On Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued a statement to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day.
It was a good, short statement aside from one major omission. He didn’t mention Jews. At all.
Trudeau noted that “on this day, we pay tribute to the memory of the millions of victims murdered during the Holocaust.”
He added: “The Holocaust is a stark reminder of the dangers and risks of allowing hate, prejudice, and discrimination to spread unchallenged. It also reminds us that silence must never be an option when humanity is threatened.”
While millions of others were killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust, the six million Jews who died were targeted because Hitler wanted to wipe them all off the face of the Earth.
We agree with what Trudeau said, but what he didn’t say – not mentioning Jews – was odd and somewhat worrisome.
In the influential American magazine Commentary, Jonathan S. Tobin wrote that, “by issuing a statement on International Holocaust Memorial Day that made no mention of Jews as the victims of the Nazis, as well as articulating no connection between the need for remembrance and the preservation of Israel, Trudeau gave us a penetrating insight into his views about both history and the current crisis.”
Yair Rosenberg, writing in the American Jewish magazine Tablet, took a nuanced but still damning view of the omission: “Now, it’s not hard to understand what the Canadian premier was trying to do. His intention was not so much to erase Jewish suffering as it was to draw out the ecumenical lessons of it. But in doing so, Trudeau fell prey to the false choice between depicting the Holocaust as either a universal warning against the human propensity for prejudice or as a particular one against the especial evils of anti-Semitism. In reality, it’s both.”
The Prime Minister’s Office told us yesterday Trudeau’s initial statement was an incorrect draft issued in error.
The PMO said it took steps to correct this by putting out a tweet from Trudeau linking to his statement and citing the importance of fighting anti-Semitism, plus issuing a statement from Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion that prominently noted the death of six million Jews in the Holocaust.
We trust Trudeau will do better next year.
tap here to see other videos from our team.