Anti-Semitism on the New Jersey Bench

Ah, those wacky progressives that make up the judicial elite in New Jersey -when they are not getting themselves double-digit salary increases in a state that's about to go bankrupt, and when they are not foisting gay marriage upon a state that's overwhelmingly opposed, they're doing a little Jew-bashing during their sidebars:

....the state Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct has filed a formal complaint against Superior Court Judge William Wertheimer of Union County who made a joking reference to a 1930-era Nazi organization that operated in The Garden State.

According to the complaint, in April a plaintiff’s lawyer, William Gold said he needed to leave early because it was the first night of Passover and he was attending a Seder. In a sidebar but with the jury present, Wertheimer reportedly asked the attorneys if he should tell the jury the trial would end early that day so one of both lawyers could attend a “Bund meeting.” That’s a reference to a 1930s anti-Semtic group that promoted Hitler. The next day the judge apolologize to Gold, saying he was talking to the defendant’s lawyer.

The Bund, incidentally, were German-American Nazi support groups that operated quite visibly in New Jersey in the late 1930's:

The German-American Bund, which organized demonstrations in support of the Nazi regime, ran three camps in New Jersey in the 1930s, near Andover, Bloomingdale and Griggstown, according to a 1991 book by the New Jersey Historical Commission. Bund members clashed frequently with the American Legion and Jewish war veterans.”

(See here for an interesting story of an excavation of a Bund camp)

Wonder if it would have been OK if a black lawyer were mocked by a judge, saying he had to go to a Klan meeting...no? Why? Oh, right, only the Jews are fair play in the progressive handbook (and in the highest courts of New Jersey).

Let's see how the "Committee on Judicial Conduct" handles this case. One would think a certain governor in a state with a decent-sized Jewish community would feel the need to address this, but...party ties are thicker than race crimes, I reckon.

Would not want to be a Jew in front of Judge Wertheimer, though. Welcome to the People's State of New Jersey....