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This Jew Doesn’t Accept Sean Spicer’s Apology Because I Remember the Past

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Spicer’s Latest Comments Are a Throwback to Easter Pogroms of the 1800s

Any student of history – and particularly Jewish history – will know that the time around Passover and Easter and into the rest of the Spring and Summer was, for many centuries, a strange mix of religious euphoria and life-threatening fear. 

Passover is the Jewish holiday that celebrates liberation from slavery. It’s a time of pure happiness and gratitude as Jews focus on the miracle of freedom and redmption from the darkest moments of our collective history. And, from the 1800s through the middle of last century, (and probably earlier than that) it also marked the start of our darkest season. 

As Easter approached every year, Christians across Eastern Europe and Russia would terrorize – and even kill – Jews in the name of Jesus. The military or police never stepped in to stop them. Sometimes, they secretly (and even publicly) helped them. 

Why Easter? Ruth B. Bottigheimer explains:

For centuries, Christian churches all over the world taught children to hate Jews. Not only to hate them — but to justify their murder. They did so with one crucial choice: to tell the Gospel story in the words and the content of the book of Matthew rather than in alternate tellings by Mark, Luke, or John.

Matthew repeatedly used his telling of Jesus’ final days to exonerate Romans but to excoriate Jews for Jesus’ crucifixion. He magnified his vision of Jewish perfidy (choosing clemency for Barabbas, a murderer, rather than for Jesus) and violent Jewish unrest (leading Pilate to fear civic riot). He provided the historic justification for centuries of retaliation against Jews for Jesus’ death (Pilate washes his hands, tells the crowd to “see to it yourselves”), and provided the fateful formula, “His blood be on us and on our children.”

So when Sean Spicer gets on TV and parrots rhetoric used by Holocaust deniers to push the idea that Hitler “didn’t sink to using chemical weapons” while calling concentration camps that killed 11 million people (6 million of them Jews) with Zyklon B gas,  “Holocaust Centers,” red flags went up across the world.

To add insult to injury, many of us Jews strictly observe the holiday and spent our mornings in synagogue services and the rest of the first (and second, for some) day offline and purposefully disconnected from the world, so we weren’t able to join the conversation or speak out against his statements until now.

This has been quite a conversation to come back to. 

For his part, Spicer attempted to clarify his statements, issuing an absurd number of revisions and eventually apologizing (badly).

For me, Spicer’s apology rings hollow, for many reasons.

Spicer first called Jewish mega-donor Sheldon Adelson to apologize before apologizing to the rest of the world, as though Adelson speaks for all Jews (he doesn’t) or as if any of us care about his opinion (we don’t). Spicer’s apology to Adelson is a hallmark of anti-Semitic behavior. If/when Adleson forgave him, Spicer would be able to say, “See! This Jew thinks what I did was fine, so clearly I don’t hate ALL Jews! I can’t be anti-Semitic if I have a Jewish friend!” 

Plenty of folks lined up to be the administration’s token Jew – even though that role is already filled by Jared Kushner – including former George W. Bush Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, and some Jews even spoke out in support of Spicer’s comments, furthering the idea that Jews aren’t ever full citizens of a country where they live because Jews are both a religion and a ethno-nation unto ourselves.

That’s literally the kind of talk that historically gets Jews kicked out of wherever we’ve lived – and we’ve been kicked out of just about everywhere. 

I don’t need to explain just how damaging this can be to Jews – history has already shown that. And history has shown, over and over, how people can be persuaded into ignoring warning signs in favor of keeping quiet for the sake of not making waves. 

Because many Jewish folks were offline observing Passover, a majority of the voices in the conversation weren’t Jewish. The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway wrote a very long piece explaining that Spicer just made a mistake – nevermind that he parroted the exact same language Holocaust deniers use – he just made a mistake, and we’re worrying too much. Because if there’s anyone who knows what types of anti-Semitism we should or should not be worrying about, it’s definitely someone who’s never experienced anti-Semitism, right?

God help me if I ever take religious – or life – advice from The Federalist. 

When it comes down to it, it really is possible that Sean Spicer just made a mistake. In his defense, he’s incredibly bad at his job. To fully understand why his comments, matter, though, we have to look at the bigger picture:

One occurrence is a mistake. Two is a slip-up. Spicer’s comments were just another in a long set of anti-Semitic dog whistles and rhetoric. That they came on the first day of Passover and following a pattern of hundreds of years of anti-Jewish violence is no coincidence.

Follow Robbie Medwed on Twitter: @rjmedwed

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News

‘Take Vitamins’: Johnson and White House Scramble to Keep GOP Members Showing Up

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January 15, 2026

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With a razor-thin margin, Speaker Mike Johnson is urging House Republicans to show up for work — in D.C., not their district offices — and warning their absences could hamper President Donald Trump’s agenda.

“It’s dicey some days,” Johnson told reporters. “I told everybody … ‘no risk-taking, take vitamins and stay healthy and be here,’” The Washington Post reported.

The White House is also keeping an eye on members’ attendance, and has instructed Republicans to forego appearing with President Trump if there is a House vote scheduled.

