My phone rang, during the dinner hour. “Did you see that Harris County Republican Party Facebook (HCRP) post?” Daniel Cohen, President of Indivisible Houston asked. “It is the vilest anti-Semitic meme.”
Harris County Republican Party
FB Post lede: Leftism kills. In memory of the 6 million Jews lost to Nazi hatred in the name of National Socialism. We will never forget. #holocaust #holocaustmemorial #holocaustremembranceday
Many demanded an apology on Facebook. The HCRP eventually took down the post. But to date, they have not apologized. The story went national as the Washington Post, and other national publications picked up the story.
Private citizen and activist Roy Cohen have had it. He released the following open letter to the Harris County Republican Party.
To my friends in Houston and nationwide:
An open letter to Paul Simpson, Chairman of the Harris County, Texas, Republican Party and his Communications Director, Vlad Davidiuk:
I held off posting this for 24 hours, insisting yesterday on an apology to the Jewish Community. I gave you 24 hours. You didn’t. You even made the situation worse by doubling down on your phoney assertion, so here it is:
Growing up as a Jew In the South and having lived among majority cultural white Christian descendants of European origins, I notice every day of my life how that majority, now threatened in the US today, is not only feeling threatened with loss of power, but is clueless about what is offensive or hurtful to anyone but themselves. You are so inside yourselves that you are oblivious to the feelings of others. It is also behavior prohibited by Christianity.
It indicates either a lack of empathy for Jews, people of color, others or deliberate acts of slights, bigotry and hate.THAT is what is so awful about Paul Simpson and Vlad Davidiuk’s refusal to acknowledge that what they did was ethically and morally wrong. Not only was it an insult to many American citizens across the political aisle from them and an insult to the Remembrance of the Six Million, but there are a dwindling number of Holocaust survivors still alive. They have been horrendously insulted and hurt by this action by HCRP. They can take it, though old and feeble. They’ve had a lot worse done to them. And hey. . .It’s not an SS guard’s rifle butt to the head, but it is emotionally rude, painful and sadistic. Yes, Paul and Vlad, that is what you inflicted on these brave survivors by ignorantly, crassly, crudely and visciously using them and those tortured before their very eyes before being gassed to death and burned to ashes in crematoria, human Jewish ashes raining on the Polish and German countryside, to make an untrue, but viscous political cheap shot at socialists and by implication, Democrats. You used them and the entire Holocaust.
You refuse to read, listen to, and understand this. You are not stupid people. You are proud of this. You think it is the way to get Jewish votes. You either are insanely oblivious to the hurt you caused, or you are sadistically enjoying what you did, or even delighting in this anti semitic act you perpetrated. Oh, you’d deny being anti semitic. Of COURSE you would. Either you don’t see THAT in yourselves or you don’t want to come to terms with it.
You are anti semites. Period. If you wish to claim otherwise you can start by admitting what you did and apologize to the Houston Jewish Community and Jews around the world.
Some Jews will continue to vote Republican for various reasons. But I guarantee you, you will lose a good number of those who have voted GOP in the past. Kissing up to Israel won’t get you out of this. The State of Israel exists to be an escape hatch for Jews from people like you. No bs, no denials, no excuses, no doubling down. This story has gone nationwide. Jews everywhere know what you have done and your doubling down on it. Behavior like this may work short term for Donald Trump, but not here, not now by you. Read the Book of Esther in your Bible.You owe the Jewish community an apology if you do not want your Harris County GOP to be known as the Party of bigotry and anti semitism. It is that simple.
Roy Cohen
One hopes the Harris County Republican Party gets it. One hopes they see the error of their ways and apologize.