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 [email protected] 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
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Dive In
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 3
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 4
Culture How two Jewish names — Kohen and Mira — are dividing red and blue states
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward ‘Another Jewish warrior’: Fine wins special election for U.S. House seat
-
Fast Forward A Chicagoan wanted to protest Elon Musk — and put a swastika sticker on a Jewish man’s Tesla
-
Fast Forward NY attorney general orders car wash to stop ripping off Jews with antisemitic ‘Passover special’
-
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.