Holocaust Museum LA invited Kanye West to a private tour. Now it’s target of antisemitic attacks
The rapper, who has come to symbolize West’s self-mythologizing, is also thought to be Jewish
The former president’s Jewish faith is at the center of a controversy that has been playing out for more than a year.
The question of West calling Obama a “cuck” and his controversial tweet calling President Obama a “black n***er” during his recent concert in Tel Aviv has provoked a wave of condemnation.
The controversy started earlier this summer when West told interviewer Howard Stern that he was Jewish and his Twitter account was set up in Hebrew. He also had an image of his family tree in Hebrew on his website and at one point his Twitter feed included the text “My roots lie in Israel.”
The backlash to West’s remarks intensified with the release of a video he produced in which he says he is Jewish and then calls President Obama a “big n**ger.”
In response to the controversy, hundreds of thousands of people signed a petition calling for a boycott of West and his concert scheduled for Aug. 7 in Tel Aviv.
The controversy reached a breaking point last week when the Los Angeles Holocaust Museum invited a reporter to tour the museum, and when the museum’s directors learned about West’s Jewish faith, they decided to deny him entry to the tour.
The decision followed a flurry of antisemitic incidents at West’s concerts including swastikas etched into the bottom of his shoes, swastikas scrawled on his guitar, and stickers reading “F*** Jew” and “No Place to Hide.”
It also followed the death of his mother Dorothy in a 2012 accident, when a car driven by an Israeli soldier hit her.
In a statement released on Thursday to the Hollywood Reporter, LHHM wrote that it had learned that West had an image of his family tree, which is in Hebrew, on his website, on his Twitter feed, and as “hearsay” when he was asked about it during a phone interview with a reporter last week.
The museum also said that there are multiple reports that West attended Hebrew school and was in touch with a rabbi at the school.
“The Holocaust Museum LA has no knowledge or reason to believe that Mr. West