Briefs

NANCY PELOSI: ‘PUNK’ WITH AUSCHWITZ T-SHIRT HELPED SPUR HER REVIEW OF CAPITOL RAID

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the appearance of a man wearing a ‘Camp Auschwitz’ T-shirt during the Capitol riot was a factor in her determination that the events needed a review that could lead to investigations.

“So many disgusting images, but one figure, the man in a shirt with Auschwitz on it—Auschwitz!” Pelosi, D-Calif., said at a news conference to announce that she had hired Lt. Gen. Russel Honore to conduct a review of the deadly raid on Jan. 6.

“To see this punk with that shirt on and his anti-Semitism that he has bragged about to be part of a white supremacist raid on the Capitol requires us to have an after-action review, to assign responsibility to those who are part of organizing it and incentivizing it.”

The man in the T-shirt has since been arrested.

Pelosi said the review by Honore, who has been lauded for his work in leading the 2005 Hurricane Katrina relief, could lead to a 9/11-type congressional commission investigating the riots and their origin.

Thousands of protesters who convened on Washington on Jan. 6 to protest Congress’ pro-forma affirmation of Joe Biden’s election to the presidency were spurred to march on the Capitol by President Donald Trump.

Hundreds among the protesters raided the Capitol, attacked its police and looted the grounds. At least five people died as a result. (JTA)

SEX THERAPIST DR. RUTH GOT HER COVID-19 VACCINE

The famed sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer normally goes to the Javits Center in New York City for a book fair, where she talks and signs copies of her works. This year, she got her COVID-19 vaccine shot.

The 92-year-old applauded what she called the center’s “organized” rollout in a video uploaded to Twitter by an aide to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo is trying to accelerate a slow vaccine rollout in his state—and combat the perception that his threatened penalties for providers who departed from the priority list represented an obstacle.

Westheimer said she will receive her second dose of the vaccine next month.

A documentary on Westheimer’s path from surviving the Holocaust to becoming an Israeli army sniper to changing the public discourse about sex was released in 2019. (JTA)

GOP CONGRESSWOMAN SAYS SHE’LL PLACE ISRAEL FLAG OUTSIDE HER OFFICE NEXT TO BDS BACKER TLAIB

A new Republican congresswoman from Florida said she will place an Israeli flag outside her office adjacent to that of Rashida Tlaib, a Michigan Democrat who supports boycotting the Jewish state.

Rep. Kat Cammack, who is not Jewish and was elected in November, wrote on Twitter that Tlaib, a Palestinian American, “has some strong opinions about Israel that [100%] I disagree with, so I’ve made a pledge to plant Israel’s flag outside my door right next to the American flag. I think it’ll be very helpful as she walks past both every day.”

A spokesperson from Tlaib’s office called the move a “publicity stunt” in a statement to The Times of Israel. (JTA)

ETSY REMOVES ‘CAMP AUSCHWITZ’ SHIRT FROM ITS ONLINE STORE

Etsy has removed a T-shirt with the phrase ‘Camp Auschwitz’ on it after images of a rioter involved in the deadly Capitol insurrection with the same words on his sweatshirt circulated.

The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum tweeted at the e-commerce company, which sells customized craft items, saying that the shirt it found on the site was “painful to Survivors[sic] and disrespectful to the memory of all victims of Auschwitz.”

The man in the sweatshirt at the mob riot has been identified as Robert Keith Packer. His sweatshirt also contained a translation of the infamous phrase on the Auschwitz gate, “Arbeit macht frei” (“Work brings freedom”), and said “Staff” on the back.

“Etsy’s long-standing policies prohibit items that promote hate or violence, and we are vigilantly monitoring the marketplace for any such listings that may have been inspired by recent unrest,” an Etsy spokesperson told Reuters.

Etsy was not the only company to remove shirts with the phrase from its site—Teespring and TeeChip also took them down, according to Newsweek. Teespring added that it will make a donation to the Auschwitz museum.

Over a million Jews and others were killed at the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II. (JTA)

US ARMY DISCHARGES OFFICER WHO MADE HOLOCAUST JOKE ON TIKTOK

The U.S. Army is removing an officer who made a Holocaust joke last year on TikTok.

Nathan Freihofer, a second lieutenant, has millions of followers on TikTok, the video social media platform. In August, Freihofer posted a joke about the Holocaust, then told his followers, “If you get offended, get the f*** out because it’s a joke.”

Freihofer was suspended from his leadership duties after posting the video, which he since deleted.

Lt. Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla, the commander of the Army’s XVIII Airborne Corps, determined that Freihofer’s statement was “inconsistent with the values of Army service and inappropriate for anyone in a position of leadership over American Soldiers,” said Col. Joseph Buccino, an Army spokesman, according to The Washington Post. “As a result, last month the Corps commander initiated the process of removing Freihofer from the Army.”

The decision came one week after a pro-Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol. In the months surrounding the election and the presidential transition, social media companies including Facebook, Twitter and TikTok have taken steps to combat bigoted posts and disinformation. (JTA)

JAMIE RASKIN AND FAMILY SET UP FUND IN SON’S MEMORY

The family of Rep. Jamie Raskin has established a fund to honor the memory of Tommy Raskin, the Maryland Jewish Democrat’s son, who died on Dec. 31.

The Tommy Raskin Memorial Fund for People and Animals launched with initial funding of $50,000. The money will be directed twice a year to charities favored by Tommy Raskin, including Oxfam, Give Directly, the Helen Keller Institute and Animal Outlook.

The Raskins posted a memorial to Tommy, who took his life at 25, on Medium.

“He began to be tortured later in his 20s by a blindingly painful and merciless ‘disease called depression,’ as Tabitha [his sister] put it,” the family said.

“Tommy grew up as a strikingly beautiful curly-haired madcap boy beaming with laughter and charm, making mischief, kicking the soccer ball in the goal, acting out scenes from To Kill A Mockingbird with his little sister in his father’s constitutional law class, teaching other children the names of all the Justices on the Supreme Court, hugging strangers on the street, teaching our dogs foreign languages, running up and down the aisle on airplanes giving people high fives, playing jazz piano like a blues great from Bourbon Street, and at 12 writing a detailed brief to his mother explaining why he should not have to do a Bar Mitzvah and citing Due Process liberty interests (appeal rejected),” the post said.

“He ordered and devoured books on the Civil War and Maryland’s history in it, World War II and resistance to Nazism, Jewish history, libertarianism, moral philosophy, the history of the Middle East conflict, peace movements, anything by Gar Alperovitz on the decision to drop the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and anything by Peter Singer on animal rights.”

The post noted Tommy Raskin’s many interests and volunteer gigs, including teaching Sunday school at Temple Emanuel in Chevy Chase, a Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C., and at J Street, the liberal Jewish Middle East policy group.

Tommy Raskin graduated from Amherst College and was a student at Harvard Law School when he died.

His father is a constitutional scholar. (JTA)