Ritchie Torres
@RitchieTorres · US Congress
Ritchie Torres is a Democratic congressman from the Bronx and the party's most vocal pro-Israel voice.
The most extreme expression of unrepentant antisemitism in American politics is Dan Bilzerian, who has drawn far less public opprobrium than he deserves. Discarding the usual code words such as “Zionists,” Bilzerian scapegoats Jews by name, openly declaring: “It is not red against blue. It is us against Jew.” When he is not trafficking in Holocaust denial, he releases AI-generated campaign videos suggesting that our view of Hitler—whom he whitewashes as an “Austrian painter”—should be “revisited.” What distinguishes Dan Bilzerian from others who share his pathological preoccupation with the Jewish people and the Jewish state? His conspiratorial Jew-hatred is unfiltered by euphemism. He makes no attempt to hide it. He flaunts it. For he is proud of it. The rest of us should be ashamed.
A violent agitator disrupted Shabbat services at Central Synagogue, assaulting a congregant and a security guard. Just as troubling as the violence itself is the political climate that emboldens it. American politics has become so obsessively antagonistic toward “Zionists” that even a synagogue is seen as fair game for disruption and desecration. No Jewish space is considered sacred enough to be left untouched. Antisemitism has risen to historic highs in America’s most Jewish city, with more hate crimes against Jews than against all other communities combined. Instead of cooling tensions, both the far left and the far right keep pouring gasoline on the fires of hate, fear, and blame.