Calgarians have launched a petition for Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek to resign over her last minute Hanukkah boycott.

The petition titled “Mayor Gondek Must Resign” comes after Jyoti Gondek decided to boycott the annual Hanukkah celebration, citing a poster advertising the event as “clearly indicating support for Israel.”

“This shocking display of arrogance, hypocrisy, and empty virtue signalling is unbecoming of a representative of our City,” said Common Sense Calgary, the petition’s authors. 

The annual lighting of the Menorah is a tradition that has run for over three decades in Calgary, and one that Gondek has regularly attended in years past.

“Jyoti Gondek is not fit to be Mayor of Calgary”

The authors further mentioned an array of individuals who spoke out over the Mayor’s waffling, citing that even federal Liberal MP, Anthony Housefather was shocked, saying, “You are sending a horrible message by not attending.”

The petition further added, “She claimed that what was intended as a celebration of the ‘spirit of Calgary’s Jewish community’ had been repositioned as an event to support Israel.”

“Mayor Gondek cannot seriously have expected that Jews gathered together to celebrate Hanukkah – itself a festival commemorating the liberation of Jerusalem from foreign forces – would refrain from expressing support for Israel after recent attacks on its citizens, could she?” the petition read.

It further stated that Gondek takes every opportunity to stand with and opine about “virtually every other minority group in the city.” 

“Jyoti Gondek is not fit to be Mayor of Calgary,” it concluded.

National Post columnist Don Braid likewise called for the Calgary Mayor to resign for her cowering to extremists. 

“Will she now cancel Christmas, too? Stop attending Muslim events? I don’t think so,” he said.