Members of the governing board of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum have asked Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to remove Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) from the United States Holocaust Memorial Council amid reports that the senator has not attended a single meeting in 18 years.
Sanders was appointed to the council in 2007. The board, which meets twice a year to oversee the D.C. museum’s mission, programming and educational work, is composed of both presidential and congressional appointees. According to attendance records reviewed by board members and provided to the New York Post, Sanders “has missed every meeting of the board since his appointment.”
In a Jan. 13 letter to Schumer signed by a dozen council members, the board wrote that Sanders “has rarely, if ever, attended council meetings or participated meaningfully in the work of the council since his appointment.”
The council also raised concerns about some of Sanders’s public statements on “contemporary genocidal conflicts, including characterizations widely viewed as inconsistent with the principles of Holocaust remembrance and genocide prevention.”
Sanders has been an outspoken critic of Israeli policy, calling for an end to U.S. military aid to Israel and describing Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza “a genocide.” The letter stated that those stances bring into question Sanders’s “alignment with the mission of the museum and its governing body.”
“In the current context, with Jew-hatred and Holocaust distortion rising globally, it is imperative that Senate-appointed representatives on the council are fully engaged and steadfastly supportive of its mission,” the letter states.
