I'm bowing out. I listened to this 2 more times to make sure I was hearing everything the way I thought I had heard it. I also tried to get some context by looking at both the Reform Party platform and Sliwa's mayoral platform. My conclusions were that a) the issues he has with the things he accuses Orthodox Jews of doing in Rockland are not limited to either Rockland or Jews, b) he's very invested in Rockland and knows which issues are important to the local voters, c) his fight with the bloc vote in Rockland is very personal (he thinks they tried to take over his party, which he himself hijacked from others), and d) he's a politician who isn't beyond playing to people's prejudices when it serves his purposes (ie framing his platform as the solution to their issues, whether he agrees with their prejudiced reasoning or not). I still don't think any of the things he said were outright anti-Semitic (within the context of his platform), but he definitely played on others' (possibly) anti-Semitic sentiments when highlighting Jewish actions as examples of things he wants to change. His rhetoric was inflammatory and I can see why people have issues with it. I don't think any of it makes him an anti-Semite, and I agree with
@whYME that the issue is less in what he said and more in how he said it.
