ADL leader: Whoopi Goldberg can use suspension to learn about antisemitism

Following Tuesday’s news that Whoopi Goldberg had been suspended from “The View” for insisting that the Holocaust “wasn’t about race,” Anti-Defamation League CEO Peter Greenblatt said he accepted her apology and believes that “she’s been a friend of the Jewish community all throughout her career.”

Greenblatt, speaking on CNN, wouldn’t say whether he agrees with ABC’s decision to keep her off “The View” for two weeks, but said that he believes in “counsel culture,” not “cancel culture.” He suggested that the controversy provides “The View” co-host with an opportunity and a “teachable moment” for everyone else.

“I can’t comment on ABC News’ internal process,” Greenblatt said. “But what I will say is that I hope Whoopi can use the next two weeks for a process of introspection and learning.”

Greenblatt is among a number of other Jewish leaders and writers who have explained why Goldberg’s Holocaust comments showed a fundamental and potentially harmful ignorance about history, the Holocaust and Jewish identity.

Daniella Greenbaum, a former hot-topics producer for “The View,” wrote in the Washington Post that Goldberg’s comments “reflect a disturbing ideology that is growing increasingly rampant.” As much as she believed that Goldberg “genuinely regretted hurting anyone,” she also called Goldberg’s suspension “a meaningful step,” presumably because it means ABC was taking the controversy seriously.

During a discussion Monday about the banning of the Holocaust graphic novel “Maus,” Goldberg insisted that the Holocaust “wasn’t about race” but about “two White groups of people” and one group’s “inhumanity to man.”

Later, on “Late Night With Stephen Colbert,” the comedian and Oscar-winning actor seemed to double down on her comments, explaining that the Holocaust was “White on White.” Goldberg suggested that the Nazis “had to do the work” to find out who was Jewish. As Greenbaum noted, Goldberg “bizarrely” argued that if she and a Jewish friend encountered Klansmen on the street, only she would need to run because the Jewish friend would likely be able to avoid detection.

Immediately following Goldberg’s comments on “The View,”  Greenblatt tweeted: “The Holocaust was about the Nazi’s systematic annihilation of the Jewish people — who they deemed to be an inferior race. They dehumanized them and used this racist propaganda to justify slaughtering 6 million Jews.”

While on CNN Tuesday night, Greenblatt explained that Goldberg’s comments caused “tremendous confusion and hurt” to the Jewish community, especially amid a rash of anti-Semitic violence across the country. Yair Rosenberg, writer of The Atlantic’s Deep Shtetl newsletter, highlighted how “mistaken” Goldberg was by saying “the Nazis were obsessed with race and defined the Jews as their racial inferiors, which is how they justified exterminating them.”

Right-wing critics of Goldberg have called for her to be fired, trying to argue that her Holocaust comments were at least as offensive as Roseanne Barr’s racist tweet in 2018 about former President Obama’s adviser Valerie Jarrett. Barr’s tweet prompted ABC to cancel her reboot of “Roseanne.”

Goldberg’s defenders point out that she offered a sincere apology, first via a tweet on Monday afternoon and then on Tuesday morning’s show. She also admitted she was wrong and said she was committed to being better informed — a humility Barr never showed. Over at “The View,” Goldberg’s co-hosts, Sunny Hostin, Joy Behar, and Ana Navarro were reportedly “furious” with ABC’s decision to dole out such a punishment, the Daily Beast reported.

“I love Whoopi Goldberg. I love The View,” Navaro told The Daily Beast on Tuesday evening. “This was an incredibly unfortunate incident. Whoopi is a lifelong ally to the Jewish community. She is not an anti-Semite. Period. I am sad. And I have nothing else to say.”

The Daily Mail, citing inside sources, reported that Goldberg had been suspended without pay and said some staffers were happy about the suspension because “what Whoopi said was not based in fact and was highly inflammatory and offensive.”

But among Goldberg’s supporters, there also were questions about why the network chose to suspend her after letting her be on the show Tuesday, where she kicked off the broadcast with her expanded apology and an introduced a lengthy discussion with Greenblatt.

“I stand corrected and I stand with the Jewish people,” Goldberg said, then Greenblatt explicitly explained why the Nazi genocide was, indeed, about race. He said that Hitler’s ideology was “predicated on the idea that the Aryans, the Germans were a quote, ‘master race,’ and the Jews were a subhuman race.”

Greenblatt added that this history “might not exactly fit or feel differently than the way we think about race in America,” as contemporary discussions about race usually focus on skin color.

Greenbaum said she initially appreciated Goldberg’s apology on Monday afternoon and believed it to be sincere. “I knew that Goldberg genuinely regretted hurting anyone.” But then Greenbaum saw Goldberg on Colbert’s late-night show, when Goldberg seemed to double-down on her argument about the Nazi genocide not being motivated by race.

To Greenbaum, Goldberg showed that she didn’t “misspeak” when she elaborated on her ideas about the Holocaust. Greenbaum said: “She shared a viewpoint that was misguided and ignorant — but it was the viewpoint she genuinely meant to share.”

Greenbaum added that Goldberg’s comments reflect “a relatively new prevailing notion that Jews, in America at least, are part of the White power structure — that we can’t be oppressed in the same way that other minorities are, and that we don’t need the same kind of support from allies that others do.”

Rosenberg agreed with Greenbaum in saying that Goldberg’s “misstep” should provide an opportunity for further public discussion. In his column, he also points out why Goldberg’s confusion is common even among people who couldn’t be called anti-semitic.

Jewish identity, Rosenberg said, doesn’t conform to the usual Western categories of religion, race, culture or ethnicity because Judaism in fact predates Western categories. For example, he said a person can be Jewish regardless of observance or specific belief and people can convert to Judaism, while the religious components of a Jewish identity mean that it’s about more than culture and ethnicity.

Rosenberg also praised Goldberg for apologizing, saying “she probably wishes she hadn’t raised this subject.”

“We need to have more conversations about these topics going forward, not fewer,” Rosenberg said. “Conversation dispels confusion and leads to greater understanding, and given recent events, we need a lot more understanding about Jews in our public discourse.”

This story has been updated.