New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio plans to visit Israel this ssummer, as part of a wider effort to forge better ties with the Jewish community. This will be his first trip to the Jewish state since taking office.
The New York Times, which reports on his intentions, goes so far as to say that he has “embarked on a furious campaign to define himself as an international spokesman for Jewish concerns.”
De Blasio, who flew to Paris in January after the recent murderous terrorist raid on a Jewish grocery store there, said in an interview that he would visit Israel to “stand in solidarity” with Jews abroad. Anti-Jewish violence in Europe, he said, has alarmed him personally, and driven home the importance of using his position to defend the Jewish community.
“Because the particular threat of anti-Semitism is historic and global, it’s important for me to speak out,” de Blasio said.
The relationship between Jewish voters and de Blasio, a Democrat, has not been a very warm one to date. In the 2013 mayoral election, de Blasio won 53 percent of the Jewish vote, compared with 73 percent on the overall vote.
An opinion poll taken by Quinnipiac University in January found that only three in 10 Jewish voters said they approved of De Blasio's performance.
De Blasio said he did not watch the Binyamin Netanyahu's address to Congress on Tuesday. He has criticized the House speaker Republican John A. Boehner, for inviting Netanyahu without first consulting President Barack Obama: “There’s no law that said Bibi had to accept,” he argued.
In late February, reveals the Times, De Blasio quietly visited New Square, in Rockland County, to attend the wedding of the grandson of a Hasidic leader, the head of the Skver sect.