Anne Frank was a young Jewish girl murdered by the Nazis. She left behind a bestselling diary and a whole lot of groups trying to profit from her legacy. There is a tangled network of organizations all claiming her name. Some have lost legal battles over it. And some Anne Frank organizations are downright anti-Semitic.
In 2004, an exhibition in the Anne Frank Museum compared former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to Adolf Hitler. The former Soviet dissident, Natan Sharansky, then a Israeli government minister, reacted indignantly , saying the museum was "showing contempt for the memory of the six million who were murdered in the Holocaust."
In a recent report on xenophobia and racism written by the Anne Frank Foundation, it presented the Arabs’ conflict against Israel from a Palestinian Arab perspective: “There’s a balance between the random suicide attacks by the Palestinians and the fact that Israel isn’t worried about civilian casualties and collective punishment. Israel pushes Palestinians economically in a corner and humiliates them psychologically".
The Anne Frank organization currently in the news is the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect. Its two top leaders, Steven Goldstein and David Smith were gay rights activists from New Jersey. It claims to be, "a progressive voice for social justice". That seems to mean two gay rights activists advocating for Muslim migrants.
Statement of Steven Goldstein, Executive Director of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, on President Trump's acknowledgment of Antisemitism today:
“The President’s sudden acknowledgement is a Band-Aid on the cancer of Antisemitism that has infected his own Administration. His statement today is a pathetic asterisk of condescension after weeks in which he and his staff have committed grotesque acts and omissions reflecting Antisemitism, yet day after day have refused to apologize and correct the record. Make no mistake: The Antisemitism coming out of this Administration is the worst we have ever seen from any Administration.
Steven Goldstein had no problem when Obama smeared the Jews and aided a nuclear terror state plotting to murder millions of Jews. But Steven Goldstein is a gay rights activist from New Jersey. He also worked for a number of Senate Democrats. He has as much to do with Anne Frank as I have with the NAACP.
The Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect used to be called Anne Frank Center USA. It put Goldstein in charge and adopted a non-Jewish mission.
With Goldstein's hiring, the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect not only adopts a new name, but also a wider mission. To date, the organization has focused largely on the history of Anne Frank and the Holocaust, with forays into addressing contemporary prejudice and discrimination. Now the organization, reflecting the Mutual Respect in its new name, will significantly broaden its work on contemporary issues to become a national leader in exposing and fighting hate.
The Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect currently exploits Anne Frank's memory to promote the murder of more Jews through the migration of Muslim "refugees". This, not "anti-Semitism" is what interests the Center.