White House removes Stein from Jewish Heritage Month proclamation

Other deletions were Aaron Copland, Albert Einstein and Louis Brandeis

4 May 2012, 9:52 am

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WASHINGTON (JTA) — The White House removed a reference to Gertrude Stein from its Jewish Heritage Month proclamation.

Stein — along with Aaron Copland, Albert Einstein and Louis Brandeis — were deleted from the proclamation sent out Wednesday night.

The proclamation issued Tuesday had listed the four as Jews who “have brought to bear some of our country’s greatest achievements and forever enriched our national life.”

Stein, a poet, arts critic and literary theorist, was Jewish, but also notoriously flirted with Nazi ideology while living in France in the 1940s.

A White House spokesman, Matt Lehrich, said the original version was sent out in error.

The proclamation omits the standard language for dating such documents, “the year of our Lord,” apparently out of deference by the Obama White House to Jewish sensibilities.