January 12, 2021
(JTA) — GitHub, a software developing host owned by Microsoft, reportedly fired a Jewish employee days after he warned of “Nazis” among the mob that stormed the Capitol last week.
According to Business Insider, the Jewish employee posted on Jan. 6 on a company channel on Slack, the work messaging platform, that colleagues in the Washington, D.C. area should “stay safe homies, Nazis are about.”
Another employee then criticized the...
January 12, 2021
(JTA) — Rep. Brad Schneider, a Jewish Democrat who is a leader in the House on Israel issues, said he has coronavirus and blamed maskless Republicans who sheltered with him during last week’s insurrection at the Capitol.
“Last Wednesday, after narrowly escaping a violent mob incited by the President of the United States to attack the Capitol and its occupants, I was forced to spend several hours in a secure...
January 12, 2021
(JTA) — Etsy has removed a T-shirt with the phrase “Camp Auschwitz” on it after images of a rioter involved in the deadly Capitol insurrection with the same words on his sweatshirt circulated in recent days.
The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum tweeted at the e-commerce company, which sells customized craft items, saying that the shirt it found on the site was “painful to Survivors[sic] and disrespectful to the memory of...
January 11, 2021
WASHINGTON (JTA) — There are 37 Jewish members of the 117th Congress, which was sworn in last week amid the trauma of an insurrection spurred by President Donald Trump.
Of the 37, there are 10 in the Senate and 27 in the House of Representatives — 25 Democrats and two Republicans. All 10 Jewish senators caucus with the Democrats. (Overall, there are 435 members of the House and 100 members...
January 11, 2021
(JNS.org) – U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf resigned on Monday in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 mob invasion of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump.
In a letter to the Department of Homeland Security staff, Wolf wrote that his resignation, which takes effect just before midnight, was “warranted by recent events, including the ongoing and meritless court rulings regarding the validity of my...
January 11, 2021
(JTA) — Three of the four Democrats leading the charge to impeach President Donald Trump for a second time are Jewish: David Cicilline of Rhode Island, who is the lead sponsor, and Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Jerry Nadler of New York, who are among the three lead co-sponsors.
The fourth lead co-sponsor of the impeachment articles charging Trump with inciting last week’s deadly insurrection is Ted Lieu of California....
January 11, 2021
(JTA) — In an impassioned video, Arnold Schwarzenegger said the deadly mob violence in the U.S. Capitol last week recalled Kristallnacht, the Nazi attack on Jews that is considered the beginning of the Holocaust. Schwarzenegger, the former Republican California governor and actor, posted the video to social media on Sunday and framed his remarks as coming from “an immigrant to this country.”
dHe began by describing Kristallnacht, the “Night of...
January 10, 2021
(JTA) — The man who stormed the U.S. Capitol wearing an anti-Semitic sweatshirt reading “Camp Auschwitz” has been identified as a 56-year-old Virginia man named Robert Keith Packer.
CNN identified Packer, whose shirt also said “Work Brings Freedom,” a rough translation of the phrase that greeted Jewish prisoners arriving at the Nazi concentration camp. The back of the sweatshirt said “Staff.”
Packer’s photo has circulated in reports of the mob,...
January 10, 2021
(JTA) — President-elect Joe Biden cited anti-Semitic expressions by rioters in the U.S. Capitol this week in saying that his Justice Department should prosecute them.
“Yes,” he said Friday when a reporter asked if his Justice Department should prosecute the marauders whose looting of the Capitol this week in hopes of stopping Congress’s affirmation of Biden as president-elect resulted in five deaths.
“They should be treated as a bunch of...
January 08, 2021
Anti-Defamation League (ADL) CEO and national director Jonathan Greenblatt called for the removal from office of President Donald Trump, following the events on Wednesday, Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol, when thousands of Trump supporters crashed through the doors and attempted to gain access inside the House and Senate chambers.
“We must not allow the historic and horrific events of the past 48 hours to...