Debra Messing’s Powerful Message To Ivanka ‘One Jewish Mother To Another’
Image by youtube
By Thea Glassman May 8, 2017
Debra Messing had a strongly-worded message for Ivanka Trump during the GLAAD Awards on Saturday.
The actress, who was being honored with the Excellence in Media Award, spoke to the president’s daughter, “one Jewish mother to another.”
“It’s not enough to simply say that women’s issues are important to you,” Messing said. “It’s time to do something. Ivanka, you can change the lives of millions of women and children just by telling your dad stories about real people who are suffering.”
She then challenged Trump’s #womenwhowork, explaining that just using the hashtag isn’t advancing feminism. Instead she suggested: #saywhatyoumeanandmeanwhatyousay.
“Don’t let [your father] separate immigrant mothers from their American-born children,” Messing said. “Don’t allow him to make trans kids like Gavin [Grimm] fight in court for their basic human dignity.”
She added that Trump should think about her next Passover seder, and how she would feel telling her children that she fought for “justice and freedom.”
“Ivanka, please stop blindly defending your father and start defending what you say you believe in,” Messing said.
Watch her full speech below:
Thea Glassman is an Associate Editor at the Forward. Reach her at glassman@forward.com or on Twitter at @theakglassman.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
