Search

Former Women’s March leader blasts Linda Sarsour as an ‘anti-Semite’

Former Women’s March leader upbraids ‘antisemite’ Linda Sarsour for posting article claiming Jews are waging war on black people.

By Shiryn Ghermezian, The Algemeiner

Anti-Israel activist and Woman’s March co-chair Linda Sarsour was excoriated as an “antisemite” on Sunday by a former ally who once headed the DC chapter of the popular political movement.

Mercy Morganfield, who is also the daughter of famed American blues singer-songwriter Muddy Waters, took to Facebook to upbraid Sarsour after the latter posted a link to an article that accused the Jewish community of waging a “profound war on black people.”

Highlighting the offending paragraphs in a screenshot, Morganfield began, “This is How S**t Gets Started.”

She continued, “Linda Sarsour is an antisemite and even when she is apologizing to the Jewish community on the one hand, she is condemning it on the other. She can’t help it. This is who she is and as long as the five board members are in power you will continue to see these sharp divisions they themselves foster.”

Alluding to the failure of Women’s March leaders to fully repudiate infamous antisemite Louis Farrakhan, long a source of concern among mainstream Jewish groups, she added, “During this entire fiasco who has continually attacked whom? Jewish people asking you to condemn an antisemite and antisemitism is not an attack. Writing that Jewish people are waging war on black people is an attack. It is vicious. It is vile. And it is not true. They are their own worst enemy. An appalling lack of judgment on Linda’s part. On this day, during this ongoing controversy.”

The article promoted by Sarsour was penned by Jodi Jacobson, president and editor in chief of Rewire.News, a progressive website focusing on reproductive rights and other social causes.

On Saturday, Sarsour had used an address to thousands of demonstrators in Washington, DC, to advocate on behalf of the BDS movement against the Jewish state. She called on protesters to stand up for “free speech and our constitutional right to boycott, divestment and sanctions in these United States of America.”

Fellow Women’s March co-leader Tamika Mallory — who just a few days earlier declined to affirm that the Jewish people were native to the Middle East — stood next to Sarsour and nodded as the pro-BDS remark was made.

Morganfield had previously called out the leaders of the Women’s March for their insensitivity to the Jewish community. In November 2018, Morganfield accused Mallory in a lengthy Facebook post of deploying “antisemitic rhetoric,” adding, “Tamika and Linda have betrayed all women by their subservience to radical religious beliefs that do not believe in equal rights for women…All six [Women’s March leaders] should step down. It is a board of six friends and zero accountability.”

In a separate Facebook post on Saturday, Morganfield lamented that Mallory had become “the face of antisemitism.”