Photo via WashingtonVotes.org, Jim Walsh/Facebook
June 30, 2021, 12:58 pm
Washington state representative and Republican Jim Walsh has jumped on board the already on-fire bandwagon of wearing a yellow Star of David while railing against COVID-19 policies in an attempt to compare things like mask mandates and vaccine drives to the Holocaust. Walsh in particular seems unmoved by the massive numbers of actually Jewish people saying “do not do this because it’s extremely offensive,” claiming in a comment on the video of his recent speech that “[i]n the current context, we’re all Jews.”
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The speech, given in a Lacey church basketball gym, was ostensibly against vaccine mandates, of which there are none in Washington State. Getting the COVID-19 vaccine is still entirely optional, just highly encouraged by state leadership and public health experts. Actual restrictions related to the pandemic are already being lifted within the state, with the mask mandate ending in King County on Tuesday after it was found that 70 percent of residents have received at least one dose of the vaccine.
More conservative areas in the state, such as Grays Harbor County where Walsh serves, have not had nearly as much success with their vaccine drives.
The only restriction related to the vaccine in the state comes from the Department of Labor and Industries, which requires that “unvaccinated employees wear a mask while working indoors” and lays out the process for employers to verify vaccination status.
Walsh further attempted to excuse his wearing of the yellow star by citing a story about Danish people trying to protect their Jewish neighbors during WWII.
“During WWII, when the Nazis told the Danes that Danish Jews had to wear yellow stars, the Danes ALL wore yellow stars,” he wrote. “So the Nazis couldn’t ID the Danish Jews. It worked. The Nazis focused their evil efforts elsewhere.”
While this sounds like a nice story, it has found to be false by fact-checkers at Snopes, and even if it was true, Walsh would still be comparing non-issues to the Holocaust.
The Republican also told the Seattle Times that he is “deeply concerned about vaccine passports and vaccine segregation,” the former of which has already existed for a long time for various dangerous infectious diseases and the latter of which is also not at all a thing in Washington state. He was resoundingly condemned by the Seattle-based Holocaust Center for Humanity for his stunt with the Star of David patch, which he says he was given by speech attendees, many of which were wearing their own.
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“Our government is making an effort to protect their own citizens, not kill them,” said executive director of the center Dee Simon. “It not only trivializes [the Holocaust], it distorts history.”
Walsh also reportedly compared himself to characters from the movie Sparticus when asked if he himself was vaccinated.
“I won’t say publicly whether I am vaccinated or not,” he said.
He further dismissed concerns that what he was doing is offensive to real Jewish people by saying that “some people are offended by having to provide vaccine documentation at their work.”
Walsh has now positioned himself as an even worse Republican than Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who issued a public apology for comparing COVID-19 protective measures to the attempted extermination of the Jewish people after visiting the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C.
*First Published: June 30, 2021, 12:58 pm
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