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Legislator calls Emhoff’s promotion of Gaza fundraiser ‘disturbing’

The second daughter’s social-media activity draws some scrutiny.

Ella Emhoff and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, May 15, 2021. Credit: Office of Vice President Kamala Harris via Wikimedia Commons.
Ella Emhoff and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, May 15, 2021. Credit: Office of Vice President Kamala Harris via Wikimedia Commons.
Ella Emhoff and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, May 15, 2021. Credit: Office of Vice President Kamala Harris via Wikimedia Commons.
Ella Emhoff and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on May 15, 2021. Credit: Office of Vice President Kamala Harris via Wikimedia Commons.

The stepdaughter of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris has prompted criticism from a congressman over her linking to a fundraiser from the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund, an Ohio-based nonprofit.

Artist and model Ella Emhoff, 24, is the daughter of second gentleman Doug Emhoff and his former wife Kerstin Emhoff, a film producer. She posted a link on her Instagram account, which has 315,000 followers, calling for “supporting urgent relief for Gaza’s children.”

Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.) told the New York Post that “it’s of tremendous concern, and I find it abhorrent.”

He said: “To be honest with you, I am kind of stunned by it. It’s disturbing to the maximum degree.”

Van Drew said humanitarian funds sent to Gaza would end up in the hands of the Hamas terrorist organization that rules the coastal enclave.

The fundraiser has reached almost $8 million so far; it remains unclear how much Emhoff’s promotion may have helped in the effort.

“If Michigan Hillel wants to remain the center of Jewish life on campus, it cannot retreat from one of the central and challenging parts of being Jewish there,” Seth Mendel, of CAMERA, told JNS.
The legislative vote would have been the first since January 2006, when Hamas defeated Abbas’s Fatah faction.
“We tried to make it clear to them that this is a memorial that was built for those who died in a horrible terrorist attack,” Lawrence Puccini told JNS.
The matter now goes to the European Council, which determines political matters for the European Union.