A vast Jewish conspiracy

Foes of a Brooklyn housing project are trying to sink it by spinning a conspiracy theory so far-fetched, and held together so tenuously by the fact that key players happen to be Jewish, it can only be called anti-Semitic. Journey with us into the deranged minds of those opposed to allowing the transformation of an old Pfizer pharmaceutical factory site into more than 1,100 apartments, 287 of them affordable, plus a park, plus retail:

Because David Greenfield, chair of the City Council’s Land Use Committee, will soon leave the Council to head an organization called the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, and because Met Council has funded a Williamsburg charity called United Jewish Organizations, and because long ago a predecessor of Greenfield’s at Met Council allegedly helped cut a deal to claim a chunk of the nearby Broadway Triangle redevelopment project exclusively for Jewish occupants, and because UJO now supports the Pfizer development...

. . . deep breath . . .

. . . Greenfield must recuse himself from voting on the Pfizer plan Thursday. The mind reels. The delirious demand comes in an out-of-leftfield letter from 10 affordable-housing and social-service groups.

“The conflicts of interest raised by your involvement in the present Council action are numerous and unwaivable,” they claim.

It’s hard to conceive what conflicts his future job awarding future grants might pose — and indeed, Greenfield says the city Conflicts of Interest Board gave him a clean bill of health.

The groups also gripe that the project — open to all comers and awarding affordable units by lottery, with priority to anyone living in Williamsburg or Greenpoint thanks to city policy giving the local community board’s residents first crack — “would exclude Black and Latino families, and only favor the Hasidic Jew community.”

Black, Latino, Jewish, who cares: The New York City community should reject such vile innuendo.