Georgia Jewish community members demand David Perdue apologize for recent remarks
SAVANNAH, Georgia (WSAV) – A Jewish state official and a rabbi are calling on former US senator David Perdue to apologize for remarks made last week when he compared Donald Trump’s Twitter suspension to Germany in 1933.
Appearing on Lindell TV, Perdue, who is now running against Gov. Brian Kemp for the Republican nomination, said that “an ex-president can lose the right to free speech, so where are we?”
I mean it’s off limits.
“When individual citizens lose the right to free expression, then we become Germany in 1933, Russia in 1919, Cuba in 1959 and Venezuela today,” Perdue said on the show.
It was Germany’s remarks in 1933 that drew immediate criticism.
“These comments are ignorant, harmful, and misguided,” state Rep. Mike Wilensky said.
Wilensky, a Democrat from Dekalb County says he is the only Jewish member of the House and says the kind of comments made recently by Perdue and other politicians may trivialize what really happened during the Holocaust.
“Perdue’s comments show utter ignorance and lack of empathy for history and engage in distortion of the Holocaust,” Wilensky said. “Comparing a contemporary event to the Holocaust is not only offensive to its victims, it is also inaccurate.”
Rabbi Ellen Nemhauser says anti-Semitism is on the rise.
Comments like these from Mr. Perdue only serve to normalize hurtful rhetoric,” she said.
Nemhauser said she was the child of a Holocaust survivor.
“Because of this, I am acutely aware that my simple life depended on the forces opposed to the Nazi regime,” she told reporters. “To compare the actions of the Nazis in Germany in 1933 to social media banning inflammatory speeches (of Donald Trump) that are believed to contribute to an increase in our hate crimes and anti-Semitism is both ignorant and shameful.”
Both Nemhauser and Wilensky called on Perdue to apologize but said they had not heard from his campaign.
“David Perdue should be ashamed of his comments and he should take them down and apologize not just to the Jewish community of Georgia but to the entire Jewish community,” Wilensky said.