Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories roil city of DC

WASHINGTON – A spiraling controversy over anti-Semitic comments and conspiracy theories has roiled the Washington city government, seemingly getting worse with every public attempt to ease the tensions.

The issue nearly derailed a City Council meeting Tuesday and resulted in the resignation of a city official who organized a disastrous “unity rally” that featured a speaker who called all Jews “termites.”

At the heart of the issue is Trayon White, a council member who ignited a firestorm on March 16 by posting a video on his Facebook page claiming that an unexpected snowfall was because of “the Rothschilds controlling the climate to create natural disasters.”

Fellow council members and Jewish community leaders accused White of spreading an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory about Jewish control of world events. The Rothschilds, a prominent Jewish family whose banking dynasty dates to the 18th century, are a frequent target of global conspiracy theories.

White, 33, who like most city officials is a Democrat, said he was unaware the Rothschild theory could be construed as anti-Semitic. The first-term AfricanAmerican council member tried to mend fences, but several of the gestures seem to have made things worse.

He attended a Passover Seder and met with Jewish community leaders for breakfast over bagels and lox. He went on a guided tour of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum but left halfway through without explanation.

Then video surfaced from a February meeting of top city officials that showed White floating a similar conspiracy during a presentation about the University of the District of Columbia. White posed a question centered on the claim that the Rothschilds controlled both the World Bank and the federal government.

The video shows city leaders in the room, including Mayor Muriel Bowser, awkwardly laughing it off, but the footage upset Jewish community leaders.

Then another revelation: White had contributed $500 from a fund meant for his Ward 8 constituents to a Chicago event for Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam.

Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam have a decades-old history of anti-Semitic rhetoric. The Nation of Islam also does social and charitable work in black communities.

Last week, supporters of White held a rally, organized by a member of the city’s public housing authority board, at which a representative of the Nation of Islam called one of two Jewish D.C. councilmembers a “fake Jew.”

The rally prompted calls for the resignation of Josh Lopez, the mayoral appointee who organized it. White did not attend the rally.

The events came to a head Tuesday before the council’s regular session. A pre-session breakfast meeting ran an hour long as council members debated how best to respond to the rally and whether to call for Lopez’s resignation. A local rabbi who was there as an observer shouted that council members should be ashamed of themselves.

The council members then held a news conference during which City Council Chairman Phil Mendelson said that “intolerant speech … has no place in our city.”

As the council resumed its meeting, news broke that Lopez had resigned.

City officials hope the controversy will die down, and White doesn’t face re-election for two years. The council member may still face some sort of public censure if his contribution to Farrakhan is judged as a campaign finance violation. But the public and personal scars from the past few weeks could linger.

“Yes, it got personal,” Councilmember Jack Evans said. “I hope that relationships can be repaired, and they will be, and we will move on.”

There’s also the issue of White’s relationship with the Jewish community.

“I sincerely think he was just repeating conspiracy theories he had heard somewhere,” said Rabbi Batya Glazer, who had met with White on the issue. “It does mean he has an obligation to clarify what his position is.”

The controversy has also poked at some long-dormant societal sore spots. The Rothschild conspiracy theory has persisted for decades on the fringes of black and white culture in America.