Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
News

A Jew Wrote The Holocaust Remembrance Day Statement that Omitted Jews

A Jewish aide to President Donald Trump wrote his January 27 International Holocaust Remembrance Day statement, controversial for its omission of Jews, according to POLITICO.

On Monday, press secretary Sean Spicer said that an individual who is Jewish and the descendent of Holocaust survivors helped to write the statement. Trump aide Boris Epshteyn fits that description.

Epshteyn became a paid Trump staff member during the campaign after pleasing the candidate with his impassioned surrogacy on cable talk shows.

He is a Russian immigrant; Russian Jews are known for their solid support of Trump and his anti-immigrant stance, while American Jews in general tend to vote Democrat by a margin of about 3-to-1.

Most American Jewish groups condemned Trump’s Remembrance Day statement.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum released a statement on Monday: “The Holocaust was the systematic, state-sponsored murder of six million Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators,” the statement read.

The Zionist Organization of America released a statement, noting their “chagrin and deep pain” after reading the statement that omitted the Jewish people.

Spicer defended it. He criticized the press for “nitpicking a statement that sought to remember this tragic event that occurred, and the people who died.” He then went on to mention Trump’s support of Israel and how it is much stronger than at any time during the Obama administration.

Neither the White House nor Boris Epshteyn has commented on news of Epshteyn’s involvement in writing the statement.

Contact Andrea Cantor at [email protected]

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.