Leading Rome mayoral candidate apologizes for Holocaust comments

• Author: SIMONE SOMEKH/JTA
• Published date: 11 October 2021
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

Jewish community leaders and others had decried the comments by Enrico Michetti, a radio host who is the center-right coalition's candidate in the Oct. 17 and 18 mayoral election. He received more than 30% of votes in the election's first round earlier this month, more than any other candidate.

"Each year, 40 Holocaust-related movies are shot, trips and cultural initiatives of all sorts are financed to commemorate that horrible persecution, and up to here, I have nothing to say," Michetti wrote on the website of the radio station where he is a host. "But I wonder, why the same pity and the same consideration are not given to the dead killed in the foibe massacres [of Italians by Yugoslav Partisans], in the refugee camps, and in the mass murders that still take place in the world?"

Among the answers he offered: "Perhaps because they did not own banks, perhaps because they did not belong to lobbies capable of deciding the destinies of the planet."

The comments, which were first identified and shared this week by Il Manifesto, a left-wing newspaper, echo the antisemitic trope that Jews control world financial systems. Jewish leaders were quick to condemn Michetti.

"The thought that our city institutions may be led by people whose thinking is imbued with prejudice makes us tremble," said Noemi Di Segni, the president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities. "The culture...