St. Louis Aldermen President’s Israel Genocide Claim Sparks Backlash

A Facebook post by St. Louis Board of Aldermen President Megan Green accusing Israel of committing genocide has sparked backlash from St. Louis Jewish community leaders, who say her claims are false and demonize Israel.

By Kevin Deutsch | Metro Voice Exclusive

In a July 29 post on her personal Facebook page, Green—one of the city’s highest-ranking elected Democrats—voiced disillusionment with her party over its response to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

She claimed a “genocide” has been “livestreamed to our phones” for the past 18 months and accused Israel of seeking the “total destruction of Gaza and its people.”

“The Israeli government has been clear: its goal is the total destruction of Gaza and its people. They have been making good on that promise,” Green wrote. “If we allow genocide anywhere, we will allow it here.”

Israel has said it exclusively targets Hamas terrorists in Gaza and makes extensive efforts to avoid harming civilians in the Palestinian enclave.

Green did not respond to requests for comment.

In her post, the politician referenced the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as a possible force behind what she framed as delayed political action by Democrats in criticizing Israel.

“Maybe it’s the DNC finally giving marching orders to speak, maybe it’s AIPAC, maybe it’s just the weight of reality,” she wrote.

She said of Democrats: “A party that is ill-equipped to oppose a genocide abroad is ill-equipped to protect us from fascism at home. I am also deeply disillusioned by humanity in this moment—by how easily we look away, by how quickly we justify the unjustifiable. I now understand now how a genocide can happen in plain sight, with people too scared of a primary challenge or being ostracized from their community, too comfortable, or too complicit to act.

“But this is also why we must rise to the occasion … to welcome those who are new to the struggle while also holding them to account for past harmful actions … To make silence more uncomfortable than speaking out.”

Green’s post also referenced the Holocaust and appeared to compare the Nazi genocide of Jews with the violence in Gaza.

“Like so many of us, I grew up learning about the Holocaust—taught that fascism thrives when good people look the other way,” Green wrote. “I learned that silence in the face of injustice is complicity. It was understood that if we learned our history we could be sure it didn’t repeat.”

Green fails to mention Hamas

Jewish community leaders criticized Green’s post for not mentioning Hamas, the Islamist terrorist group that invaded southern Israel on October 7, 2023, and killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped 251 others, including children and the elderly. The group also systemically used rape as a weapon of war during the attack, forensic investigators found.

Rabbi Jeffrey Abraham, of Congregation B’nai Amoona in St. Louis, said Green “has continually shown a disregard for the mainstream Jewish community, particularly since October 7.”

He blasted Green’s Facebook post for “wrongfully comparing the Holocaust to modern day events.”

“Regardless of our differing views, the Holocaust was a catastrophic event in history that led to the extermination of six million Jews and 11 million total being murdered,” said Abraham.” There is nothing in comparison today.”

Green’s post drew renewed scrutiny following the Aug. 5 antisemitic attack in Clayton that targeted an American citizen who served in the IDF, as well as a second incident of antisemitic vandalism targeting the Staenberg Jewish Student Union of St. Louis House in University City on Aug. 6.

In the Clayton attack, one or more perpetrators set three vehicles on fire outside the home of the man’s family. The words “DEATH TO THE IDF,” along with other threatening comments, were spray-painted outside the home, according to local police and federal authorities.

Local police and the FBI are investigating the incident as a hate crime, officials said.

The night after the Clayton attack, the Staenberg JSU of St. Louis House was targeted by a vandal who defaced a yard sign supportive of Israel, using marker to cross out words and write “genocide,” according to Rabbi Michael Rovinsky, executive director of the nonprofit JSU of St. Louis.

The Staenberg House is a center for Jewish teen life and education offering a range of programming aimed at helping students thrive.

While the vandalism targeting JSU may seem minor in physical damage, Rovinsky said, the incident has deeper significance.

“It’s not what was done as much as what it represents,” he said. “This is part of a broader illness — a plague — that’s becoming so pervasive. And one thing leads to the next. The symbolic message is what’s dangerous.”

