New York – A coalition of rabbis wants Fox News chief Roger Ailes and conservative host Glenn Beck to cut out all their talk about Nazis and the Holocaust, and it’s making its views known in an unusual place.
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The rabbis have called on Fox News’s owner, Rupert Murdoch, to sanction his two famous employees via a full-page ad in Thursday’s editions of the Wall Street Journal – one of many other media properties controlled by Murdoch’s News Corp.
The ad is signed by the heads of the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements as well as Orthodox rabbis.
“We share a belief that the Holocaust, of course, can and should be discussed appropriately in the media. But that is not what we have seen at Fox News,” says the ad, signed by hundreds of rabbis and placed by the Jewish Funds for Justice, a nonprofit advocacy group. Earlier this month, the group organized a letter-writing campaign asking Murdoch to remove Beck from the air.
The rabbis were prompted by Beck’s three-part program in November about liberal billionaire philanthropist George Soros, whom Beck described as a “Jewish boy helping send the Jews to the death camps” during World War II.
Soros was a young teenager in Nazi-occupied Hungary during the war and hid with a Christian family to escape the Holocaust. He once described accompanying his surrogate father while he confiscated property from Jews deported by the Nazis.
Ailes, in a November interview with the Daily Beast Web site, called NPR executives “Nazis” for their decision to fire Juan Williams, also a Fox commentator. He later apologized to the Anti-Defamation League, but not to NPR, saying, “I was of course ad-libbing and should not have chosen that word, but I was angry at the time because of NPR’s willingness to censor Juan Williams for not being liberal enough.”
But Ailes, in the same interview, defended Beck’s frequent use of Nazi references to describe his political opponents by attributing outrage over such remarks to “left-wing rabbis who basically don’t think that anybody can ever use the word ‘Holocaust’ on the air.”
In the Journal ad, which is also appearing in the Jewish Daily Forward newspaper, the rabbis write that they are “deeply offended” by Ailes’s dismissal of those who object to such language.
“It is not appropriate to accuse a 14-year-old Jew hiding with a Christian family in Nazi-occupied Hungary of sending his people to death camps,” says the ad. “It is not appropriate to call executives of another news agency ‘Nazis.’ And it is not appropriate to make literally hundreds of on-air references to the Holocaust and Nazis when characterizing people with whom you disagree.
“We respectfully request that Glenn Beck be sanctioned by Fox News for his completely unacceptable attacks on a survivor of the Holocaust and that Roger Ailes apologize for his dismissive remarks about rabbis’ sensitivity to how the Holocaust is used on the air.”
Thursday is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, an observance established by the United Nations in 2005.
“This is not an issue for liberal or conservative rabbis, but an issue for all,” said Mik Moore, chief strategic officer of Jewish Funds for Justice. “After all the calls for civility following the shootings in Arizona, we all think this is the wrong approach.” Moore declined to specify the cost of the ad, saying only that it cost “six figures.”
A Fox News spokesman did not return calls seeking comment.
Its true. When someone gets a traffic ticket the agent is called a Nazi, a boss who wants you to work an extra hours is like the gestapo, if he didn’t get the lunch or supper in school he expected its like being in a concentration camp.
Totally misused and inappropriate. The Nazis burned, killed maimed, smashed little kids heads against brick walls, used crematorians, need I continue. We should not water down these despicable words with trivia.
Likewise a Congressman did the exact same thing this week comparing people to Nazis because they didn’t agree with the national health plan. Did they call for his ouster.
So where are these left wing wacko’s full page article admonishing the Democrat party for not admonishing congressman steve Cohen for calling Republicans Nazi’s for repealing healthcare!? From the House floor no less?! Talk about liberal’s need for civility!
as a rabbi myself i would like to organize an ad campaign for rabbis that do support Fox news and Glenn Beck
Mr. Beck uses the Holocaust as a stepping stone to his own platform for extreme antisocial right wing politics. His shenanigans are obvious to anyone with any conscious. I bet hes gone in 4 years or so.
About Soros I don’t know definitely not a yidishe Neshooma helping nazis ,,,but to use at every one this name is a real shame ,,,
It makes the nazis yemach shmom look look like the average citizen and not the beast and murderers the really are
I would love to see a bunch of Rabbis draw attention to themselves in something which makes me proud, for a change. Or maybe not draw attention altogether. I know – I’m a self-hating Jew.
Not all Jews are Liberal – why are these loud voices among us so hellbent on portraying us as such?
Of all you tipshim who are denigrating Beck, yes he has an agenda sprinkled with mormonism too, BUT have you EVER listened to the show long enough to form an HONEST opinion? I’m not talking about listening for a day or so, more like a month!
Didn’t think so!
Soros is one of the wonderful people out there who would like to see nothing short of this country’s demise into utter socialism along with the complete collapse of the dollar. I don’t care about his yichus because he is an EVIL man!
this is all political posturing on both sides (JFSJ and Beck/FoxNews), a big waste of time, it makes me sick
signed by hundreds of rabbis and placed by the Jewish Funds for Justice, a nonprofit advocacy group. This group is anti Israel, supported by GEORGE SOROS and that is why they are doing everything to get at Beck. Soros is a Jew
hater just because he was born Jewish means nothing. His mother was a communist and his father converted I believe to some sort of xristianity. The reform are a mix bunch and Yiddishkeit is not so dear to them any way. Lox and Bagels is a good food feeling.
I really dont get too excited one way or another about Mr. Soros. I think its clear anti liberal hatred rather than any real wrongdoing by Mr. Soros. That said, Mr. Beck can rant away at his will on that matter. That said, Mr. Beck is mostly a fellow who I can not really make any great sense of his rhetoric and attempted humor. I can tune in for only about 3 minutes and I change the channel, not because I’m totally offended, I’m not, but I rather find that his arguments are like listening to a marijuana smoker rant at his highest intoxication. It makes no sense to me. Following Mr. Beck is like pasting my eye lids open and I just dont care for his dialogue. He has contributed nothing memorable to my intelligence. And although I am indeed a liberal, I was voting republican as short a time ago as 2 years ago.
I wonder where the money came from. From donations? If Soros did not pay for it himself, then how can these rabbis justify spending $100 K on defending an enemy of Israel when there are poor Jews who can’t afford Jewish education for their children?