Suicide Prevention Hotline’s Phone Number Is A Pro-Hitler Code, War Vet Claims
Image by elfinima/iStock
(JTA) — A New York man wants the Federal Communications Commission to choose a different three-digit number to reach the national suicide prevention hotline because the proposed number glorifies Hitler.
The proposed number is 988. The digits 88 are often used by neo-Nazis to refer to the phrase “Heil Hitler.” H is the eighth letter of the alphabet.
Charles Greinsky, a Jewish war veteran who lives in Staten Island, New York, is lobbying his congressman, Democratic Rep. Max Rose, and New York Sen. Charles Schumer to come up with and push through a different number, the New York Post reported.
“You’d have Holocaust survivors and children of Holocaust survivors that are in need of mental health services dialing a number that causes extreme stress and makes people relive some of the worst experiences the world has ever seen,” he told the Post.
He said his synagogue was graffitied with the number 88 in 2008.
The Federal Communications Commission recommended simplifying the hotline’s current 10-digit number in a report it released last week in the wake of federal legislation passed last year that called for improvements to the national suicide prevention and mental health crisis hotline system.
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.
