Holocaust Museum LA invited Kanye West to a private tour. Now it’s target of antisemitic attacks.
In a public appearance in front of the museum on a recent Saturday, former West, who is now a controversial critic of Israel, came armed with a megaphone to address a small crowd. In an hourlong speech he said he is not a racist or anti-Semitic person — adding he never thought to associate his work with Nazism. But the show quickly hit a snag, with the museum’s staff reporting that a small group of people, including one woman, started shouting out the word “Jew” at the rapper.
The museum’s director, Steven Rose, confirmed the museum received a “suspicious package” and that the man who left for Los Angeles via California’s toll road — he was driving a Rolls-Royce — is a Jew.
“It was addressed to me but I didn’t know who it was from until yesterday,” he said, declining to say where it was sent. “Our security and police responded immediately.”
Yeshiva University, where West is a student, has also received mail with West’s address, according to campus police chief Robert Boyce.
“There were three or four threatening words written in red marker at the bottom that said ‘Jews, go home,’ ” he said.
But it was nothing compared to the swastika- and Star of David-laden package received by a different museum visitor, this one with the return address West.
“We got the same package,” said Michael Weinstein, president of the Los Angeles Jewish Federation, which commissioned the museum to create its own “Rally to End Anti-Semitism” initiative. “I was at the museum when the guy delivered it and, like a lot of people, I was horrified. The swastika with the Star of David in the middle was the first thing that shocked me. It was an obvious, obvious anti-Semitic message. And we’re not talking the ‘Goebbels’ kind of anti-Semitic messages, this was something that was really dangerous and frightening. … We’re all very concerned for the safety of our community, our students, faculty and staff.”
