CNN anchor Jim Clancy tweeted a disability slur that the Ruderman Family Foundation took offense to. The group asked CNN to apologize for Clancy's Twitter message. Photo: Twitter

JNS.org – The Boston-based Ruderman Family Foundation, which promotes the inclusion of people with disabilities in the Jewish community, has called on CNN to apologize for a tweet by anchor Jim Clancy that included a disability slur.

Last week, after the Charlie Hebdo shooting but before the terrorist siege on a kosher supermarket Paris, Clancy tweeted that two Twitter accounts—@elderofziyon (for the popular Jewish-themed blog) and the anti-Semitic handle @JewsMakingNews—are colluding to promote an anti-Muslim and pro-Israel agenda. He received heavy criticism for the tweets and later deleted some of the remarks.

But according to the media watchdog Honest Reporting, when later confronted about his claims, Clancy tweeted, “@HumanRights2K Get a grip, junior. It’s my Friday night. You and the Hasbara (Hebrew from public diplomacy) team need to pick on some cripple on the edge of the herd.”

Ruderman Family Foundation President Jay Ruderman on Tuesday called the “cripple” remark “appalling,” questioning how “in this day and age a senior anchor at CNN, a world leader in the media, would use a word such as ‘cripple’, which is a derogatory term for people with disabilities.”

Ruderman also wrote a letter to the president of CNN Worldwide, Jeff Zucker, requesting an apology.

“If a news anchor had hurled a racial epithet, CNN‘s response undoubtedly would have been swift,” Ruderman said in a statement. “The disability community expects CNN to extend the same sensitivity to people with disabilities as it does to other minority communities.”