Charlottesville anniversary, an “immigration hypocrite,” a Ruth Bader Ginsburg action figure and more
‘All Types of Racism’
President Donald Trump marked the anniversary of the deadly neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville, Va., with a tweet that did not single out white supremacists as responsible, while his Jewish daughter named the racist ideology and condemned it. “The riots in Charlottesville a year ago resulted in senseless death and division,” Trump said Aug. 11 on Twitter, without noting that most of the violence, including a car ramming that killed counterprotester Heather Heyer and injured at least 20 others, was committed by neo-Nazi marchers. The tweet was on the eve of the Aug. 12 anniversary. “We must come together as a nation,” he said. “I condemn all types of racism and acts of violence. Peace to ALL Americans!” The Tweet appeared to echo his equivocations after last year’s violence when he blamed “many sides” for the violence and said there were “very fine people” on both sides. Those statements drew widespread condemnation from Jewish leaders, Democrats and Republicans. Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee in 2012 who is now running for Senate in Utah, took Trump to task on Aug. 10 for his comments last year. “The President opined that there were good people in both groups, a statement for which he was widely criticized,” he said on his website. “My view — then and now — is that people who knowingly march under the Nazi banner have disqualified themselves as ‘good people’.” Romney has at times been a caustic critic of Trump, who is also a Republican. The white supremacists who planned last year’s rally are reconvening Aug. 12 in Washington, D.C. after failing to obtain a permit to appear in Charlottesville. Counterprotests are planned, and the Jewish community in the Washington area has taken the lead in helping to plan them. The state of Virginia and the city of Charlottesville have declared a state of emergency in the city to prevent violence this year.
Read more: On Charlottesville Anniversary, Trump Condemns ‘All Types of Racism’
Private Metro car transports racists to Unite the Right rally
Some D.C. leaders and Metro’s largest union are outraged at the transit agency for allowing its trains to be used to provide “special treatment” for white supremacists traveling to Foggy Bottom for the Aug. 12 Unite the Right rally in Washington, according to The Washington Post. D.C. Council members Robert C. White Jr. (D-At Large) and Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) said they were concerned and angered that police escorted Unite the Right organizer Jason Kessler and a handful of other rally participants onto what they described as a “private” Metro car. The outrage follows extensive consternation last week when news surfaced that Metro was considering providing a private or “special” train to rallygoers. Metro Board Chairman Jack Evans, who also is a D.C. Council member, confirmed that the idea was under consideration, although Metro said definitively that it would not provide a special train to Kessler or anyone else planning to participate in the march. Kessler and other march participants arrived at Vienna Metro station at 2 p.m. and were given a police escort as they boarded the rear car of an Orange Line train headed to Foggy Bottom. For a few minutes, as the group was escorted, police temporarily blocked people from entering the station. Nevertheless, the car carrying Kessler — the last car of the train — was not completely private, as a gaggle of journalists managed to board alongside the rallygoers. Once the train departed the station, the station and platform were reopened.
Missouri Republican who said ‘Hitler was right’ wins state House primary
A Missouri Republican who has made anti-Semitic and other bigoted statements handily won a primary for the state’s House of Representatives. Steve West, who promotes anti-Semitic conspiracy theories on a radio show he hosts, defeated three other candidates Aug. 7 in the bid for a seat representing Clay County. He won with 49.5 percent of the vote; the second-place finisher had 24.4 percent. “Looking back in history, unfortunately, Hitler was right about what was taking place in Germany. And who was behind it,” West said on KCXL radio in January 2017, The Kansas City Star reported Aug. 9. He has spoken of “Jewish cabals” that are “harvesting baby parts” from Planned Parenthood, abuse children and control the Republican Party. West also has a YouTube channel on which he has made homophobic, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic and racist statements, according to The Star. West will face Democratic incumbent Jon Carpenter in November. On Aug. 9, the Missouri Republican Party denounced West’s “shocking and vile” comments. “West’s abhorrent rhetoric has absolutely no place in the Missouri Republican Party or anywhere. We wholeheartedly condemn his comments,” the party told The Star. Reached by The Star, West said his comments were taken out of context, but went on to criticize both Judaism and Islam. “Jewish people can be beautiful people, but there’s ideologies associated with that that I don’t agree with,” he said. “Jews today are a remnant of the tribe of Judah that rejected Christ.” The local chapter of the Anti-Defamation League said it was not sure why West’s comments had not been publicized earlier. “I’m trying to get a sense of why he flew under the radar, and I’m not sure I have a great answer,” said Karen Aroesty, who directs the organization’s operations in Missouri, Southern Illinois and Eastern Kansas. “What is a person who is elected into a position of power going to do with beliefs like this?” she asked. West’s campaign platform does not mention Jews, but contains a section titled “Islam is a Problem for America” and says that “most parents don’t want their children recieving (sic) alternative sex ed, or having to deal with or be around the LGBT clubs.”
