Jewish Leaders Condemn Perdue’s Nazi Analogy, Demand Apology

Today, Georgia Jewish leaders, State Representative Mike Wilensky and Rabbi Ellen Nemhauser, held a press conference to condemn comments made by former Senator David Perdue that surfaced in a video on Friday.

The Jerusalem Post reported that in the newly-revealed video, Perdue compared Twitter’s banning of Donald Trump from their platform to Nazi Germany. Previously, in his 2020 campaign, Perdue ran an ad which enlarged the nose of his opponent, Jon Ossoff, who is Jewish, in a portrayal that critics immediately denounced as antisemitic.

“Look at President Trump — if the next president can lose the right to be on Twitter, I mean, where are we, where are the rest of us? … When individual citizens lose the right of free voice, then we turn into a Germany in 1933, a Russia in 1919, Cuba in 1959 and Venezuela today,” Perdue said in the video.

Watch a video of the press conference here, and see quotes from speakers below.

“As a Jewish person, Perdue’s comments make me sad and angry — regardless of your party affiliation or your faith, these comments are ignorant, harmful, and wrong. To compare a social media platform, a private company, banning a user for spreading disinformation to Nazi Germany, the Holocaust, under which six million Jews as well as at least five million others were murdered for their ethnicity, political beliefs, or sexual orientaiton, is absolutely unacceptable,” said State Rep. Mike Wilensky. “To make a comment like this while running for our state’s highest office shows that David Perdue is unfit to be Georgia’s next governor. David Perdue should be ashamed of his comments — he should retract them immediately and apologize to not only Georgia’s Jewish community, but the whole Jewish community.”

“Comparing the actions of Nazis in Germany in 1933 to a social media outlet banning inflammatory speech – that is understood to be contributing to an uptick in our hate crimes and antisemitism – is both ignorant and shameful,” stated Rabbi Ellen Nemhauser. “Antisemitism is on the rise, and words from our leaders matter. I’m hopeful that Mr. Perdue will reconsider his comment and apologize to the Jewish people and all others who identify with victims of the Holocaust.”

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