US Congressman Ritchie Torres criticized a column in the New York Times, which suggested that the deadly firebombing of a Jewish march in Boulder, Colorado and the murder of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington DC were acts of "political violence" rather than antisemitic attacks.
"Murdering Jews for being Jews is not 'political'—it’s antisemitic," Torres wrote on X.
"The cold-blooded assassination of Yaron and Sarah outside the Capitol Jewish Museum. The arson attack on peaceful Jewish demonstrators calling for the release of the hostages. The firebombing of a Jewish governor’s residence. To downplay or deny the antisemitism at the heart of these attacks is to turn a blind eye to the dangerous and deadly resurgence of Jew-hatred staring us all in the face. America ignores the obvious at its own peril," he stated.
The Congressman's statement came in response to a June 24 column in the New York Times by Masha Gessen, who wrote that "violence that looks antisemitic may—even when it very effectively serves to scare a great many Jews—be something else."
Gessen claimed that both attacks were not "exclusive to Jews" as an attack on a synagogue would have been, despite the fact that the murder of the Israeli embassy staffers took place just outside the Capital Jewish Museum during an American Jewish Committee (AJC) event, and that the connection of both attacks to the war in Gaza made them political rather than antisemitic.
The piece served as a defense of New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani against accusations of antisemitism over his defense of the phrase "globalize the Intifada," widely considered a call for violence against Jews around the world, and of university presidents who were taken to task by Republican lawmakers for the spread of antisemitic incidents and violence on their campuses.