19 Kids and Offensive

Elanna Cahn — October 17, 2013 – 4:12 pm | Abusive Holocaust Rhetoric | Election 2013 | Reproductive Rights | Women's Issues Comments (0) Add a comment

Dear  Mr. Duggar,

My name is Jack Moline.  I am a rabbi and the new Executive Director of the National Jewish Democratic Council.  I am also a registered voter in Virginia, where you visited recently in support of the candidacy of Ken Cucinelli, the Republican running for Governor.  You used one word in your presentation that caught my eye: Holocaust.  You used it in your criticism of the number of abortions taking place in this country.

Mr. Duggar, I want to explain why that word caught my eye in the hopes that you will never use it in this context again.  The word itself has a generic meaning; it is in the Bible many times, as you know, and it means “burnt offering.”  Whatever else abortion is, it is not a holocaust in the generic sense.  You seemed to use the word in the meaning it has acquired: a reference to the murders of six million Jews  by the Nazis during World War II.  Those victims were murdered with malice toward their geneology; they were sought out, incarcerated and exterminated because they were Jews.

Using “holocaust” to refer to abortion not only strips the tragedy that befell my people of its unique attributes, it implies that those who do not agree with your assessment of the prevalence of abortion in this country are complicit in betraying our collective dedication to preventing more attempts at genocide, another word with very specific meanings.

I would be less concerned about your inappropriate use of this word were it not for the fact that this represents the third time that a supporter of Mr. Cuccinelli has denigrated Jews and Judaism in the last month.  We have been accused of practicing a false religion and mocked for our alleged focus on money.  Mr. Cuccinelli has distanced himself from those incidents, and I applaud him for that.  But it leaves me wondering what attitudes are considered acceptable by those who are promoting Mr. Cuccinelli’s candidacy.

You and I, both religious men, may disagree on the permissibility of abortion and on the choices to which a woman is entitled.  Perhaps some day we can discuss them, preferably with women who have a specific stake in the conversation.  But no one - not Christian, not Jew, not Republican, not Democrat, not American, not citizen of the world - ought to use the rhetoric of the Nazi regime to promote a partisan cause.  It trivializes the Holocaust and disables civil discourse.  And it makes the speaker appear ignorant or bigoted - or both.  I am certain those words do not describe a man who has exceeded our father Jacob in building his house by half, so I ask you to repudiate now and going forward the use of such imagery in describing your convictions.

Sincerely,

Rabbi Jack Moline 

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