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Christie Gets Anti-Semitic Question at Town Hall

And we could have hoped for a better response

by
Marc Tracy
December 22, 2011
Gov. Chris Christie earlier this month at the RJC forum.(Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Gov. Chris Christie earlier this month at the RJC forum.(Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Gov. Chris Christie, Republican of New Jersey, is seen as a rising star and a likely vice-presidential pick. He seems especially popular with the Jews, too, what with being Jersey’s chief executive and reportedly killing it during lunch at the Republican Jewish Coalition forum earlier this month. But he had an interesting confrontation at a local town hall Wednesday that could raise hackles from the Jewish community.

New Jersey Jewish News‘s Andrew Silow-Carroll collates the AP and Newark Star-Ledger accounts. Basically, a 12-year-old boy complained to the governor about the “Jewish community that controls the township of Springfield and its school board.” More to the point, this wasn’t actually the 12-year-old’s beef, and therefore just an innocent, ignorant statement; the boy’s father was there with him and happened to have on-hand printed out copies of his son’s remarks. In other words, this was a genuine anti-Semitic plant.

It’s not clear whether Christie knew that, but surely he could have done better than his actual response, which was, according to the Star-Ledger, that “as a former United States Attorney, he took discrimination seriously and would look into the matter.” But still: really? He couldn’t have educated this young man that his father is feeding him hateful lies? Couldn’tve mentioned the Hackensack synagogue that was recently vandalized? Couldn’tve said that as a former attorney general he took anti-Semitism seriously? Or just something like this?

Tsk.

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.