Beck Denigrates Yom Kippur

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Monday, September 21, 2009

CONTACT Jess Levin (202) 772-8162 jlevin@mediamatters.org

Washington, D.C. -- Today, in response to conservative host Glenn Beck encouraging his listeners to make Yom Kippur "a day of Fast and Prayer for the Republic," Media Matters for America issued the following statement:

"Yom Kippur is a day of atonement, prayer and fasting," Ari Rabin-Havt of Media Matters said. "Glenn Beck's attempt to politicize this holiest of days with his far right agenda is not only disgusting, but shows a profound disrespect for the Jewish people."

BACKGROUND:

As Media Matters noted, Beck posted the following on his Twitter page:

On September 21 on his radio show, Beck elaborated:

BECK: By the way, I just thought I would put this out there, and what you do with it is your own business. But, this weekend, I put out a tweet on Twitter that September 28th is the Day of Atonement for the Jewish faith, and I thought it would be a good day for all of us to fast and pray, you know. And I got this idea from Thomas Jefferson. After they put together the Continental Congress, the first thing they did was put together a day -- a national day of fast and prayer, and I thought the Day of Atonement would be a good day to do it.

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