotional and cognitive disabilities. According to U.S. News, there are 116 students of which 92% are minority. Only 93% of the teachers are certified, 66% have more than three years of experience and the student-teacher ratio is 6-to-1. The students showed a 5% and 10% proficiency in math and English, respectively, way below the state averages. No data on costs.

As seen above, the state provides special schools for students with needs – whether emotional, physical or cognitive. Many of the students with these challenges perform below the general population in reading and math.

So, now consider Kiryas Joel.

The school district was established to help the emotional and cognitively challenged students of the Satmar sect of Hasidic Jews in 1989. People in the town sued over its establishment in a case that went to the Supreme Court in 1994, in which the judges concluded that the creation of a distinctly Jewish school district ran afoul of the establishment clause regarding religion.

The court said nothing about the need for a school to service students with special needs. Eventually the school district prevailed and was established in 1999.

According to U.S. News, there are 121 students, all of whom are White. All of the teachers are certified and 87.5% have three or more years of experience. The student-teacher ratio is 5:1, below the state average of 14:1. The students show a 75% proficiency in math and 75% in English, far above the state averages and the other schools profiled above. The cost per student is about $253,000. Compared to the other schools, it gets much more federal and state funding.

Note: the data from the National Center for Education Statistics is quite different. For example, Greenburgh-Graham UFSD shows a cost per student of $394,000, not $210,000. This was above that of Kiryas Joel at $340,000 per student.

While the students in Kiryas Joel do not go on to secular college (and therefore score a 0% in the WalletHub ranking), the school is performing relatively well by every measure compared to its peers.

Despite the data, The New York Times performed an extensive analysis in which the secular paper concluded that Ultra-Orthodox Jews were sucking money out of the public school system and refusing to educate their students. The paper pushed for a thorough governmental review of the Jewish schools, but not any of the non-Jewish ones at the bottom of the WalletHub list. The Times did not devote any resources to examine why the Greenburgh-Graham UFSD spends much more per student than Kiryas Joel.

The New York Times is trying its best to inflame anti-Jewish emotions with a series of articles that make ultra-Orthodox Jews appear to steal money from public schools

New York State established many school districts for students with emotional, cognitive and physical needs, and makes a special effort for those with economic hardship. In the Ultra-Orthodox town of Kiryas Joel, where 40% of the population is below the poverty level (poverty level is correlated with size of family and the Haredi community has very large families), the 120 students in the special public school district are showing that they can excel, despite what the mainstream media is reporting.

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