By Bruce S. Ticker
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — President Trump cannot even touch the Holocaust without dragging its legacy through the mud.
He exacted more revenge against Democrats when he fired more than seven members of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council who were appointed by former President Biden, news media reported in recent weeks. Among them, former Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff did not even spend four months on the council, which oversees the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Trump is treating the Holocaust Memorial Council as a patronage dump, as if he is awarding a spot on the zoning board. Presidents, governors and mayors are going to base many of their appointments on politics, but a wise president will approach the Holocaust council with particular propriety when one considers the delicate subject matter.
Not Trump. Biden named Emhoff to the council last January to a term that usually runs five years, yet now he is out. One termination letter obtained by Jewish Insider reads, “On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council is terminated, effective immediately. Thank you for your service.” No explanation is forthcoming.
As a leader in confronting antisemitism on Biden’s behalf, Emhoff became more visible to the public than his spouse, Vice President Kamala Harris, who was narrowly defeated by Trump in the presidential election last Nov. 5.
Others fired by Trump were former chief of staff Ron Klain; former Ambassador Susan Rice; former Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer; former Ambassador Alan Solomont; former presidential senior advisor Tom Perez and Mary Zients (an activist and wife of former White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients).
“To turn one of the worst atrocities in history into a wedge issue,” Emhoff said in a statement, “is dangerous – and it dishonors the memory of six million Jews murdered by Nazis that this museum was created to preserve.”
Trump named new members to the council earlier this month, The New York Times reports. They include Sigalit “Siggy” Flicker, a former “Real Housewives of New Jersey” television star; Sid Rosenberg, a radio host who spoke at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally last October; and Alex Witkoff, the son of Steven Witkoff, the president’s Middle East envoy.
Council member and U.S. Rep. Max Miller, R-Ohio, of suburban Cleveland was oblivious to Emhoff’s response and could not take further hints when more critics weighed in last Friday.
“Get over yourselves,” said Miller, one of four Jewish House Republicans, in a note to Biden appointee Marsha Borin who was also dropped by Trump, as quoted in the Times. “I’m sure you’re upset and that is understandable and I am sorry for those who were removed. We all serve at the pleasure of the president.”
“Pleasure” is the operative word here. Who among us can comprehend the “pleasure” that Trump felt when he fired Biden’s people?
Borin injected herself into the debate when she endorsed a message from council member Kevin Abel who criticized his colleagues’ “public silence” about the firings. Abel’s letter incited a talkative debate.
“The dissonant message cannot be lost on us, however, when a Holocaust Museum remains silent in the wake of acts of retribution and messages of hate emanating from an administration that has systematically torn at the fabric of our society’s protections and norms and has shown no sign of restraint in its enthusiastic promotion of uncivility.”
Then he compares the silence to Nazism, writing, “The Holocaust teaches us that by using fear to buy silence, the Nazis were able to incrementally isolate, demonize and then murder millions of Jews.”
Some people would balk at such a comparison, but who launched this trek through the sewer?
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Bruce S. Ticker is a Philadelphia-based columnist.