VIRGINIA LAWMAKER: JEWS ARE CHRIST-KILLERS

ADL slams lawmaker for Christ-killer remarks (JTA)
A Jewish group condemned a Virginia state lawmaker’s remarks about slavery and the Jews killing Jesus. Frank Hargrove, a Republican, said in an interview published Tuesday in Charlottesville’s Daily Progress that a proposal for Virginia to apologize to the descendants of slaves was unnecessary, and that “our black citizens should get over it.”

He continued rhetorically, “Are we going to force the Jews to apologize for killing Christ?”

In the next House session, the Legislative Black Caucus expressed its outrage, exacerbated by the fact that the remarks were made on Martin Luther King Day.

Jewish lawmaker David Englin, a Democrat, recalled his grandparents leaving Poland, “where they were driven from their homes by people who believed that, as Jews, we killed Christ,” The Associated Press reported. Hargrove responded to Englin, “I think your skin was a little too thin.”

Hargrove’s statements were “outrageous on many fronts,” ADL Washington Director David Friedman said Wednesday.

Hargrove brought “up a charge that has been a part of the Jewish people’s suffering for 2,000 years,” and his subsequent reaction to his colleagues’ distress “shows an amazing degree of callousness.”