Ira Keltz: Rep. Dawn Johnson made insincere attempt to meet with local Jewish Leaders

To The Daily Sun,

I feel it’s important to share an incident that occurred last Friday at Temple B’nai Israel. Two days after being named a panelist for this Wednesday’s mayoral debate, I received an email from a supporter of Rep. Dawn Johnson indicating that she is requesting a meeting with me and our rabbi, Dan Danson. After 10 months of no response to our request to meet to discuss how the incident in Dec. 2020 impacted the Jewish community of Laconia, I was hopeful this would provide an opportunity for healing and understanding.

Rep. Johnson had shared an article on multiple social media platforms from The Daily Stormer. That link contained an offensive cartoon featuring a caricature from Nazi Germany in the 1930s. The caption below the cartoon read, "Riggers and Jews, Bad News." When this became public, Temple B’nai Israel received a deluge of support from the community expressing outrage that a New Hampshire state representative and Laconia School Board member would post this content. Rep. Johnson then issued an “apology” that did not reference the anti-Semitic content of the post, and did not mention her impacted constituents, including the Jewish community. She ignored requests from community groups including the Laconia Human Relations Committee and The Greater Laconia Ministerial Association to meet with us to discuss why this was so important to citizens of Laconia and the Jewish community.

I was concerned that this outreach this month to the Jewish community could be a political ploy, but we gave Rep. Johnson the benefit of the doubt and accepted her request to meet with me and our rabbi. I felt it was important for us to sit down together.

The rabbi and I arrived to meet with Rep. Johnson, who brought two of her advisors including former temple member and current State Rep. Norman Silber. We greeted them warmly and immediately Rep. Silber stated, “Dawn will only meet with the rabbi. We won’t meet with you Ira because you have a conflict of interest as a panelist for the debate.” We were taken aback by this since they knew this already. All emails around their request clearly stated that they would be meeting with both of us. The rabbi and I did not agree to meet on those new terms, so Rep. Silber stated, “I guess we are done here." We then offered to meet with them after the election but they refused and left within five minutes of their arrival.

Our Jewish community strives to give people the benefit of the doubt and be a welcoming community organization. I realize people were upset that I allowed myself to be pulled into the political theater and potentially used by Rep. Johnson’s campaign. Everything I have done was with the best intentions based on my beliefs.

Ira Keltz

Laconia