‘Mr. Vasquez does not want Jews to die in preventable fires. Therefore, he is a bigot.’

Failed Messiah reports:

Evan Bernstein, the head of the ADL’s New York region, Evan Bernstein, complained about a campaign video released by the Republican Party in support of the candidacy of Richard Vasquez for Rockland County sheriff:

“We find the use of an image of visibly identifiable Jews in this campaign video to be deeply troubling, highly offensive, and inappropriate, as it essentially blames the Orthodox Jewish community for the substandard and illegal housing problems in Rockland. Voters should be encouraged to make decisions about candidates based upon their qualifications, political positions and not on the basis of race or religion without offensive insertions ascribing blame on an issue to a particular religious group.

“We urge Mr. Vasquez to edit the video and make clear that the crux of his campaign – and this county issue – has nothing to do with the Rockland Jewish community.”

The problem, of course, is that a disproportionate number of illegal housing issues are perpetrated by haredim, from yeshivas illegally located in private homes, to illegal housing that poses grave dangers to firefighters and other first responders – not to mention residents. (Think, for example, about how bad things were in the hasidic village of New Square until firefighters announced several years ago they would no longer fight fires there unless the illegal housing was cleaned up.)