A local rabbi crashed a city council meeting in Washington DC Tuesday to berate the council for failing to act against two members who made anti-Semitic statements.
Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld, the spiritual leader of the Ohev Sholom synagogue, entered the meeting wearing a tallit, a traditional prayer shawl, and yelled at the council members for refusing to censure Trayon White and Joshua Lopez.
"Shame on this council for not being willing to censure Trayon, and shame on all of the council for not standing up, and saying that Mr. Lopez needs to resign. This is unacceptable - you know better!"
Rabbi Herzfeld addressed Trayon White, who was accused of anti-Semitism when he stated that "the Rothschilds" control the weather in March. White ignored the disruption and continued to calmly eat,
Last week, city official Joshua Lopez held a rally in support of White. During the rally, Abdul Khadir Muhammad, a supporter of notorious anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan, called DC councilwoman Elissa Silverman a "fake Jew" and shouted that Jews were "termites."
"When you spoke like that, when there was that rally, I cried in pain, because you endangered my children," Rabbi Herzfeld told Lopez
He then told the council that "this is not a time to be quiet. Our city is better than this."
Lopez announced his resignation later Tuesday.
Rabbi Herzfeld told the Jerusalem Post that Lopez's resignation was "the right thing to do."
Rabbi Herfeld had been a vocal critic of US President Donald Trump. In 2016, he was was escorted out of the arena during Trump’s speech to AIPAC when he wrapped himself in a prayer shawl and began denouncing the then-candidate Trump as “wicked.”