ADL Blasts Kanye West Remarks

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By Anne Cohen December 2, 2013

Kanye West is in hot water with Abe Foxman.

The Anti-Defamation League’s national director issued a statement today denouncing the rapper’s comment over the weekend that : “Black People don’t have the same level of connections as Jewish people.”

“If the comments are true as reported, this is classic anti-Semitism,” said Foxman. “There it goes again, the age-old canard that Jews are all-powerful and control the levers of power in government. As a celebrity with a wide following, Kanye West should know better. We hope that he will take responsibility for his words, understand why they are so offensive, and apologize to those he has offended.”

The full statement, made during an interview on New York City’s Hip Hop and R&B radio station Power 105.1 FM, and published in Haaretz on Friday, read: “Man, let me tell you about George Bush and oil money and Obama and no money. People want to say Obama can’t make these moves or he’s not executing. That’s because he ain’t got those connections. Black people don’t have the same level of connections as Jewish people. Black people don’t have the same connection as oil people.”

This isn’t the first time Kim Kardashian’s hubby-to-be has made a controversial comparison. In August 2011, he was booed offstage in England after he compared himself to Hitler. “I walk through the hotel and I walk down the street, and people look at me like I’m (expletive) insane, like I’m Hitler,” West told the audience of 40,000.

Anne Cohen was the Forward’s deputy digital media editor. When she’s not looking for the secret Jewish history of Voodoo in New Orleans, or making lists about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she writes for The Assimilator. She graduated from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism with an M.S. magazine concentration in 2012.

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