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Our president and the governor of our fourth most populous state are now jostling for how low they can go to fracture the legacy of the Holocaust and the quality of Jewish education.
Political disputes today are so crude that we can only wonder how much worse they will get. It got unimaginably worse in the past few weeks.
President Trump exacted more revenge against Democrats by exploiting the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council when he fired seven members who were appointed by former President Biden. Among them, former Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff did not even spend four months on the council, which oversees the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
In Albany, N.Y. , a politically vulnerable Gov. Kathy Hochul supported a budget measure to weaken a century-old law that requires non-public schools to maintain standards ensuring a basic secular education. The provision would ease the process for all-male Hasidic schools which have been investigated for failing to provide students with an acceptable curriculum, according to The New York Times.
“When people wonder why so many Americans have so little faith that those in elected office make decisions for the right reasons,” says New York state Sen. Liz Krueger, “I would point to this as a perfect example.”
Krueger, a Manhattan Democrat, was referring to the New York budget, but she could have just as well have been talking about the Holocaust council firings.
Trump is treating the Holocaust Memorial Council as a patronage dump, as if he is awarding a spot on the zoning board. Presidents, governors and mayors are going to base many of their appointments on politics, but a wise president will approach the Holocaust council with particular propriety when one considers the delicate subject matter.
Not Trump. Biden named Emhoff to the council last January to a term that usually runs five years, yet now he is out. One termination letter obtained by Jewish Insider reads, “On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council is terminated, effective immediately. Thank you for your service.” No explanation is forthcoming.
As a leader in confronting antisemitism on Biden’s behalf, Emhoff became more visible to the public than his spouse, Vice President Kamala Harris, who was narrowly defeated by Trump in the presidential election last Nov. 5.
Most of the others fired by Trump were former chief of staff Ron Klain; former Ambassador Susan Rice; former Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer; former Ambassador Alan Solomont; former presidential senior advisor Tom Perez and Mary Zients (an activist and wife of former White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients).
“To turn one of the worst atrocities in history into a wedge issue,” Emhoff said in a statement, “is dangerous – and it dishonors the memory of six million Jews murdered by Nazis that this museum was created to preserve.”
Council member and U.S. Rep. Max Miller of suburban Cleveland was oblivious to Emhoff’s response and could not take further hints when more critics weighed in last Friday.
“Get over yourselves,” said Miller, one of four Jewish House Republicans, in a note to Biden appointee Marsha Borin who was also dropped by Trump, as quoted in the Times. “I’m sure you’re upset and that is understandable and I am sorry for those who were removed. We all serve at the pleasure of the president.”
“Pleasure” is the operative word here. Who among us can comprehend the “pleasure” that Trump felt when he fired Biden’s people?
Gov. Kathy Hochul almost certainly acted out of political survival when she promoted a change in state law that in practical terms may only apply to male Hasidic schools, known as yeshivas.
Private schools that must be accredited to show compliance would have an easier time to hire their preferred accreditation agencies, according to the Times. Under these changes, Hasidic communities might be able establish their own agencies.
These schools can demonstrate they are abiding by the law by offering some form of test at year’s end, including but not limited to the annual standardized tests that the state offers to public school students, the Times reports. The legislative changes do not suggest any clear consequences if results of the tests are below par.
New York Democrats have sustained election scares in recent years, notably Hochel’s near-loss in 2022. She was elected with 53 percent of the vote four years after her predecessor, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, was re-elected with slightly less than 60 percent. In the same election, Republicans flipped two House seats in Nassau County and one seat spanning Westchester and Rockland counties, all suburbs close to New York City.
Hasidic voters, who tend to vote as a bloc, can swing a statewide election even when the vote is not particularly close.
State education commissioner Betty Rosa led opposition to the legislation, calling it a “travesty.” Even members of Hochul’s senior staff balked. Adina Mermelstein Konikoff, director of Yaffed, echoed critics of these changes by calling the measure “direct assault on the future of tens of thousands of Hasidic children.” Yaffed was created to press for secular education in yeshivas.
Hard to conclude who stooped the lowest.
