Keep the Holocaust Envoy, Rubio
19 Jewish Democrats want the office saved and filled. We agree.
Israel's ambassador's son was hurt in a ramming. Neria Leiter, son of Yehiel Leiter, Israel's U.S. ambassador, was seriously wounded Wednesday in a car-ramming at a West Bank checkpoint. Soldiers shot the attacker dead. After brain surgery, a doctor said his life is still in danger. He kept serving in the reserves after his older brother, Moshe, was killed in Gaza in 2023. "Neria needs a miracle," his father wrote. 1
Argentina will try Iran's top brass over AMIA. Judge Daniel Rafecas ruled Monday that eight suspects in the 1994 Buenos Aires bombing, which killed 85, will be tried in absentia. One is Ahmad Vahidi, now commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard. He classified the bombing as genocide. 2
A Jewish Philly teacher faked Palestinian heritage. Hannah Gann, a West Philadelphia teacher, admitted on Instagram Monday that she invented Palestinian, Tunisian and Black roots. She now calls herself "a white woman with significant privilege and wealth." Online, she's already "the Palestinian Rachel Dolezal." 3
Keep the Holocaust envoy. Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, the administration's antisemitism envoy, wants the State Department's separate Holocaust envoy office folded into his. On Wednesday, 19 Jewish Democrats in Congress, from Josh Gottheimer to Jamie Raskin, asked Marco Rubio to keep the office and fill it. The post is vacant. 4
Our view: they're right. Kaploun's office handles the antisemitism in this week's news. The Holocaust office works on restitution and presses European governments to keep remembering what they did, and Vice President JD Vance has said Europe's current level of Holocaust commemoration is counterproductive. 4 The OU, the World Jewish Congress and Chabad back the merger to avoid "duplicative efforts." Put remembrance under a political appointee in this administration and it will be the first thing dropped. Rubio should name an envoy.
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