This week, a rising wave of anti-Semitic incidents has been the focus of the news cycle. After several waves of bomb threats to Jewish community centers, the Department of Justice is finally investigating, and Donald Trump finally denounced the “horrible and painful” anti-Semitism being seen in the US. But the Anne Frank Center doesn’t view it as enough.
As reported by Fusion, the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, which is dedicated not just to combating anti-Semitism but discrimination in general, noted that one mere statement, in their view, doesn’t compensate for Trump’s lack of action:
The Anne Frank Center calls Trump's comments today "a Band-Aid on the cancer of Anti-Semitism that has infected his own Administration" pic.twitter.com/N29s6AXvv8
— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) February 21, 2017
In particular, the Center notes that the White House refused to mention Jewish people specifically in its statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day, and reportedly blocked a statement from the Department of State that did so. Trump also came under fire for dismissing a Jewish reporter asking about anti-Semitism by talking about his Electoral College victory.
Furthermore, Trump has only responded to this problem now, after a cemetery in St. Louis was desecrated, and after a month of bomb threats being called into Jewish community centers across the country, and this rests atop potentially more serious problems with advisers such as Steven Bannon and Stephen Miller. The Center notes that unless Trump reacts in real time, without having to be goaded, it’s unlikely to embrace his statements as sincere. The question facing Americans is whether they should follow the Center’s example.
(via Fusion)