Jewish Federation CEO Meredith Dragon is a candidate for Brighton Democratic Committee, having been assigned to the 18th Election District by Brighton Democratic Committee Town Leader Barbara Moehle for the 2024 election cycle. The Democratic voters in that district will vote on June 25, with early voting available from June 15-23.
In considering Ms. Dragon’s candidacy for Brighton Democratic Committee, voters should weigh whether their interests would be best represented by a person who:
- has been conducting a social media campaign against Brighton Town Councilmember Robin Wilt since 2021, when Ms. Wilt wrote a Facebook post in opposition to a ground invasion of Gaza;
- after three pro-Palestinian protests in Twelve Corners Park, Ms. Dragon now supports restrictions on protesters’ First Amendment rights to free speech and freedom to peaceably assemble;
- Ms. Dragon is lying about the protests having been a “surprise,” when her own email record clearly shows that not to be the case.
Social Media Attacks
Ms. Dragon pulled a photo posted, not on Ms. Wilt’s Facebook feed, but on one of her friends’ feeds, and used it to write this post tying Ms. Wilt to Hamas:
This post engendered such extreme rhetoric (One David Levitsky shared Ms. Dragon’s post with the comment: “To my Democratic friends in Brighton- when you vote please remember who stood with the terrorists.” (emphasis added)) that Ms. Wilt posted a screenshot with a response:
One Facebook commenter, Israeli-American University of Rochester professor Mical Raz, wrote: “Absolutely. Meredith is unfit to lead anything, and has a long history of racist statements ( including denial of the Palestinian people in a casual comment on our neighborhood group post !??) and I’d hope at a time like this she would be more sensitive than she is to saying things that could be construed as fomenting racism or hatred. I grieve the deaths in Israel that were a brutal premeditated massacre targeting women and children, civilians and elder. I grieve the loss of life in Gaza and the callousness towards civilian deaths. children in Gaza and in Israel deserve to live and thrive.”
In the aftermath of a problematic antisemitic cartoon making the rounds on social media, the Brighton Town Board and Ms. Wilt issued separate statements condemning the cartoon. Ms. Dragon participated in a coordinated campaign implying that Ms. Wilt had not condemned the cartoon, as her colleagues had, conveniently ignoring that Ms. Wilt had issued her own statement:
The coordinated campaign might have gotten further if Ms. Wilt’s colleagues hadn’t received a demand letter from the Party for Socialism & Liberation, threatening legal action because the Town Board letter inappropriately tied their organization to the cartoon.
Ms. Dragon created a post falsely accusing Ms. Wilt of being party to the Israeli flag being removed from the Monroe County office building:
After that post, which appeared to feature a photo that had been surreptitiously taken by someone who infiltrated a pro-Palestinian protest, Ms. Wilt again responded to Ms. Dragon with a screenshot:
Ms. Dragon’s attacks on supporters of Palestinian human rights have not been restricted to Ms. Wilt. Here, Rochester City Councilmember Stanley Martin becomes the target of her ire:
Ms. Dragon’s animosity toward Town Councilmember Wilt did not start in late 2023. In early 2022, she co-authored an open letter after Ms. Wilt appeared on a WXXI Connections episode about the affinities between African Americans and Palestinians:
Fearmongering and Vilification
On October 20, 2023, Ms. Dragon created a Facebook post vilifying Jewish people who disagree with her: “There are members of our Jewish community using this # ‘not in my name’. This article explains what it means. I say to them – wake up – Hamas would have murdered, kidnapped, raped and decapitated you, too.
Let’s not forget, very sadly, there were Jewish nazi collaborators and sympathizers, too.”
Also on October 20, 2023, Dragon sent an email to the Jewish Federation listserv, “discussing the increased need for community security measures” and boasting of having “worked with WXXI” to cancel the Witness Palestine Festival, which had been an annual tradition in Rochester and at the Little Theatre (now owned by WXXI) since 2014: “While we successfully worked with WXXI to pull the plug on the Witness Palestine film festival, this does not remove the venom of antisemitism in our communities. This is one little success in a war that is raging.”
On November 16, 2023, Ms. Dragon sent an email entitled “Security Alert” in advance of a planned student protest at the University of Rochester: “While we respect the right to freedom of expression and assembly, it is crucial to recognize that the anti-Israel protest tomorrow, like the several that have already happened, promote an unsafe atmosphere on campus and its environs. These rallies call for intifada and genocide against Israel and the Jewish people. We are deeply concerned about the safety of our Jewish community on the University campus.“ (emphasis added)
On February 15, 2024, Ms. Dragon sent an alarmist email in advance of planned protests at Twelve Corners Park in Brighton. Despite the caveat “although we do not see an immediate threat,” the email included instructions on how to pursue safety precautions, concluding that “the choice of time and place [of the protest] is clearly an act of antisemitism.”
As it turned out, the only violence was instigated by an Israeli who drove from Shortsville, threw eggs at protesters, left his car running in the middle of the street to attack a protester, and was arrested. It seems likely this provocateur was acting on alarmist language broadcast in advance of the protests, such as Ms. Dragon’s email. In a followup email of March 22, 2024, Ms. Dragon managed to turn these facts on their head, citing the violence at the protest as a pretext to support curbs on protesters’ First Amendment rights: “One of the protests became violent, with an Israeli being severely injured, and another was broken up by the police because they felt the peaceful Jewish counter-protestors were in danger.”
Ms. Dragon’s antipathy toward Ms. Wilt appears to have infected her organization, as on June 5, the Jewish Federation’s Director for Planned Giving and Endowments, Eric Brandt, stopped by to tell her “not to choke” on her food and she enjoyed lunch with friends in a public setting.
No apology or formal censure of Mr. Brandt’s behavior has been announced, and on June 8, Ms. Wilt posted a video reflection on the episode, thanking supporters who had reached out, but also calling for the Federation to “hold itself accountable for the culture that allowed for not only this latest slight to occur, but also the pattern and practice of harassment, intimidation and bullying that has festered within the organization surrounding a weaponization of antisemitism.” Watch the full video here:
Curbing First Amendment Rights
Ms. Dragon has been supporting a months-long campaign demanding that the Brighton Town Board curtail First Amendment rights to protest at the Twelve Corners. Paradoxically, these demands claim to be motivated in part by the protests turning violent – an argument that seems circular, given that Ms. Dragon’s alarmist email sent in advance of the protests had repeatedly raised the issue of safety and claimed that “The choice of time and place is clearly an act of antisemitism….”
Twelve Corners has been the epicenter of political protest in Brighton for as long as anyone can remember. Yet somehow, after all the years she has lived in Brighton, after those February protests Ms. Dragon suddenly realized she wanted restrictions to be imposed on protests there. See e.g. Ms. Dragon’s comments to the Town Board on April 10:
More recently, as the Town Board began discussing a permitting regime to govern public gatherings, Ms. Dragon has been saying that the problem with the February protests was that there was no notice. But according to the above-cited email of February 15, 2024, which warned recipients about the impending protests, Ms. Dragon had advance notice. To later claim that they came as a “surprise” seems disingenuous – yet at the May 22 Town Board meeting, she said just that.
The Brighton Democratic Committee plays a key role in recommending who should receive formal support from the Democratic Party and be elected in the Town of Brighton. On June 25, the Democratic voters in the 18th Election District will decide whether Ms. Dragon is the best choice available to represent them on that body.