By Matthew Vadum, Front Page Magazine
A 124-year-old Republican club in Manhattan has been canceled by a prominent synagogue-community center for the sin of being Republican.
And it was the GOP club’s decision to invite political strategist and Trump supporter Dick Morris to speak at an October meeting that was apparently a bridge too far for the synagogue.
This is now the party line for the Left in America: Democrats are virtuous and peaceful; Republicans are evil, violent, and need to shut down anywhere and everywhere.
The Left maintains this position even though Democrats cheered on Black Lives Matter and Antifa as they burned down American cities in 2020 and caused $2 billion in damage after the death of St. George Floyd of Minneapolis.
The Gertrude and Morrison Parker West Side Republican Club was recently notified that it was no longer welcome after renting space monthly for years from the Society for the Advancement of Judaism (SAJ) on West 86th Street.
The GOP club’s website states that it was founded in 1898 as the West Side Republican Club. It was incorporated in 1941 as the West Side Republican Club Inc., and became the Morrison Parker Westside Republican Club Inc., in 2002 “to honor Morrison Parker and his efforts as a community leader and club president. Subsequently, the name was changed to the Gertrude and Morrison Parker West Side Republican Club to honor the by-then deceased matriarch and patriarch of West Side Republicans.”
SAJ claims on its website to embrace diversity. “At its core, SAJ is imbued with spiritual and intellectual curiosity. We also remain committed to the Jewish ideal of tikkun olam, doing what we can to fix the world.”
But true intellectual curiosity is rejected by SAJ. These left-wingers believe that a mere association with Republicans is reason for ostracism.
SAJ gave its reasons for severing ties with the club to FrontPage Magazine in a statement.
“SAJ is proud to be a resource to our diverse Upper West Side community, renting our space to day schools, churchs [sic], co-op boards, Jewish congregations, private birthday parties, b’nei mitzvah and more, and will continue to do so into the future,” according to the statement issued by Rabbi Lauren Grabelle Herrmann and Janet Brain, Chair of the Board. Herrmann proudly declared in the statement that her pronouns were “she/her/hers.”
“We were happy to rent our space to the Upper West Side Republican Club [sic] for many years, consistent with the community’s commitment towards civility and dialogue. This recent request to use SAJ’s space was the first one by the club since before the Covid-19 pandemic, and the first request to televise their event for a national audience,” the SAJ said.
“The climate in our country has changed since the 2020 election and January 6. We cannot abide by any speaker in our sacred space whose words amplify and broadcast the anti-democratic ideas of the January 6 insurrectionists, or who condone or incite violence against our elected representatives, whether today or in a future election,” the statement continued.
“SAJ will continue to welcome diverse religious groups and organizations who hope to use the space for peaceful discussions.”
Translation: Republicans are evil insurgents who need to be deplatformed.
Pointing to articles in The Catholic Monitor and Newsmax, SAJ also said Dick Morris was guilty of “supporting Trump’s claims the 2020 election was stolen,” which isn’t much of an accusation given that Morris’s view is shared by most Republicans and fair-minded people in America.
“And then state after state, you kept watching, that he was doing better than he had done in 2016,” Morris said about Election Night 2020, as quoted in a November 16, 2020 Newsmax article.
“And then at 10 p.m., the hammer came down. The curtain came down, literally and figuratively. And then, all of a sudden, votes started piling up against Trump, in some cases the vote counts jumped astronomically. In Michigan, I believe, 100,000 votes came in for Biden and none for Trump within a space of about three minutes,” Morris said.
“In Wisconsin, there were six counties that suddenly had ballooning turnouts – 20% higher than normal and the rest of the state . . . underperformed the normal performance of a Democrat. And I believe this election was absolutely stolen.”
Morris seemed resigned at that point to a Joe Biden victory, saying that the electoral fraud would probably not be corrected.
“It’s very possible that Biden will be the next president. You asked if I was confident that it had been stolen. I certainly am. And I think that we have to fight and fight and fight to get the truth out here, about Dominion and about the recounts.”
So, contrary to the claims of the SAJ, Morris did not use “words [that] amplify and broadcast the anti-democratic ideas of the alleged January 6 insurrectionists, or who condone or incite violence against our elected representatives, whether today or in a future election.”
Morris made the comment 51 days before that date. He didn’t urge anyone to take up arms against the government – and never has. Morris merely expressed his opinion that Donald Trump was robbed, an opinion supported by mountains of evidence.
But all Republicans are now subversives trying to thwart the will of the people and overthrow the government, affective leftists now claim. According to the SAJ, the threat the GOP poses to the republic is now so great that all Republicans must be silenced.
Gertrude and Morrison Parker West Side Republican Club president Marcia Drezon-Tepler said the club’s cancellation came as a surprise after the good working relationship it had enjoyed with the SAJ.
“A Jewish institution more than others should realize what it means to marginalize any group, for that’s what the Nazis and others throughout the ages have done to the Jews,” Drezon-Tepler said in a statement.
“Our group is the one open to all; we have registered Democrats as members and have had many Democrats as speakers.”