“The president does not like it when he hears about members missing votes,” one person close to Trump told the Post.

READ MORE: Trump on 2026 Midterms: ‘We Shouldn’t Even Have an Election’

At risk are bills that cannot be brought to the floor because, as happened this week, Democrats in Washington outnumbered Republicans.

One near-casualty was legislation close to the president’s long-term agenda, which had to be postponed for lack of Republicans. The bill was The Shower Act, which is officially named the “Saving Homeowners from Overregulation With Exceptional Rinsing Act.”

President Trump for years has complained about water pressure regulations, and demanded removal of requirements that lower the amount of water coming out of faucets and showerheads.

Republicans have been down several voting members this month, as the Post reported.

“One Republican missed House votes because of a car crash that left him badly bruised. Another is recovering from brain surgery, while yet another was away from Washington while caring for his wife, who is dealing with a bout of cancer,” the Post noted.

There is also the sudden resignation of U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), and the sudden death of U.S. Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-CA).

“And then there’s Rep. Wesley Hunt. The two-term Texan lawmaker, who is in a heated GOP primary for Senate, has spent so much time on the campaign trail back home that his missed votes have become a salient issue in the race,” the Post noted.

Hunt’s absence, and that of four other GOP lawmakers, forced Speaker Johnson to pull the Shower Act from a floor vote last week.

This week, it passed.

READ MORE: House Majority Flip Could Trigger Sweeping Probes Into Trump Inner Circle: Democrat

 

Image via Reuters

 

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House Majority Flip Could Trigger Sweeping Probes Into Trump Inner Circle: Democrat

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January 15, 2026

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If Democrats win control of the U.S. House of Representatives in November, multiple investigations into senior Trump administration officials would begin, a Democratic lawmaker said.

“Stephen Miller should lawyer up,” said U.S. Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY), responding to video of his remarks earlier Thursday.

Congressman Ryan had been speaking with Pablo Manríquez, the editor of Migrant Insider on Substack, who said to the New York Democrat that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller “seems to be operating sort of as a shadow president at this point.”

“Can you think of any legal liability he could face on the back end of this presidency?” Manríquez asked.

READ MORE: Trump on 2026 Midterms: ‘We Shouldn’t Even Have an Election’

“Well,” Ryan responded, “there’s gonna be legal, and I think criminal liability for multiple members of this administration, certainly including Stephen Miller.”

“They continue to just violate the law, violate the Constitution, violate our moral standing and values as Americans,” he alleged.

Ryan said that Democrats across multiple House committees “are already readying investigations … to be ready on day one, when we retake the majority, when the voice of the people are brought back here to the House.”

Democrats currently appear likely to get that chance.

According to Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report on Thursday, “House ratings show Dems as modest favorites for control, as Republicans would need to win two thirds of Toss Ups (67%) to keep the majority.”

Wasserman also noted that eighteen House races had moved in the Democrats’ direction.

READ MORE: ‘Chaos and Crisis’: Trump Sparks Alarm After Ramping Up Insurrection Act Threat

 

 

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Trump on 2026 Midterms: ‘We Shouldn’t Even Have an Election’

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5 hours ago

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January 15, 2026

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President Donald Trump, rejecting criticism from within his own party, the economic challenges facing the American people, and polling on Greenland, suggested that his second-term accomplishments were so extensive that they should render the 2026 midterm elections unnecessary.

In an interview with Reuters, President Trump “expressed frustration” that Republicans may lose control of the House of Representatives and possibly the Senate in the November midterm elections.

Calling it “some deep psychological thing,” Trump told Reuters that “when you win the presidency, you don’t win the midterms.”

He then “boasted” of his accomplishments, telling the reporter, “when you think of it, we shouldn’t even have an election.”

READ MORE: ‘Chaos and Crisis’: Trump Sparks Alarm After Ramping Up Insurrection Act Threat

Trump, Reuters reported, “repeatedly dismissed concerns by the public, business leaders and even his fellow Republicans on issues ranging from the future of Greenland and the criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, to the state of the economy.”

He deemed “fake” a Reuters/Ipsos poll that found little support — just 17 percent — for him seizing control of Greenland.

He repeatedly declared, “I don’t care” when confronted with news that some Senate Republicans oppose the Department of Justice’s investigation into Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, and “when reminded of JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon’s concerns that White House interference in the Fed could harm the economy.”

Trump also dismissed the concerns of the American people over high prices they are facing, instead incorrectly declaring the economy the strongest “in history.” He told Reuters that he simply needed to do a better job promoting his achievements.

He appeared to suggest that “he follows his own compass” rather than put much stock in public opinion.

“A lot of times, you can’t convince a voter,” he said. “You have to just do what’s right. And then a lot of the things I did were not really politically popular. They turned out to be when it worked out so well.”

On actions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Reuters reported that Trump “said he would continue sending armed agents into cities, claiming that his efforts had taken ‘thousands of murderers out of our country.”

Reuters noted that there is “no evidence to support that assertion.”

READ MORE: ‘Organized Gangs of Wine Moms’ Are Impeding Federal Agents Says Fox Columnist

 

Image via Reuters 

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