Vice President JD Vance clearly has a problem with Jews.
This past Tuesday was International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It’s a day to pause for just a moment to remember the victims of the Holocaust. As everyone knows, the preponderance of those rounded up and murdered by the German Nazis, were Jews. Six million of them, a full two-thirds of the Jews of Europe at the time were exterminated.
The United Nations, not noted for its Jew-loving behavior, established January 27th as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Its resolution urges every member nation to honor the memory of the six million Jews and other minorities who were systematically shot, gassed and starved by Hitler and his henchmen.
For American politicians, issuing a yearly statement commemorating International Holocaust Remembrance Day and referencing the Jewish victims of the Nazis, is the equivalent of Michael Jordan making a layup against, well, me. Not much effort required.
President Donald Trump issued a statement saying, “Today, we pay respect to the blessed memories of the millions of Jewish people who were murdered at the hands of the Nazi regime and its collaborators during the Holocaust.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, “Today, the United States joins countries around the world to remember the six million Jews who were systematically murdered in the Holocaust, as well as the millions of others the Nazis marked for persecution and mass murder.”
Senator Bernie Sanders, certainly not a Jewish role model said, “On this Holocaust Remembrance Day, me must do more than remember the 6 million Jews and others who were killed by the Nazis—we must honor them every day by committing to build a world of justice, peace, love, and compassion.”
Even Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez posted on social media, “Commemorate the six million Jewish lives lost in the Holocaust…Learn from Nazi history to reject hatred and actively fight antisemitism wherever it appears.”
You’ll notice I’ve italicized the words Jewish, Jews, Nazis.
Now read the statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day issued by Vice President JD Vance.
“Today we remember the millions of lives lost during the Holocaust, the millions of stories of individual bravery and heroism, and one of the enduring lessons of one of the darkest chapters in human history: that while humans create beautiful things and are full of compassion, we’re also capable of unspeakable brutality. And we promise never again to go down the darkest path.”
Anything missing? No italics? You know why? Because there weren’t any! No Jews. No Nazis.
Let me tell you, that’s no oversight. It’s deliberate. Any statement from the office of the Vice President of the United States is pored over, before it is released. You have to really go out of your way to issue a statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day and not mention Jews and Nazis.
And it’s not the first time Vance has gone silent about Jews and antisemitism.
I wrote about it a couple of weeks ago in my post “Ad-Vance-ing Hate.”
JD Vance has refused to clearly and decisively condemn the right wing antisemitism of people like Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes.
Time and time again, given several opportunities, JD Vance has not distanced himself from them or from their Jew hatred.
This past Tuesday, on a day when politicians around the world condemned the Nazis and commemorated their Jewish victims, The Vice President of the United States of America, decided not to. He could have so easily helped dispel the mistrust that is building around him in the American Jewish community. But he decided not to.
So now we know. It’s no longer a question. It’s a certainty. Vance’s failure to disown the overt Jew hatred that has infected the extreme right wing of his party, plus deliberately ignoring the Jewish component of the Holocaust, the greatest tragedy to befall the Jewish people, is a stain on him that cannot be easily explained away.
As that very erudite and fair-minded journalist Brit Hume posted this past week on “X”, “This issue is not going to go away on its own. Vance, at some point, will have to deal with it.”
Or not.
This may be an obscene political calculation by Vance. He may think he has more to gain politically from pandering to the GOP’s antisemitic fringe than by trying to convince Jewish American voters he’s the rightful heir to the MAGA movement.
If that’s the case, it’s a disgustingly cynical move on his part. But as I also wrote a couple of weeks ago, Vance’s “issue” with the Jews may not ultimately sit well with his boss and his boss’s family.
Donald Trump perceives himself as the greatest friend Jews have ever had, and he might view his endorsement of Vance as his successor, as a stain on that legacy.
Oops…I did it again, sang that cultural touchstone of a singer, Britney Spears, 26 years ago. (Yes, it’s been that long!)
Yeah, Vice President JD Vance did it again, this past week. But you know what? It was no oops.