Jewish Exponent: ADL Condemns Berks County GOP Facebook Posts

  • May 15, 2020

By Eric Schucht

Anti-Defamation League Philadelphia Regional Director Shira Goodman issued a statement on May 15 condemning two recent posts on the Berks County Republican Party Facebook page.

The first post, made on May 14, calls Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf a Nazi and links to a news segment from WHP CBS 21.

“This analogy is offensive and wrong, and trivializes the suffering of six million Jews and millions of others who died at the hands of the Nazis,” the ADL statement reads. “We are dismayed to see this shameful analogy deployed by a significant political organization in Pennsylvania just ten days after Jewish organizations across the Commonwealth condemned a state legislator for comparing the Wolf administration to the Nazi Party. Holocaust analogies should only be used when referring to actual genocides, full stop.”

The other post the ADL responded to, posted on May 13, shows a cartoon depiction of a man in the style of “Rosie the Riveter” posters from the 1940s wearing a MAGA hat and displaying the “OK” hand gesture.

“While in most cases this gesture is innocuous, it has been adopted by white supremacists as a ‘trolling’ tactic and as a symbol of white power. We believe this meme acts as a dog-whistle to white supremacists in the region, and only serves to normalize and mainstream their hateful ideology.”

The ADL demanded that Berks County Republican Party issue an apology, make a commitment to learning more about extremism and the Holocaust and takedown both posts.

As of 3 p.m. on May 15, both posts were still up.