By Kevin McCauley
A group of 400 rabbis signed an open letter to News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch demanding an apology from Fox News chief Roger Ailes and the sanction of personality Glenn Beck for making inappropriate and insensitive remarks about Nazis and the Holocaust.
The letter ran today, Holocaust Remembrance Day, as a full page ad in News Corp.’s Wall Street Journal.
The rabbis note that in the current charged political climate much is tolerated, and much is ignored or dismissed. “But you diminish the memory and meaning of the Holocaust when you use it to discredit any individual or organization you disagree with. That is what Fox News has done in recent weeks, and it is not only "left-wing rabbis" who think so.”
They “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,” said the letter signed by 400 rabbis from the reform, conservative and orthodox branches of Judaism.
The rabbis are “deeply offended” by Ailes' statement attributing outrage over Beck's use of Holocaust and Nazi images to “left-wing rabbis who basically don't think that anybody can ever use the word, Holocaust, on the air.”
Ailes also branded NPR executives as “Nazis” for their decision to fire Juan Williams, who was given a lucrative contract with Fox. Ailes did apologize to the Anti-Defamation League for that reference made in March.
The rabbis also took issue with Beck’s attacks on philanthropist George Soros, whom Beck referred to as “14-year old Jew hiding with a Christian family in Nazi-occupied Hungary of sending his people to death camps.”
Placed by the Jewish Funds for Justice, the ad calls on Fox News to “meet the standard it has set for itself: to exercise the ultimate sensitivity when referencing the Holocaust.”’
Fox dismisses the ad as work from a “George Soros backed left-wing political organization that has been trying to engage Glenn Beck primarily for publicity purposes.”
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