Anne Frank centre slams White House
President’s words against anti-Semitism not enough, U.S. organization says
WASHINGTON— U.S. President Donald Trump spoke out against anti-Semitic threats Tuesday, but his words were not enough for the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, whose executive director called the president’s acknowledgment of anti-Semitism a “Band-Aid on the cancer of anti-Semitism that has infected his own Administration.”
“The anti-Semitic threats targeting our Jewish community at community centres are horrible and are painful and a very sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil,” Trump said after a visit to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.
He also called his tour of the museum a “meaningful reminder of why we have to fight bigotry, intolerance and hatred in all of its very ugly forms.” Trump told NBC News earlier in the day that anti-Semitism was “horrible,” and was “going to stop.”
On Tuesday morning, Steven Goldstein, executive director of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, blasted Trump in a Facebook post.
“His statement today is a pathetic asterisk of condescension after weeks in which he and his staff have committed grotesque acts and omissions reflecting anti-Semitism, yet day after day have refused to apologize and correct the record,” Goldstein said in the statement. “Make no mistake: The anti-Semitism coming out of this Administration is the worst we have ever seen from any Administration.”
The statement continued: “The White House repeatedly refused to mention Jews in its Holocaust remembrance, and had the audacity to take offence when the world pointed out the ramifications of Holocaust denial. And it was only yesterday, Presidents’ Day, that Jewish Community Centers across the nation received bomb threats, and the President said absolutely nothing. When President Trump responds to antiSemitism proactively and in real time, and without pleas and pressure, that’s when we’ll be able to say this President has turned a corner. This is not that moment.”
In a tweet, the organization wrote: “.@POTUS @realDonaldTrump do not make us Jews settle for crumbs of condescension. What are you going to do about #Antsemitism in @WhiteHouse.” Trump’s comments came after Jewish community centres across the U.S. were hit with bomb threats, according to the Anti-Defamation League. The organization said in a news release that this was the fourth “series of such threats” this year. They also followed the news that more than 170 gravestones at a Jewish cemetery in Missouri had been found toppled.
The Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect has its headquarters in New York and an office in Los Angeles, according its website. It has previously been critical of Trump.
At a news conference Thursday, Trump was asked about the increase in anti-Semitism.
“Number one, I am the least antiSemitic person that you’ve ever seen in your entire life,” Trump said. “Number two, racism, the least racist person.”