Representatives for Our Lady of Lebanon referred THE CITY to the Consulate. “We stopped saying ‘this can’t get any worse’ a long time ago,” he said. While Hodeib was grateful for this clarification, he wished that it came beforehand to assure a community in shock. “No relief effort that is supporting will be coordinated with the Lebanese government either,” Allon added. Jonah Allon, a spokesperson for Adams, said the event outside Borough Hall was simply to amplify existing relief efforts and was coordinated “completely independent of Lebanese politics and the Lebanese government.” “This is a very interesting example of it that is happening right here in Brooklyn.” “The fact that the consul utilized the church to harbor support is emblematic of how politicians utilize religion,” Hodeib said. But for him, the consul’s actions smacked of how politics work in Lebanon. Hodeib said he didn’t have a problem with the church, which he called well respected in the Lebanese community in Brooklyn. The connection between the church and Taha Audi worried Mohamad Hodeib, an instructor at Brooklyn College and PhD candidate studying Lebanese History at the CUNY Graduate Center. Ben Fractenberg/THE CITYĪnd at another demonstration on Monday night, protesters called the consul general a “Nazi” and a “fascist” - based in part on media interviews the diplomat denounces as “fake news.” 6.īrooklyn Borough President Eric Adams attends a rally outside Borough Hall in support of Beirut, Aug. That same church had posted a statement on Facebook supporting Lebanse Consul General Abir Taha Audi after she traded insults with and threatened to call the police on protesters outside the Consulate on East 76th Street in Manhattan on Aug. On Monday, mayoral hopeful and current Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams attended a vigil that had been promoted by Our Lady of Lebanon Maronite Cathedral in Brooklyn Heights. Through grief and shock, members of the Lebanese community in New York City have organized money and food aid to send directly to organizations and people in Beirut.īut they’re also worried that support may go to what they view as a corrupt government that has notoriously stolen and squandered aid in the past.Īnd some local pols who are stepping up to show their support are finding themselves entangled in the country’s complicated history of distrust. “They’re all gonna come back - they’ve been resigning for decades and coming back,” she told THE CITY. When news broke on Monday that the government in Lebanon had resigned, Joumana Jaber of Prospect Heights summed up the reaction of her Lebanese friends and family: “So what?” Heightening anxieties is a dispute over the role of a local diplomatic official accused of being a Nazi sympathizer. ![]() Some have been thrust into a balancing act of mourning and political action, tinged with despair. Reverberations from the explosion in Beirut last week that killed at least 171 and left some 300,000 people homeless are still being felt in New York, where members of the Lebananese community are caught again far from home amid tragedy.
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