Journalist, Facing Anti-Semitic Abuse by Trump Fans, Files Police Report
Journalist Julia Ioffe has filed a report with the D.C. police department for anti-Semitic threats that she had received from Trump fans after writing a negative profile of Melania Trump in GQ, The Washington Post reported on Monday.
Ioffe, who is Jewish, received calls from people playing Hitler speeches, told that she “should be burned in an oven”, “be shot in the head,” and was sent photoshopped images of her in a concentration camp uniform.
Ioffe also reached out to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to help with the investigation, according to the report. “I can confirm that we are working with her, and we are doing some research into the individuals involved, but we do not have much else to say at this point,” ADL’s spokesperson Todd Gutnick told the Post.
In a statement released last week, ADL’s CEO Jonathan Greenblatt urged Trump to denounce the barrage of anti-Semitic comments by some of his supporters on social media. “The onus is now on Donald Trump to make unequivocally clear he rejects those sentiments and that there is no room for .. anti-Semitism in his campaign and in society,” Greenblatt said.
Trump refused to condemn his fans in an interview with CNN. “You hated this article in ‘GQ’ about your wife, Melania. Julia Ioffe wrote it. Since then, some of your supporters have viciously attacked this woman, Julia Ioffe, with anti-Semitic attacks, death threats. What’s your message to these people when something like that happens?” Wolf Blitzer asked the presumptive Republican presidential nominee during an interview on Wednesday. “I’ll tell you, I haven’t read the article, but I hear it was a very inaccurate article and I heard it was a nasty article… They shouldn’t be doing that with wives. I mean they shouldn’t be doing that,” he responded. “These death threats that have followed these anti-Semitic,” Blitzer pressed Trump. “Oh, I don’t know about that. I don’t know anything about that,” said Trump. “You’ll have to talk to them about it. I don’t have a message to the fans.”
On Thursday, Trump released a laconic statement condemning anti-Semitism. “Anti-Semitism has no place our society, which needs to be united, not divided,” said Trump.