Steven Goldstein, a long-time Democrat and LGBTQ activist who serves as executive director the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect (associated with neither the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, Netherlands nor the Anne Frank Fonds in Basel, Switzerland), opportunistically took to Twitter to exploit news related to North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and turn it into an attack on President Trump for “wag[ing] vicious wars on refugees, immigrants, women, people of color, LGBT people.”
A war with North Korea would not be @POTUS‘ first. He has waged vicious wars on refugees, immigrants, women, people of color, LGBT people.
— Anne Frank Center (@AnneFrankCenter) August 9, 2017
A little background, courtesy of Wikipedia, about Goldstein:
Goldstein was co-campaign manager for Jon Corzine for U.S. Senate in New Jersey in 2000. He had previously worked for the U.S. Congress as press secretary to U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg, and as a counsel to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.
He worked as a television producer as well, before founding Garden State Equality, New Jersey‘s statewide organization for LGBT equality, in 2004. Goldstein served as CEO and chair of the group until 2013, when he stepped down after being named Associate Chancellor for External Relations at Rutgers University–Newark.Goldstein was described as “New Jersey’s most visible gay rights activist” in 2013.
Although Anne Frank is known for very-sophisticated-for-a-girl-in-her-early-teens, much-longer-than-140-character diary entries (none of which mentioning LGBTQ issues), Goldstein is very titillated by the opportunity to exploit the name of Anne Frank to make tweets consistent with his personal far-left agenda. Although every now and then Goldstein puts out a tweet which regurgitates a quote from Anne Frank, a cursory look at the Twitter page of the so-called “Anne Frank Center” makes it pretty clear where Goldstein’s real passion is. A few tweets that Goldstein has put out (exploiting Anne Frank’s name in the process) just in the last 72 hours include:
A teaching moment on this third anniversary of the murder of Michael Brown of blessed memory: Why we say #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/pGcmWGvw0T
— Anne Frank Center (@AnneFrankCenter) August 9, 2017
We salute the transgender soldiers suing @POTUS Administration over its immoral, reckless and unconstitutional ban on #transgendertroops.
— Anne Frank Center (@AnneFrankCenter) August 9, 2017
.@POTUS, you just said #transgendertroops ban “doing the military a great favor.” BUNK. You’re hurting security and doing hatred a favor.
— Anne Frank Center (@AnneFrankCenter) August 10, 2017
Below left: Statue of Liberty in a hijab. Below right: Statue of Liberty menorah for Chanukah. We embrace both. We embrace diversity. pic.twitter.com/HLMCz2DF73
— Anne Frank Center (@AnneFrankCenter) August 11, 2017
Predictably enough, the Goldstein-appropriating-Anne Frank’s-name tweet related to North Korea and “wars on …” provoked numerous disgusted responses. A few follow:
This is a common practice of the left they take established institutions attack them infest them like rats then ultimately destroy them
— Ziggyzoo (@Ziggyzoo00) August 10, 2017
This shouldn’t be legal. You using a dead child for a political means. Absolutley abhorrent. This is as revolting as you can get.
— Cormac Stone (@CormacStone) August 9, 2017
You should be ashamed of yourself for this tweet and for pretending to speak in the name of Anne Frank
— C Noordz (@Cnoordz) August 9, 2017
I’m no Trump supporter, but using Anne Frank’s name to engage in hate-mongering identity politics is disgusting 🖕
— Bert’s Unibrow (@BertsUnibrow) August 10, 2017
Not that Goldstein didn’t have his defenders.
Noted asshat @benshapiro is shocked to learn that Anne Frank, a refugee who immigrated to escape a war, would be anti-war. pic.twitter.com/Sc4nKilhE8
— Julia🌟 (@julia_kelch) August 11, 2017
(It should be noted that Anne Frank and her famliy were not so much “immigrat[ing] to escape a war” as hiding in an attic with her family to escape National Socialist persecution of Jews, which began years before World War II started. As for “would be anti-war,” it was of course the militaries of the Allies which liberated the National Socialist extermination camps in World War II.)
Abraham Foxman, a hidden child during the Holocaust and the head of the ADL before being replaced by former Barack Obama aide Jonathan Greenblatt, has told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that he believed Frank’s name was abused and that “every time I read that he [Goldstein] says something under her banner, I feel uncomfortable.”