Sean Spicer Is Fighting With The Anne Frank Center
Image by Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images
By Talya Zax February 21, 2017
On the day when President Trump most forcefully condemned anti-Semitism, his press secretary Sean Spicer is clashing with the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, based in New York, over whether Trump’s comments were powerful enough.
Trump on Tuesday decried “the anti-Semitic threats targeting our Jewish community and community centers,” including yesterday’s wave of 11 bomb threats to JCCs and desecration of a Missouri Jewish cemetery, as “horrible,” “painful, and a very sad reminder of the work that still must be done.”
In response, the Anne Frank Center’s CEO Steven Goldstein said Trump’s comments were insufficient. “The President’s sudden acknowledgement is a Band-Aid on the cancer of Antisemitism sic.
Spicer’s take? “I wish that they the Anne Frank Center.
“I think hopefully as time continues to go by, they will recognize his commitment to civil rights, to voting rights, to equality for all Americans,” Spicer continued.
Jewish leaders have called out Trump for his seeming reluctance to name and denounce anti-Semitism.
The president failed to mention Jewish victims in his International Holocaust Remembrance Day statement, a decision his administration defended as “inclusive;” he last week responded to one question on anti-Semitic events in the United States by bragging about his Electoral College victory, and another by demanding an Orthodox reporter “sit down”.
Prior to this morning he had not once spoken out about threats against Jewish Community Centers, despite the fact that such threats had been made against JCCs nationwide over 50 times.
His administration also made no statement following the arrest of Benjamin McDowell, a South Carolina man who reportedly hoped to carry out an attack on a synagogue “in the spirit of Dylann Roof,” the white supremacist who murdered nine black worshippers at a Charleston church.
Spicer is not the first to tussle with institutions devoted to the commemorating the Shoah. In December, the Atlantic’s Matt Ford observed a Twitter conflict between the Auschwitz Memorial and Museum and conservative commentator Kurt Schlichter.
“Had a rough day today,” Ford wrote, “but at least I didn’t get in an argument with a Holocaust museum.”
Had a rough day today, but at least I didn’t get in an argument with a Holocaust museum. pic.twitter.com/seP7eAAj2a
— Matt Ford (@fordm) December 29, 2016
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
