“It’s the Jews:” Arizona school board says nothing while woman launches anti-semitic tirade against vaccines

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – Jewish leaders in Arizona have expressed outrage that the Chandler Unified School District board said nothing during last week’s public meeting when a woman who spoke against vaccines and critical race theory then said, “it’s the Jews” who own “all the pharmaceutical companies” making money from vaccines that “aren’t safe, aren’t effective and aren’t free,” Jewish News of Greater Phoenix reports.

The incident began when a woman who called herself Melanie Rettler took the floor during the public comment part of the school board meeting in suburban Phoenix, Jewish News said. Rettler spoke for more than a minute on critical race theory and vaccines before launching into her anti-semitic tirade.

“Every one of these things, the deep state, the cabal, the swamp, the elite — you can’t mention it, but I will — there is one race that owns all the pharmaceutical companies and these vaccines aren’t safe, they aren’t effective and they aren’t free,” Rettler said. “You know that you’re paying for it through the increase in gas prices, the increase in food prices — you’re paying for this and it’s being taken from your money and being given to these pharmaceutical companies and if you want to bring race into this: It’s the Jews.”

Rettler then walked off, with no rebuttal or rebuke from the sitting school board members, Jewish News reports. The only response to the tirade came from board president Barb Mozdzen who told the room: “Comments really need to be related to what the school board can do something about, and this was not something we can do something about.” Chandler’s interim superintendent, Franklin Narducci, did reach out to local Jewish leaders after he heard about the incident, and he did subsequently issue a statement condemning antisemitism.

Expressing dismay at the lack of appropriate response to Rettler’s words at the time, the Arizona chapter of the Israel American Council wrote to the Chandler board requesting that “in the future, the board members themselves speak up the very moment such hateful lies are expressed.” The importance of doing so, the group explained, is that: “Our history teaches us that allowing such racism to pass unchallenged only invites more of the same.”

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