(RNS) — Hundreds of American rabbis used Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27 to push media mogul Rupert Murdoch to “sanction” Glenn Beck and other Fox News personalities on the use of Nazi and Holocaust references.
The “Sanction Glenn Beck” letter responds to the Beck's three-part series last November on billionaire philanthropist and Holocaust survivor George Soros, whom Beck smeared as a “Jewish boy helping send the Jews to the death camps.”
Fox News chief Roger Ailes has dismissed critics as “left-wing rabbis who basically don’t think that anybody can ever use the word ‘Holocaust’ on the air.”
The coalition of rabbis, which also objected to Ailes use of the term “Nazis” in describing the NPR executives who fired Fox News commentator Juan Williams, wants an apology from Ailes and action taken against Beck.
“It is not appropriate to call executives of another news agency ‘Nazis,’ ” stated the letter. “And it is not appropriate to make literally hundreds of on-air references to the Holocaust and Nazis when characterizing people with whom you disagree.”