(JTA) — A New York Republican Party campaign flier in suburban Westchester County shows a Jewish former town supervisor as a puppet master dangling three Democratic candidates from her strings.
The Democratic candidates for the Yorktown Town Board and supervisor represented as puppets are Jewish and Indian men and a black woman. The image of Jews as puppet masters is a frequently used anti-Semitic stereotype.
The New York Republican State Committee paid for the flier, which critics have called racist and bigoted.
According to the ad, the Democratic candidates are “making Yorktown a safe haven for illegal immigrants causing your taxes to go up.” It also says the Republican candidates, who are all white males, are “standing up for taxpayers” and “never taking a knee,” referring to the current controversy in professional sports, especially the National Football League, over mostly black players kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial inequality.
Reginald LaFayette, head of the Westchester County Democratic Committee, told WABC-TV that the imagery and text are full of racial overtones meant to sow fear.
Yorktown is approximately 38 miles north of Midtown Manhattan and has a population of approximately 36,000.
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