Rovinsky tied recent antisemitic crimes to what he described as a rising normalization of antisemitic rhetoric in American public discourse, including from elected officials.

“There is no separation between antisemitism and anti-Zionism,” he said. “Anti-Zionism is the socially acceptable version of antisemitism today.”

Referencing Green’s Facebook post, Rovinsky said: “People have to be careful with what they say in power positions of leadership … words have consequences.”

Traci Goldstein Holdener, a St. Louis-area resident and pro-Israel advocate, criticized Green’s rhetoric on Facebook as dangerous, accusing the official of misusing her platform to promote anti-Israel propaganda.

“She inappropriately uses the word genocide,” Holdener said, adding that Green’s post failed to acknowledge Hamas’s role in exacerbating the humanitarian crisis in Gaza or the United Nations’ failures in distributing aid to civilians.

She never cared about the hostages

“There is no mention—because she has never mentioned or cared—about the hostages or what Hamas did on October 7,” Holdener said. “She fuels Jew hatred with posts like these, making it unsafe for her Jewish constituency.”

Holdener also questioned Green’s “selective outrage,” noting the absence of concern over global atrocities like China’s human rights abuses against Uyghur Muslims or the murder of Christian Africans by Islamic extremists.

“She uses her title and platform to miseducate, propagandize, and demonize Israel,” Holdener said. “She has a sworn oath to protect all people and visitors of the city. Posts like this violate that responsibility.”

This is not the first time Green has been at the center of controversy involving antisemitism.

Last summer, she drew criticism after promoting a conspiracy theory on social media suggesting AIPAC was responsible for the firing of journalists at the Riverfront Times in an effort to silence anti-Israel voices.

The tweet, which was later deleted, was widely condemned by Jewish organizations including the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) of St. Louis, which sent Green a formal letter expressing alarm over the post’s perpetuation of “harmful” antisemitic tropes.

The organization told Green: “Throughout history, Jews have been both accused of masterminding the events of the world and using power to oppress others, while at the same time being systematically othered, oppressed, and disenfranchised.”

The Anti-Defamation League, which studies and combats antisemitism, has said accusations of genocide lobbed at Israel are inaccurate.

“Genocide is a very specific crime with legal elements requiring intent and action that are difficult to meet, and in no way do Israeli policies and actions reach this legal threshold,” the ADL said. “Rather, the sensationalist use of the term genocide in relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not only inaccurate and misleading, but it unfairly serves to demonize the State of Israel and to diminish recognized acts of genocide.”

The fallout over Green’s Facebook post reflects a growing rift within segments of the Democratic Party, as some progressive figures embrace increasingly hardline anti-Israel positions that many Jewish leaders say cross into hostility toward Jewish identity itself.

Local Jewish leaders have urged local elected officials to meet with Jewish constituents, engage in good-faith dialogue, and refrain from using rhetoric that demonizes Israel or implies Jewish organizations act as shadowy puppet-masters behind American policy.

Abraham, of Congregation B’nai Amoona, said Green “has continually espoused antisemitic tropes, particularly a year ago when she publicly theorized that the Jews were controlling the media.”

The rabbi said he and other Jewish leaders met with Green after that incident, “where she brought in someone to lecture us on what the proper definition of antisemitism was instead of taking time to listen to our concerns.”

Green, according to Abraham, has been “leading the protest movement that has now led to violent acts against Jews here in St. Louis this past week can be directly linked to those spewing hateful terms and social media posts against the Jewish community these last 22 months as Green has done in her social media posts and encouragement of the hateful rhetoric at the protests … Green’s social media posts are problematic and should be addressed.”

In a joint statement issued in response to the Clayton attack, St. Louis-area Jewish organizations said the incident is “only the latest example of what happens when antisemitic and anti-Israel rhetoric are normalized.”

The statement was issued by the Jewish Federation of St. Louis, the ADL, American Jewish Committee (AJC) St. Louis, Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) of St. Louis, National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) St. Louis and the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum.

The ADL documented 9,354 reported antisemitic incidents in the U.S. in 2024, the highest number since the organization began tracking incidents in 1979.