Jewish groups raise concerns at Louis Farrakhan image on Black Lives Matter mural

Concerns have been raised that a mural in Westchester, New York, promoting Black Lives Matter (BLM), features the image of the antisemitic hate preacher, Louis Farrakhan.

The mural, located on Manhattan Avenue under the I-287 highway, includes a depiction of Mr Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, speaking with an accusatory raised finger.

Mr Farrakhan has referred to Judaism as a “gutter religion”, seemed to imply that Jews are “evil” and “satanic” and encourage paedophilia and “sexual perversion”, blamed Jews for slavery and racist Jim Crow laws in the United States, described Adolf Hitler as a “great man” and said that Jews financed their own destruction in the Holocaust, claimed that Jews have a “stranglehold” on the US Congress using their “tentacles”, and accused Israelis and Zionists of being behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York City. 

“I am not an antisemite,” Mr Farrakhan wrote in October 2018 in a tweet that he later deleted, “I’m anti-Termite”.

The Westchester Jewish Council released a statement saying that Mr Farrakhan is “one of the country’s most prominent antisemites. His long public history of anti-Jewish and other bigoted comments makes his inclusion in this project completely improper.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has previously called out the British chapter of Black Lives Matter after it claimed that “Zionism” had “gagged” Britain.

Campaign Against Antisemitism reports on news and incidents relating to antisemitism throughout the United States.