The head of Reform Judaism in the US criticizes President Donald Trump for saying that the hatred and violence behind the deadly clashes over the weekend between white supremacist protesters and counterprotesters in Virginia came from “many sides.”
“The vile presence and rhetoric of the neo-Nazis who marched this weekend in Charlottesville is a reminder of the ever-present need for people of good will to stand strong, to speak loudly against hate, and act both to delegitimize those who spread such messages and to mitigate the harm done to the commonweal of our nation and to those that are the targets of hate messages,” Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, says in a statement, adding that “once again, hate has killed.”
URJ President Rabbi Rick Jacobs addresses the organization’s biennial meeting, November 6, 2015. (screenshot)
“We commend the opening of President Trump’s statement condemning the ‘egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence’ but are deeply troubled by the moral equivalence evident in President Trump’s statement today. White supremacists wielding Nazi flags and spewing racist vitriol need to be specifically condemned, not only violence and hate ‘on many sides.’ If our leaders can’t call out this virulent strand of hate we will surely fail to stop it,” Jacobs also says in his statement.
— JTA
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