You're reading: New York Times: Israel’s pick to head Holocaust memorial stirs international uproar

New York Times: Israel’s pick to head Holocaust memorial stirs international uproar

Published Nov. 29, 2020 at 7:08 am

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 26: U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council Chairman Howard Lorber lights a candle to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day during a ceremony at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on the National Mall January 26, 2018 in Washington, DC. On January 27, 1945, Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration camp, was liberated by the Red Army and the date now marks the commemoration of the genocide that occurred during Word War II. The United Nations marked the day to remember the genocide that resulted in the death of an estimated 6 million Jewish people, 200,000 Romani people, 250,000 mentally and physically disabled people, and 9,000 homosexual men by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images/AFP

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For years, his name was synonymous with intolerance and right-wing extremism. So when Israel’s conservative-led government nominated Effie Eitam to be chairman of Yad Vashem, the country’s official Holocaust memorial and one its most hallowed institutions, it prompted an uproar.