ADL Blasts Kanye West Remarks

Image by Getty Images

By Anne Cohen December 2, 2013

Kanye West is in hot water with Abe Foxman.

The Anti-Defamation League’s national director issued a statement today denouncing the rapper’s comment over the weekend that : “Black People don’t have the same level of connections as Jewish people.”

“If the comments are true as reported, this is classic anti-Semitism,” said Foxman. “There it goes again, the age-old canard that Jews are all-powerful and control the levers of power in government. As a celebrity with a wide following, Kanye West should know better. We hope that he will take responsibility for his words, understand why they are so offensive, and apologize to those he has offended.”

The full statement, made during an interview on New York City’s Hip Hop and R&B radio station Power 105.1 FM, and published in Haaretz on Friday, read: “Man, let me tell you about George Bush and oil money and Obama and no money. People want to say Obama can’t make these moves or he’s not executing. That’s because he ain’t got those connections. Black people don’t have the same level of connections as Jewish people. Black people don’t have the same connection as oil people.”

This isn’t the first time Kim Kardashian’s hubby-to-be has made a controversial comparison. In August 2011, he was booed offstage in England after he compared himself to Hitler. “I walk through the hotel and I walk down the street, and people look at me like I’m (expletive) insane, like I’m Hitler,” West told the audience of 40,000.

Anne Cohen was the Forward’s deputy digital media editor. When she’s not looking for the secret Jewish history of Voodoo in New Orleans, or making lists about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she writes for The Assimilator. She graduated from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism with an M.S. magazine concentration in 2012.

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.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda

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