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Mike Pence’s Holocaust Remembrance Day Tweet Stirs Outrage

A tweet sent by Vice President Mike Pence on International Holocaust Remembrance Day was sharply criticized by some for its perceived Christian imagery.

Pence, an evangelical Christian, frequently made biblical allusions in his speech before the Knesset in Jerusalem last week. Some online commentators expressed their frustration over what they saw as the tweet’s Christian overtones.

However, as Haaretz’s Allison Kaplan Sommer pointed out, many of the “Christian” phrases used by Pence — “martyrs,” “rose up from the ashes,” “resurrect” — also have Jewish connotations, and are often used by Israeli politicians to refer to the Holocaust.

Furthermore, the video accompanying the tweet — which features audio of Pence’s Knesset address — quotes Pence as saying the living Jewish people, not those killed in the Holocaust, were the ones who went on to “reclaim a Jewish future and to rebuild the Jewish state.”

Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink

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