A New York politician seeking to unseat US Rep. Ritchie Torres failed to clock as satire a social media account claiming to represent a left-wing “Chief Rabbi of Gaza,” praising her work and indicating he’d be open to visiting her “congregation” in the Strip, according to The New York Post.

“Rabbi Linda Goldstein” wrote to Michael Blake, who is running against Torres in a Democratic primary this month, in November of last year, offering to “lend [her] voice to defeat” Torres, the tabloid reported this week.

“I’m about to head to Gaza for two weeks to check on my congregation but please send me an email,” wrote “Goldstein” on November 9, according to the Post.

Blake, a former state assemblyman who worked in the Obama administration, responded: “Powerful. And when not in Gaza, where’s home base?…We need you and your community to be safe. Thank you for leading, inspiring and protecting the people.”

When asked if he would consider coming to Gaza, Blake said: “Certainly would consider.”

There is not, in fact, a chief rabbi of the Gaza Strip. Israel withdrew unilaterally from the territory in 2005, forcibly expelling the Jewish Israelis who lived in settlements there and even exhuming the bodies of deceased Jews from local cemeteries to prevent their desecration.

Though the Strip had a long Jewish history prior to the creation of the modern State of Israel, it has not had any Jewish presence in the two decades since the unilateral disengagement, with the exception of Israeli soldiers deployed there during wars with the Hamas terror group, Gaza’s de facto government.

The user behind the “Goldstein” account — whose bio describes her as a “nude yogi” and who has joked in........

© The Times of Israel