January 18,2018
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, This past Monday the Martin Luther King, jr. interfaith celebration was held. It was intended to be a celebration of the teachings of Dr. King and was to include Rev. Sampson, pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in New York as the guest speaker, followed by an outdoor rally and a light lunch. The program was also to feature Ridgewood and Glen Rock student speakers and musical performances by the Indian Hills Chamber Choir and Men of Umoja chorus.
Much of the event was beautiful until Aronsohn and Gottheimer turned it into their own personal soapboxes.
It turned into a political rally of sorts. After Pastor Mack Brandon introduced Rep. Gottheimer and welcomed him to the podium, suddenly FORMER Mayor Aronsohn shoved his way to the front, all but pushing Gottheimer back down. Aronsohn then proceeded to give an unscheduled speech (unscheduled, but not unplanned, because he had a paper in his hand as he bulldozed his way to the altar). Following this ridiculous display, Aronsohn himself went on to welcome Gottheimer to come and speak, even though Gottheimer had already been invited to the microphone by Pastor Brandon a few minutes earlier. People were kind of shocked by Aronsohn going off-script and just inserting himself into the event. Gottheimer then proceeded to give a political rally type of speech, not one honoring Dr. King and his principles and teachings, but one that was self-promoting, all about him and his agenda.
Politicians (or wannabe politicians like Aronsohn) should be banned from speaking at such an event. It was a disgrace.
