Whoopi Goldberg Clarifies Recent Comments on Jews, Race and the Holocaust: “I Think the Holocaust Was About Race” – Updated

UPDATED with statement: Whoopi Goldberg made a statement to Deadline today after an interview she did with the Sunday Times of London drew backlash from the ADL and other organizations that fight anti-Semitism. Goldberg said in the statement that in the interview she simply said what she said earlier this year and “did not double down on hurtful comments.” She also says bluntly: “I believe the Holocaust was about race, and I’m as sorry now as I was then for upsetting, hurting and upsetting people.”

Read her full statement below.

While doing press in London recently, I was asked about my comments from earlier this year. I tried to convey to the reporter what I said and why and tried to tell that time. It was never my intention to give the impression that I was duplicating myself with hurtful comments, especially after talking to Rabbis and friends old and new and hearing their weigh in. I’m still learning a lot and believe me I heard everything everyone told me. I believe the Holocaust was about race and I am as sorry now as I was then that I upset, hurt and upset people. Again, my sincere apologies, especially to anyone who thought this was another rehash of the topic. I promise it wasn’t. In this time of rising anti-Semitism, I want to state very clearly that I have always stood with the Jewish people and always will. My support for them has not wavered and never will.

BEFORE: For the second time this year, Whoopi Goldberg tried to argue that the Holocaust wasn’t about race, this time to qualify the claim with the idea that it didn’t start that way, even if it ended there. And for the second time this year, it was corrected by the ADL and other anti-Semitism groups.

In an interview with the Sunday Times on Saturday for the promotion Toin which she plays the mother of civil rights activist Mamie Till-Mobley, Goldberg spoke about the issue of race, noting that there is an ongoing debate about whether Jews are a race or a religious group.

“My best friend said: ‘It is not for nothing that there is no box for the Jewish race in the census. This leads me to believe that we are probably not a race. The view said host in the interview, which was published during Hanukkah.

Referring to Goldberg’s comments in January in which she claimed that the Holocaust was “not about race,” the Times interviewer reminded her that the “Nazis considered Jews a race.”

Goldberg replied, “Yeah, but it’s the killer, isn’t it?” The oppressor tells you what you are. why do you believe them They are Nazis. Why believe what they say?”

She continued, “It wasn’t original [about race]. Remember who killed them first. They killed no race; They physically killed. They killed people they thought were insane. And then they made that decision.”

In response, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt wrote on Twitter:

Whoopi Goldberg’s comments about the Holocaust and race are deeply offensive and incredibly ignorant. When she made similar comments earlier this year, we explained that the Nazi regime was inherently racist.

The Nazis sought to exterminate the Jewish people, who they considered inferior to the mythical “Aryan master race”. They used pseudo-scientific racial theories to justify their anti-Jewish “race laws” and the systematic slaughter of millions.

It is no coincidence that white supremacy in the US today repeats the Nazi claim of the “master race” while spreading their anti-Semitic and racist hatred.

Additionally, Whoopi’s comments show a complete lack of awareness of the multi-ethnic, multi-racial makeup of the Jewish community. She should immediately apologize and actually commit to finding out about the true nature of #Anti-Semitism.

Goldberg’s comments to the Times are all the more tongue-in-cheek after she apologized on air in January That advertisement The host said that the Holocaust was “really about race because Hitler and the Nazis viewed the Jews as an inferior race. Well, words matter – and mine is no exception. I regret my comment and stand by it. I also support the Jewish people.”

As for Goldberg’s timeline of “who killed them first,” the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum shared a letter from Adolf Hitler in 1919—fourteen years before the opening of the first concentration camp. In it, Hitler states in no uncertain terms that “Jews are definitely a race,” calling the Jewish people an “alien race, unable and unwilling to sacrifice their racial distinctiveness.”

The museum also recalled that “this text is one of Hitler’s first important statements on the Jewish question.” You read it below.