{"id":388,"date":"2007-12-26T15:12:33","date_gmt":"2007-12-26T15:12:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2007\/12\/jewish-group-welcomes-will-smi.php"},"modified":"2007-12-26T15:12:33","modified_gmt":"2007-12-26T15:12:33","slug":"jewish-group-welcomes-will-smi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/12\/jewish-group-welcomes-will-smi","title":{"rendered":"Jewish Group Welcomes Will Smith Explanation for Hitler Remark"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Associated Press <\/strong><br \/>\nLos Angeles &#8211; A Jewish group said Wednesday it accepts Will Smith&#8217;s explanation that he never praised Adolf Hitler in remarks the star says were misinterpreted.<br \/>\n&#8220;We welcome and accept Will Smith&#8217;s statement that Hitler was a &#8216;vicious killer&#8217; and that he did not mean for his remarks about the Nazi leader to be mistaken as praise,&#8221; Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said in a statement.<br \/>\nThe Daily Record, a Scottish newspaper, recently quoted Smith as saying: &#8220;Even Hitler didn&#8217;t wake up going, &#8216;Let me do the most evil thing I can do today.&#8217; I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was &#8216;good.'&#8221;<br \/>\nThe quote was preceded by the writer&#8217;s observation: &#8220;Remarkably, Will believes everyone is basically good.&#8221;<br \/>\nMany Web gossip sites posted articles alleging that Smith believed Hitler was a good person.<br \/>\nIn a statement Monday, Smith called that &#8220;an awful and disgusting lie&#8221; and said he was furious about his remarks being misinterpreted.<br \/>\n&#8220;Adolf Hitler was a vile, heinous vicious killer responsible for one of the greatest acts of evil committed on this planet,&#8221; the statement said.<br \/>\nSmith &#8220;took immediate steps to clarify his words&#8221; and condemn Hitler, Foxman said.<br \/>\nFoxman said words &#8220;can be twisted by those with hate and bigotry in their hearts.&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;This is why all celebrities bear a special responsibility to weigh their words carefully, and an obligation to speak out against racism and bigotry whenever even a whiff of it appears, as Will Smith has done in this instance,&#8221; he said.<br \/>\n<em>&#8212;Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Associated Press Los Angeles &#8211; A Jewish group said Wednesday it accepts Will Smith&#8217;s explanation that he never praised Adolf Hitler in remarks the star says were misinterpreted. &#8220;We welcome and accept Will Smith&#8217;s statement that Hitler was a &#8216;vicious killer&#8217; and that he did not mean for his remarks about the Nazi leader to&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Jewish Group Welcomes Will Smith Explanation for Hitler Remark<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/12\/jewish-group-welcomes-will-smi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jewish Group Welcomes Will Smith Explanation for Hitler Remark\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Associated Press Los Angeles &#8211; A Jewish group said Wednesday it accepts Will Smith&#8217;s explanation that he never praised Adolf Hitler in remarks the star says were misinterpreted. &#8220;We welcome and accept Will Smith&#8217;s statement that Hitler was a &#8216;vicious killer&#8217; and that he did not mean for his remarks about the Nazi leader to&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/12\/jewish-group-welcomes-will-smi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-12-26T15:12:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"akornfeld\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Jewish Group Welcomes Will Smith Explanation for Hitler Remark","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/12\/jewish-group-welcomes-will-smi","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Jewish Group Welcomes Will Smith Explanation for Hitler Remark","og_description":"Associated Press Los Angeles &#8211; A Jewish group said Wednesday it accepts Will Smith&#8217;s explanation that he never praised Adolf Hitler in remarks the star says were misinterpreted. &#8220;We welcome and accept Will Smith&#8217;s statement that Hitler was a &#8216;vicious killer&#8217; and that he did not mean for his remarks about the Nazi leader to&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/12\/jewish-group-welcomes-will-smi","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2007-12-26T15:12:33+00:00","author":"akornfeld","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/12\/jewish-group-welcomes-will-smi","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/12\/jewish-group-welcomes-will-smi","name":"Jewish Group Welcomes Will Smith Explanation for Hitler Remark","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-12-26T15:12:33+00:00","dateModified":"2007-12-26T15:12:33+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/da3acea0a48aaeb7e77474c2f29f849a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/12\/jewish-group-welcomes-will-smi#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/12\/jewish-group-welcomes-will-smi"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/12\/jewish-group-welcomes-will-smi#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Jewish Group Welcomes Will Smith Explanation for Hitler Remark"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/da3acea0a48aaeb7e77474c2f29f849a","name":"akornfeld","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dd2\/dd26f111fd1fab06b546769e3bf834f3x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dd2\/dd26f111fd1fab06b546769e3bf834f3x96.jpg","caption":"akornfeld"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/akornfeld"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}