Jews and Property Owners Targeted with Hate Speech
As one of the organizations targeted by the so-called “Mapping Project,” the Small Property Owners Association (SPOA) joined with elected officials, Jewish organizations, and many others in condemning BDS Boston’s hateful act, while demanding that they take corrective action immediately. Fueling false and vulgar tropes about Jews—as well as landlords—this group has called upon others to “disrupt” and “dismantle” organizations with any connection to the Jewish community in Massachusetts, including our own.
As small rental housing providers committed to serving all our neighbors, we reject this antisemitic and prejudicial act and we condemn any organization that promotes the hatred, demonizing, and targeting of Jews or any other communities.
This threat stems from a website for a group called “The Mapping Project” www.mapliberation.org that appeared on June 3, 2022. The authors referred to themselves anonymously as “The Mapping Project Collective.” Indeed, the internet has become our wild west, prone to conspiracy theories and false news. We suspect that this is not a Russian hoax, but a locally grown hate group. We base this assumption on unpublished and self-published manuscripts that are quoted on their website.
BDS, which stands for “Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions,” is a pro-Palestinian group that advocates for boycotting products and companies that deal with Israel. Although Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity — and while it is valid to criticize the foreign policies of Israel and other countries objectively — without hating Israel itself or Jewish people in general — it is clear that The Mapping Project seeks to demonize Jews, as well as property owners, out of pure spite and prejudice.
Many have described The Mapping Project’s message as “vile and sinister,” including Robert Trestan in his Boston Globe op-ed on June 22. It has been characterized as antisemitic and roundly criticized by many leaders and institutions, including the Anti-Defamation League, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, and Representative Ayanna Pressley among others.
Surprisingly, SPOA was mentioned as one of nine real estate targets—and we were accused of complicity in ethnic cleansing and displacement, which constitute gentrification—just by virtue of being a property owner group that also includes Jewish members amid a diversity of people.
Responding to our critics regarding gentrification
Per Linda Levine in the April 2022 edition of Small Property Owners News (Short History and the Metrics of Rent Control in Cambridge)[1], we have the benefit of census and other statistics, since rent control ended in 1994, to know that rent control CAUSES gentrification and reduced diversity. Cambridge is now a more diverse city than it was under rent control. Although rising real estate prices are a national trend—SPOA, property owners, and the demise of rent control are not to blame for this problem. As property owners are faced with the challenge of rising repair and maintenance costs themselves, SPOA supports the creation of more housing, including affordable housing, which is the primary solution to this regional and national issue.
The Mapping Project connects SPOA with Harvard University. Although we had a different treasurer in 1994 who was affiliated with Harvard University Real Estate, he joined SPOA because he and his wife owned a four-family brick townhouse on a leafy street behind Cambridge City Hall. He joined SPOA because he was under rent control and had the same problems with the unelected Rent Control Board that caused us to form SPOA in 1987. This might be called very old news, so why connect this one member with SPOA and The Mapping Project? Could it be because he had a Jewish sounding last name? This former SPOA member sold his building and moved away years ago.
Also, conversely to the claims of The Mapping Project, Harvard law students, under the supervision of their professors, practiced law before the Rent Control Board during the rent control era. They represented Cambridge tenants pro-bono. Most landlords back then represented themselves at rent control hearings. This was very unfair to those housing providers. When SPOA objected to this practice, another group of Harvard law students volunteered to help the Cambridge housing provider community.
Cautioning against extremism from The Mapping Project — and segments of government
The FBI has stepped in to investigate The Mapping Project. They call this project “dangerous” for obvious reasons—and we must not underestimate this threat. In addition to rejecting all forms of hatred, discrimination, and demonization against any group, whether based on religion, occupation, or any other characteristic, SPOA calls upon all members of the community to guard against any acts of violence or vandalism that may ensue from this hate speech, as well as hatred that comes from other places.
In a separate incident that appears unrelated to The Mapping Project itself, we were shocked to hear an elected official from Somerville attack the housing provider community in similar fashion. The city council in Somerville passed an extreme ordinance requiring owners to provide tenants with paperwork about how to stall a potential eviction action at the start of each new tenancy, in addition to the start of an actual eviction process—despite the tenants’ ability to research these matters on their own. After passing the ordinance, its author, City Councilor Willie Burnley Jr., said the following:
“Throughout the city of Somerville, renters suffer in silence every day as their rights are violated by landlords more concerned with maximizing their bottom line than caring for tenants.”
Councilor Burnley added that tenants should “never be forced to leave” their rental units. The tone of his remarks was further consistent with those of extremist groups elsewhere that have contradicted reality by referring to “the landlord class” as greedy “parasites” and, essentially, the root of all evil.
Whereas Councilor Burnley did not call for violence against property owners, maligning an entire group of good citizens in this inflammatory manner could have dangerous consequences. To hear this radical and divisive misinformation coming from officials in government presents a much graver threat that could compromise public safety beyond the dangerous influence of The Mapping Project. Moreover, the fact that elected officials are passing laws based upon such prejudice poses many other perils to our entire Commonwealth when the forces of hatred have a hand in government.
Therefore, we encourage all rental property owners to exercise caution, while reporting any instances of intimidation, violence, or vandalism to the authorities, as well as SPOA. We are here to support you.
We also wish to remind the public that most rental housing providers run small businesses, many of which are female, minority, and family owned, as they provide over 60 percent of the rental housing in Massachusetts. With immigrants who seek the American Dream among them, these owners not only provide tenants with nurturing relationships and safe, maintained places to live, but they also generate work for many other businesses from the electricians, plumbers, and carpenters to the banks and the insurance industry, among other stakeholders that help communities thrive. Along with generating significant tax revenue for the cities and towns where they own and manage rental property, they, too, are your friends, neighbors, and colleagues who provide a valuable service to the community.
Amid our universal stand against all forms of hatred, let us also stand with housing providers against this particular prejudice — which destroys both relationships and cities in its deadly path.
by Amir Shahsavari
