ADL, Simon Wiesenthal Center slam Madonna's use of Nazi imagery in photo montage on world tour.
By ELANA KIRSHmadonna singer 224.88 ap(photo credit: )
A video that appears as part of Madonna's new stage show was widely criticized as "inappropriate and offensive" on Monday, for "unfairly" comparing Republican presidential candidate John McCain to Hitler.
According to an Anti-Defamation League (ADL) statement, the pop star used a picture of Hitler as part of a "concert photo montage," which also featured pictures of McCain, and Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe. The montage was projected on a screen during a concert in Wales which launched Madonna's current world tour.
ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman, himself a Holocaust survivor, asserted that "Comparisons to Hitler have no place in a music concert, or in the presidential campaign."
In the Monday statement, Foxman called the use of Nazi imagery to describe the Republican candidate "outrageous," and added that "doing so trivializes the history of the Holocaust and is an insult to the memories of the victims and their families."
Similarly, a statement released by the Simon Wiesenthal Center called the pop star's comparison "beyond the pale, and an insult to all Americans, Democrats as well as Republicans."
The dean and founder of the Jewish human rights organization, Rabbi Marvin Hier, said that, "There ought to be no place in the political and social discourse of American culture for such deliberate distortions and lies sure to be viewed by hundreds of thousands of young people around the world."
