The AOC ‘Concentration Camp’ Debate Has Jews Divided. 18 Jews Weigh In.

Congresswomen Liz Cheney and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Representative Liz Cheney, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Image by Getty/Forward Montage

By Jenny Singer June 19, 2019

Question: When is it appropriate to describe a detention center for immigrants as a concentration camp? Meta-question: Millions of Americans, including intellectuals, politicians, and religious leaders, are engaging in this discussion — what does that tell us about America?

A fervent, raging discourse on this topic of naming immigrant and refugee detention camps has exploded in a place you might associate more with lighter fare — Twitter. The debate started with a description of the centers as “concentration camps” by lightning rod Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and snowballed with a condemnatory tweet by Representative Liz Cheney.

But considering that the controversy centers around the way we remember the Holocaust, what are actual Jewish people saying?

We collected 18 searing tweets from both sides of the debate, from Jewish people.

You can join in with your opinion in this poll:

Is it ok to refer to the US government’s detention of immigrants at the border as “concentration camps”?

— The Forward (@jdforward) June 19, 2019

1.Writer Seth Mandel, invoking Professor Deborah Lipstadt:

Just go ahead and pin this to the walls of Capitol Hill pic.twitter.com/3gntGiLh3S

— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) June 19, 2019

2.Comedy writer Bess Kalb

Jew here. @AOC’s point is exactly why we say “Never forget.” The Holocaust did not begin with the murder of 6 million Jews. It began with the same dehumanization, deportation, and internment we see today. You, sickeningly, invoke the Holocaust to minimize their suffering. Shame.

— Bess Kalb (@bessbell) June 18, 2019

Democratic activist David Nir

Let me say this very clearly as the son of a Holocaust survivor: The only apology I want is from people who seek to weaponize false charges of antisemitism against the left while ignoring the very real threat of anti-Jewish hatred on the right pic.twitter.com/VHLBaDqFmM

— David Nir (@DavidNir) June 18, 2019

Jewish Twitter user @kweansmom

Dear Fellow Jews:
Please stop using the statement that “my relatives were killed in the Holocaust” as evidence that you are a Holocaust authority.
We all have relatives who were killed in the Holocaust.
Nobody has the authority to speak for all of us.

— (((kweansmom))) (@kweansmom) June 19, 2019

Comedian Sarah Silverman

She‘s well versed in this history. That’s how she recognizes it as it repeats. Liz, you should read #FacingHistoryAndOurselves https://t.co/ffAqUWFEZF

— Sarah Silverman (@SarahKSilverman) June 18, 2019

Political theory professor Jacob Levy

“You can’t make Hitler analogies until there are at least six million dead” say people who make Stalin analogies when the top marginal tax rate goes up by 3%.

— Jacob T. Levy (@jtlevy) June 19, 2019

Journalist Jonathan M. Katz

There are an incredible number of lies people are trying to sell today to get people to look away from Trump’s concentration camps. Let’s dispense with one of the big ones: the idea that they can’t be camps because the conditions inside are fine.

That’s a lie. People are dying.

— Jonathan M. Katz✍? (@KatzOnEarth) June 19, 2019

Rebecca Vilkomerson, Executive Director of Jewish Voice For Peace

deeply appreciating Jewish Twitter & Historian Twitter for explaining why yes, these are concentration camps & yes, this is how it began (which doesn’t mean that’s how it has to end). The Nazis tested the public to see what it would tolerate. That means our moment is now.

— Rebecca Vilkomerson (@RVilkomerson) June 18, 2019

Leah Greenberg, Co-Executive Director of Indivisible

Insisting that the Holocaust was uniquely evil and can’t be compared to anything else is a ploy to place it outside of history & politics.

People who do this are trying to distract from the obvious parallels with the campaign of escalating dehumanization happening here and now.

— Leah Greenberg (@Leahgreenb) June 18, 2019

Twitter account @AG_Conservative

Wow. Yad Vashem directly calls out AOC for her comparison of U.S. immigrant detention facilities to Nazi concentration camps and asked her to learn more about the issue.

Really embarrassing to the people who tried to defend it yesterday. https://t.co/7YBcMNv5RZ

— (((AG))) (@AG_Conservative) June 19, 2019

New York Post columnist Karol Markowicz

John Cusack pushes the “Jewish money controls everything” trope, AOC minimizes the Holocaust, but sure, Liz Cheney and Meghan McCain are the problem.

— Karol Markowicz (@karol) June 19, 2019

12.Actress Rosanna Arquette,

Wake up. We have concentration camps in America

— Rosanna Arquette (@RoArquette) June 19, 2019

Ron Coleman, lawyer

How many times have we gone through the “detaining illegal immigrants is another Holocaust” cycle in the last two years?

This is at least round three.

Why do we treat this idiotic formulation as shocking and necessitating a full-bore response each time?

— Ron Coleman (@RonColeman) June 19, 2019

New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg

It’s more depraved than that. They’re using mock outrage over the memory of the Holocaust to minimize outrage over mass internment camps. https://t.co/DFl3AOjmG3

— Michelle Goldberg (@michelleinbklyn) June 18, 2019

Jewish comedy tweet account, @OhNoSheTwitnt

When it comes to arguing about calling them concentration camps, I’m anti-semantics.

— The Volatile Mermaid (@OhNoSheTwitnt) June 19, 2019

Bill Prady, TV producer

As a Jewish American who spent his childhood attending family holidays with old folk who had numbers tattooed on their arms, I can’t tell you how repulsive @Liz_Cheney’s pandering and exploitative philosemitism is.

She needs to brush up on her history.https://t.co/bxy6UnFtRI

— Bill Prady (@billprady) June 18, 2019

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, via the Simon Wiesenthal Center

Rabbi Abraham Cooper: @AOC claim that US runs #concentrationcamps is absurd and insulting https://t.co/jBqEfrTbAm #FoxNews

— SimonWiesenthalCntr (@simonwiesenthal) June 18, 2019

Jewish writer Ariel Sobel

Hey, all the non-Jews voicing their opinions on concentration camps, we missed you on Holocaust Remembrance Day ?

— Ariel Sobel (@arielsobelle) June 19, 2019

And a few choice tweets from non-Jews:

Chris Hayes, MSNBC host

Last comment on this: “concentration camp” is an extremely charged term and I get why many people are, in good faith, uncomfortable with its application for Godwin’s Law purposes among others. So let’s just call them “detention camps” and focus on what’s happening in them.

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) June 18, 2019

Akilah Hughes, writer

It is kinda bizarre that the official stance of the right is “wait til we strategically murder all these people before you just start calling it a concentration camp”

— Akilah Hughes (@AkilahObviously) June 19, 2019

Donald Trump, Jr.

????? https://t.co/EtTi3YyHiD

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) June 18, 2019

George Takei, actor

I know what concentration camps are. I was inside two of them, in America. And yes, we are operating such camps again.

— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) June 19, 2019

Dr. Katie Mack, astrophysicist

Because concentration camps are concentration camps https://t.co/27gE0cbAjC

— Katie Mack (@AstroKatie) June 19, 2019

Jenny Singer is the deputy life/features editor for the Forward. You can reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny

Jenny Singer is a freelance writer with pieces in Vox, the Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, Teen Vogue, and more. She was previously a staff writer at Glamour and the Forward, and she’s currently getting an MFA in nonfiction writing at the University of Iowa.

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