A style blogger who was recently appointed as a contributing editor to Grazia magazine has apologised for “very ignorant and antisemitic comments” made about the Jewish community.
Stephanie Yeboah, author of Fattily Ever After, was contacted by the Board of Deputies after an item about her in Private Eye.
The satirical magazine said she had posted remarks such as “Every Jew has an attic but not every attic has Jews” and “AUSCHWITZ Gas Chamber Music LMAO SMH”. (LMAO stands for "laughing my a*** off", SMH for "shaking my head')
When the president of the UN Assembly had referred to the Holocaust as the “most horrific genocide in history” on the 75th anniversary of liberation of Auschwitz, Private Eye reported that Ms Yeboah had responded: “There have been bigger and more horrific genocides. They happened to brown people, though, so I guess it doesn’t matter, huh?”
In her apology posted on Twitter on Wednesday evening, she said, “I made very ignorant and antisemitic comments about the Jewish community, as well as quoting lines from a variety of TV shows, including quotes that upon reflection, were extremely offensive and hurtful.
“To plead ignorance is no excuse, I should have known better than to make these kinds of comments about events which remain a source of unimaginable trauma for the Jewish community”.
She explained that she had been talking to another Twitter user about massacres of black and brown people.
“While my intent was to highlight the lack of visibility surrounding many genocides, I realise that I ended up diminishing the seriousness of the tragedies that the Jewish community have faced,” she wrote.
“I now absolutely recognise that, in doing so, I was pitting these two marginalised communities against each other, and for that, I am extremely sorry.”
She said that over the years she had had “awesome in-depth chats with my Jewish friends surrounding the culture, heritage and religion of Jewish people”.
In a tweet, the Board of Deputies said it had had a “very positive” call with Ms Yeboah and the tweets had been deleted. “We will meet her soon to discuss all these issues further.”
