NYC pol yanks $5K in funding after Jewish museum bars DeSantis from speakingBy Carl Campanile
May 8, 2022
A local lawmaker announced Sunday she is yanking $5,000 in previously planned funding for a Manhattan museum after it allegedly barred Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis from speaking there in June.
Councilwoman Inna Vernikov — a Ukrainian-born American Jew — revealed in an open letter to museum donors that she will no longer give the money to the Museum of Jewish Heritage. The dough is part of the $700,000 in city funds she is allotted to dole out to Big Apple organizations in the 2023 fiscal year.
“I was happy to contribute some of my discretionary funding to The Museum of Jewish Heritage for the great work they do,” Vernikov (R- Southern Brooklyn) wrote in a letter dated Sunday. “I am now pulling that funding and I am asking you to do the same.
“This move should send a strong message to the leadership of the museum: DO NOT politicize the Holocaust!” added Vernikov, one of five GOP city lawmakers. “Just teach it.”
The move came after the leaders of the philanthropic Tikvah Fund — Elliott Abrams, the deputy National Security Advisor under President George W. Bush, and Executive Director Eric Cohen — told The Post that museum brass advised them to either disinvite DeSantis from the organization’s annual Jewish Leadership Conference at the Battery Park City venue or relocate the event.
* * *
Source:
https://nypost.com/2022/05/08/brooklyn-gop-pol-yanks-5k-in-funding-for-nyc-jewish-museum/