Read more: Missouri Republican who said ‘Hitler was right’ wins state House primary
‘Immigration Hypocrite’
The uncle of Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to President Donald Trump, has accused his nephew of being an “immigration hypocrite” who supports policies that would have condemned his own Jewish family to death if they had been enacted a century ago. Writing in Politico, Miller’s maternal uncle David Glosser described how Miller’s great-great-grandfather Wolf-Leib Glosser fled the Belarusian shtetl of Antopol, arriving in the United States in 1903 “with $8 to his name.” Glosser, a longtime volunteer with the Jewish-run refugee agency HIAS, said, “In the span of some 80 years and five decades, this family emerged from poverty in a hostile country to become a prosperous, educated clan of merchants, scholars, professionals, and, most important, American citizens.” Miller, an immigration hardliner, has been instrumental in the administration’s crackdown on immigrants, including last year’s travel ban targeting seven Muslim-majority nations and the separation of migrant children from their parents at the border. Earlier this month, he was said to be behind a Trump administration proposal that would make it more difficult for legal immigrants to obtain a green card or become citizens if they have used public welfare programs. “Trump and my nephew both know their immigrant and refugee roots,” Glosser wrote. “They repeat the insults and false accusations of earlier generations against these refugees to make them seem less than human. Trump publicly parades the grieving families of people hurt or killed by migrants, just as the early Nazis dredged up Jewish criminals to frighten and enrage their political base to justify persecution of all Jews.” This is not the first time that critics have pointed out the immigrant history of Miller, who has said that he believes in favoring immigrants who already speak English over those who do not. Earlier this year, amateur genealogist Jennifer Mendelsohn posted data from the 1910 census showing that Miller’s great-grandmother did not speak English. Her post was retweeted 17,000 times.
Read more: Stephen Miller’s uncle calls him an ‘immigration hypocrite’
EU leaders’ summit scheduled for Yom Kippur
Some European Jewish leaders have expressed concerns about the scheduling of a European Union leaders’ summit in Austria on Yom Kippur. The date is Sept. 20, the day after Judaism’s holiest day, but the Austrian hosts have acknowledged that some of the events will indeed take place on Yom Kippur. Many Jewish leaders have cited the move as indicative of the lack of attention paid to their concerns, according to Politico Europe, and some see the meeting’s date as an intentional slight. The informal meeting of heads of state or government will be held in Salzburg. “It is very difficult to find a date that works for the 28 member states, 20 September was possible and is the day after Yom Kippur,” the Austrian president’s office said in a statement. Péter Niedermuller, a Jewish member of the European Parliament from Hungary, linked the scheduling to rising rhetoric regarding the Christian nature of Europe. “I can imagine very well there are some political intentions,” he told Politico. “Maybe this is a first step to figure out what is possible or what is not possible.” Niedermuller noted that Austrian Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache is a member of the far-right Freedom Party, which has a long history of anti-Semitism. “OK, we will just signal that this is a Christian Europe,” he said. “The main voices you can hear from the far right in Europe is that this is Christian unity, Christian Europe, Christian culture, and they never mention the Jewish culture or Jewish Europe. There is a lot of hidden and open anti-Semitism.” William Echikson, a representative of the European branch of Progressive Judaism, told Politico that it was likely a case of cultural insensitivity rather than an intentional slight. “There is no doubt that this meeting would never ever have been scheduled for the evening of Dec. 24 and if we are serious about pluralistic societies, this is an essential learning curve which must be taken sooner rather than later,” he was quoted as saying.—JTA
RBG action figure on the way
Fans of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg can already buy a plethora of items with her face on it, including T-shirts, mugs and prayer candles. Soon they will be able to add another keepsake to their collections: an RBG action figure. If the amount of money raised to produce the toys is any indication, they will be a success: People donated over $613,000 on a Kickstarter page dedicated to producing the figures, vastly exceeding a goal of $15,000. The figures are being sold by Fctry, a Brooklyn-based product design company, and the first shipment will go out in October. The miniature version of the Jewish jurist costs $20 and sports her signature white collar, wire-rimmed glasses and hardwood gavel. The company says Ginsburg, a progressive icon on the Supreme Court, is a fan of the project. “I will just mention that Ruth Bader Ginsburg herself has one that we gave her. She said she would put it on her mantelpiece, so we’re really excited about that,” marketing coordinator Zoe Cronin told AM NewYork. The organization is using part of the profits to do good, donating $1 for each Kickstarter donor to She’s The First, an organization that supports girls hoping to be the first in their family to graduate high school. Fctry also sells action figures of other liberal political icons, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren. A Kamala Harris figure will soon be available as well.–JTA
Gal Gadot ‘breaks the Internet’
Gal Gadot will be joining the voice cast of Disney’s “Ralph Breaks The Internet,” it was announced Aug. 10, according to aol.com. The Israeli actress, who shot to fame for her role in “Wonder Woman,” will be voicing Shank, “a tough and talented driver in an intense and gritty online racing game called Slaughter Race,” according to the statement from Walt Disney Animation Studios. The sequel to the 2012 hit “Wreck-It Ralph” will hit theaters on Nov. 21. The film also stars John C. Reilly as Ralph, and Sarah Silverman as Vanellope. “Shank is amazing at driving cars and has this bad-girl vibe to her. But as the movie goes on you realize how fun, wise and warm she really is on the inside, which is what I like most about her,” Gadot said in the statement.
Read more: Gal Gadot joins voice cast of Disney’s ‘Ralph Breaks the Internet’
Gilbert Sandler’s hat
Around these parts, Gilbert Sandler’s jaunty pork pie hat is considered nothing short of iconic. The preferred rumpled headwear of Sandler – Baltimore Jewry’s preeminent storyteller, folklorist and chronicler – has intrigued and charmed generations of devotees of local lore nearly as much as his lovingly woven recollections produced for myriad publications and media outlets. That’s why Sandler, who turned 95 last February, was recently contacted by Marvin D. Pinkert, the Jewish Museum of Maryland’s executive director, in hopes of borrowing that celebrated hat. Pinkert plans to showcase Sandler’s pork pie in an exhibition titled “Fashion Statement,” which is scheduled to open next April and run through the following September at the museum.
Read more: Gilbert Sandler’s Hat to be featured in Jewish Museum of Maryland Exhibition
J-Word of the Day:
Keyn Eynhore! (Yiddish)
Meaning: No evil eye (sometimes followed by spitting three times)
Usage: Watch where you’re going or you’ll fall into a ditch! Keyn Eynhore!
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