Johnson’s “hate crime” revealed to be a Gottheimer scam.

By Rubashov

Whenever he gets caught in some hypocrisy or in an outright lie, Congressman Josh Gottheimer tries to deflect criticism from average folks by accusing them of something terrible. It’s a trick Gottheimer picked-up from his former boss, Bill Clinton, who trashed the reputations of the women he forced himself upon.

Gottheimer calls his Right-of-Center critics “terrorists” and accuses his Left-of-Center critics of “anti-Semitism”. It seems he has a pejorative for everyone.

Worse still, Gottheimer’s power and money means that he is never short of “friends” who will do his dirty work for him. A month ago, the New Jersey Globe reported on a case in point:

Assembly Speaker Pro-Tempore Gordon Johnson has asked the Bergen County Prosecutor to investigate a September 2021 incident where a protestor allegedly screamed “Jew” at Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Wyckoff) as a possible hate crime.

In a speech at Rutgers University last month, Gottheimer claimed that a member of the Working Families Party hurled the anti-Semitic slur at him at a Glen Rock event with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. Raimundo is backing up Gottheimer’s allegation.

Working Families state director Sue Altman said last month that her group reviewed footage from the protest and interviewed several participants.

“To be absolutely clear, if that ever happened at a WFP event, the person would have been rebuked instantly and asked to leave,” Altman said. “However, we do not believe Gottheimer’s explosive allegation ever occurred.”

Johnson wants the organization to dig deeper.

Well, the Times of Israel has published a piece that dug so deep it got to the bottom of this so-called “hate crime”. It is written by Dr. Russell Miller, a research psychologist at the Graduate Center, City University of New York and adjunct assistant professor of Children and Youth Studies at Brooklyn College.

Dr. Miller is also a journalist who has published in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, New York, Ha'aretz, and Corriere della Sera. Dr. Miller’s column is titled: “I called Josh Gottheimer a Jew – it wasn’t a slur.” Dr. Miller’s column begins:

A couple of weeks ago, David-Seth Kirshner, the rabbi of Temple Emanu-El, in Closter, New Jersey published a commentary here on the indisputable truth that even among the most well-meaning, compassionate, and socially engaged, there can be people who hate. His impetus? The charge by US Congressman. Josh Gottheimer that a progressive adversary, the Working Families Party, is sheltering an antisemite.

The piece rehashed Rep. Gottheimer’s claim that at a rally in September in support of “Build Back Better,” President Biden’s social services bill, a WFP member attacked the “reputable and respected Congressman” with the Jew-hating epithet “Jew.”

There’s only one problem. The claim is patently false – and Gottheimer almost certainly has to know that. Anyone following this phony blood libel would know it’s false. And how am I so certain it’s false? I’m the “attacker.”

The first time Gottheimer mentioned the supposed antisemitic attack was on December 13 at Rutgers University, three months after the fact. Since then, he’s speechified, fundraised and called in chits around the WFP’s alleged antisemitism. The US Secretary of Commerce signed on. A New Jersey state senator demanded a hate-crime investigation. The ADL announced, “we take him at his word.” Rabbi Kirshner came forward as character witness.

Meanwhile, the WFP scoured its ranks to find the offender. I was late to hear of this; I’m not a member. But as soon as I did, I contacted a reporter and “confessed” on a national podcast. That was four days before Rabbi Kirshner’s indictment of the WFP.

As I told that reporter, like Josh Gottheimer, I’m a Democrat and, as my grandmother would say, oich a yid – also a Jew. Gottheimer has to have known this all along. Rabbi Kirshner may not have, because the Congressman conveniently neglects to report the full sentence I spoke last September — at precisely the place and time he’s vouched the slur was slung. The moment was heated, so my reconstruction of the syntax may be off, but it was something like, “Josh, as a Jew, it’s a shanda that you’re blocking Build Back Better.”

That’s right, “a shanda,” as generations of Ashkenazic Jews have cried in Yiddish: A disgrace. That’s not Jew hating. That’s Jewish shaming. That was one Jew addressing another in a time-honored voice.

If Gottheimer heard “Jew,” he would have almost certainly heard “shanda.” If he heard “shanda,” he would have certainly known his attacker was anything but antisemitic.

Now, the record does show Gottheimer has memory issues. At Rutgers, he claimed several of us were jeering “Jew!” Subsequently, he revised his recollection to one. As a research psychologist, I can understand how, hit where it hurts, his mind might have reframed the scene. I can only assume my podcast appearance jogged his memory since his office has since refused comment. Meanwhile, it appears he’s buying Facebook ads to keep Rabbi Kirshner’s condemnation afloat.

As for the rabbi, in the worrisome week after Colleyville, he might well have missed my interview and subsequent coverage in the Jewish press. Odds are Gottheimer’s team, busy fibbing on Facebook, failed to brief him on my clarification, which surely would have brought him relief.

But by the time his piece went public, no informed observer could believe the Working Families Party, or even a stray antisemite, was the source of the telltale monosyllable.

You can access the entire column at the Times of Israel:

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/i-called-josh-gottheimer-a-jew-it-wasnt-a-slur/

Meanwhile, we have a high-powered Democrat political consultant from Gottheimer’’s district – a guy who controlled numerous political action committees, SuperPACs and other entities – who admitted to having another Democrat operative murdered, and nobody in Gordon Johnson or Josh Gottheimer’s circles seem concerned about getting to the bottom of it. Nobody is demanding that anyone “dig deeper”.

Fake hate crimes are a growing phenomenon in America, as is “crying wolf’ when there’s no wolf…

Incidents of reporting FAKE "hate crimes" are on the rise.