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Professor: Carter said 'Too Many Jews' on Holocaust Council, Saw as 'Political Gimmick'by Daniel Freedman
We spoke to the former Executive Director of the Holocaust Memorial Council, Monroe Freedman, who confirmed a WorldNetDaily report that he had received a note from Jimmy Carter complaining that there were "too many Jews" on the Holocaust Memorial Council. Professor Freedman also said that Carter's support for the Holocaust Memorial Council was "principally a political gimmick" based on getting political support from Jews. Professor Freedman, now a law professor at Hofstra University, also confirmed that a respected Holocaust scholar was rejected as a board member by Carter's office because the scholar's name "sounded too Jewish" -- although he was a Presbyterian Christian. Mr. Freedman told us that the WND account was "entirely accurate" except that Elie Wiesel, not Freedman himself, had selected the board members. We asked Professor Freedman why he decided to publicize details of this Carter memo now. He said that he had told the story repeatedly over the years in private circles, but only now did someone mention the story to a reporter who called him up to ask if it was true. Freedman told us that Carter's request had "simply struck me as ludicrous." A memorial for Martin Luther King, or for Native Americans, would expect to have large proportion of those groups, he said. The many Jews who had been picked for the Council were largely Holocaust survivors, which "seemed entirely appropriate," Mr. Freedman said. He told us that he was "rather taken aback that the president of the United States would focus on that in particular." Mr. Freedman told us that Carter saw the idea of a Holocaust Memorial "principally as a political gimmick." He "in effect politicized the idea" and saw it as a means of getting "political support from Jews" but at the same time he didn't want to "alienate other potential constituencies," and so wanted more Polish Americans, and other ethnic groups, who claimed to be equally affected by the Holocaust. Mr. Freedman did stress that Carter's domestic policy adviser, Stuart Eisenstadt, who came up with the idea of the Holocaust Memorial Council, did support the memorial "on the merits" -- not like Carter who did it for political reasons. Freedman said, "I think Carter's motivations were very different." It would be more shocking to hear that an American president simply supported a Holocaust Memorial Council as a "political gimmick" if it wasn't coming from a president who interceded on behalf of a member of the Waffen SS. The Carter Center hasn't returned calls for comment.
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