Jewish reporter says Trump supporters bombarding her with anti-Semitic rhetoric
After penning an unflattering profile of candidate’s wife, Julia Ioffe is threatened with Hitler speeches, Auschwitz photos
A reporter said Friday she had received a barrage of anti-Semitic emails and phone calls from supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, after a profile story she wrote about Trump’s wife Melania was published in GQ Magazine.
Julia Ioffe, who is Jewish, said the hatred she had experienced since her piece was published reminded her of racism her family experienced in Russia before it immigrated to the US 26 years ago.
Ioffe’s article chronicles Melania’s story from her Slovenian roots to her relationship with the man who, it seems increasingly likely, may well become the Republican nominee for president in 2016.
But the piece struck a none-too-flattering tone in its description of either Melania and her husband, and has been criticized by its subject as “yet another example of the dishonest media and their disingenuous reporting.” And when the angry responses by Trump die-hards began arriving to Ioffe’s phone, inbox and Twitter feed, many of them took a decidedly racist slant.
One Twitter user superimposed her face on a photo of an Auschwitz inmate, under the title “Jule Ioffe at camp Trump.”
.@GideonResnick @OKnox Oh, I thought this one reminding me to swallow my diamonds was from you! pic.twitter.com/Ri6tZsyHXx
— Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) April 28, 2016
Another person sent her an email with an anti-Semitic cartoon, with a stereotypical Jewish man being executed.
From my inbox. Subject line: "They know about you!" pic.twitter.com/zp3v2GjTeI
— Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) April 28, 2016
She received several threatening phone calls, with one person playing her a Hitler speech over the line. She was also called by a homicide cleanup service, where she was told an order had been placed for her.
Many of those who assailed her online referred to her as a “kike.” White supremacist website The Daily Stormer wrote a blog about her titled “Empress Melania Attacked by Filthy Russian Kike Julia Ioffe in GQ!”
“It’s unsettling,” she told the Guardian on Thursday night. “I started the day off having a sense of humor about it but by the end of the day, after a few phone calls like this, with people playing Hitler speeches, and the imagery, and people telling me my face would look good on a lampshade, it’s hard to laugh.
“If this is how Trump supporters swing into action what happens when the press looks into corrupt dealings, for example, or is critical of his policies?”
Ioffe characterized the responses to her article as “horrible anti-Semitic shit that I’ve only ever seen in Russia.”
“Twenty-six years ago today my family came to the US from Russia. We left Russia because we were fleeing anti-Semitism,” she said.
