DNC Staffers Question Demand for Holocaust Remembrance Day Statement in Leaked Emails
PHILADELPHIA (JTA) — Democratic National Committee staff members questioned Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s request for the group to put out a statement in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day, leaked emails show.
In an from May released as part of the batch of DNC emails leaked by Wikileaks this week, a staffer wrote that an statement marking the day was unnecessary. The chain was first reported by the Daily Caller.
“We aren’t going to do statements for every Jewish holiday unless she wants to do them for every religious holiday and trust me, this Catholic can give you a list of them,” wrote staffer Kate Houghton. “Also when she does an official statement it makes very little sense to have two statements out there in her voice.”
Houghton’s colleague, Senior Communications Adviser Ryan Banfill, replied, “This is about remembering the Holocaust. Never forget,” to which Houghton replied that other genocides should be commemorated in the same way.
“Yup… or Darfur or Armenia or Rwanda or Bosnia (which PS is where my husband served),” she wrote. “Does she want us to do one for each other those remembrance days as well?”
The email leak, which first came out over the weekend, revealed that the DNC had discussed ways to undermine the campaign of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who ran against Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. One of the emails suggested questioning Sanders’ belief in God and commitment to his Judaism.
Wasserman Schultz resigned her DNC post in the wake of the leak.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
