Melania Trump: Jewish Journalist ‘Provoked’ Neo-Nazi Death Threats

Image by Getty Images

By Josefin Dolsten May 17, 2016

Melania Trump said a journalist barraged with anti-Semitic death threats had “provoked” Trump supporters by writing a controversial profile of her.

“I don’t control my fans, but I don’t agree with what they’re doing. I understand what you mean, but there are people out there who maybe went too far. She provoked them,” Melania told DuJour magazine.

Julia Ioffe filed a police report last month when Donald Trump supporters flooded her with neo-Nazi death threats following the publication of her profile of Melania.

Trump backers sent Ioffe, who is Jewish, images showing her face superimposed onto that of an Auschwitz prisoner and a cartoon of a Jew being shot in the head.

Melania criticized Ioffe’s article, which included information about the Slovenian former model’s half brother, saying the journalist “had an agenda when going after my family.” Ioffe denied the profile contained any untrue information.

Donald Trump also refused to condemn the anti-Semitic supporters. “I don’t have a message to the fans, a woman wrote an article that was inaccurate,” he said, adding that he had not read the profile but had heard it was “nasty.”

Prominent anti-Semites, including former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke have endorsed the presumptive Republican nominee. Although Trump initially refused to disavow white supremacist groups, he denounced Duke earlier this month, after Duke wrote that Jewish opposition to Trump is what’s keeping America from the greatness the Republican candidate promises in his campaign slogan.

Contact Josefin Dolsten at [email protected] or on Twitter, @JosefinDolsten

Josefin Dolsten is a New York-based writer who has reported for the Forward, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, The Times of Israel and other Jewish publications. She currently works as an account director at Fenton Communications, supporting organizations that work to advance racial justice, LGBTQ+ equality, reproductive rights and more. Dolsten earned her B.A. in government from Cornell University and her M.A. in comparative religion and Jewish studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO