Lavine condemns Kansan who equated mask mandate with Holocaust

Assemb. Charles Lavine on Friday condemned a Kansas Republican official for posting a cartoon that equated that state's mask mandate with the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

Lavine (D-Glen Cove), president of the New York chapter of the National Association of Jewish Legislators, said the post by Dane Hicks was "grotesquely offensive" not just to "Jewish Americans but to every American."

The post by Hicks, who owns a weekly newspaper, garnered national attention.

The cartoon, posted on Hicks' newspaper's Facebook page, depicted Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly wearing a mask with a Jewish Star of David on it, next to a digitally altered image of people being loaded onto train cars. Its caption was: “Lockdown Laura says: Put on your mask … and step onto the cattle car.”

The post was criticized harshly by Kelly and even the Kansas GOP chairman. Hicks, a county-level GOP chairman, removed the cartoon and apologized.