As the president of a local nonprofit and someone who has worked with many nonprofits domestically and with non-government organizations internationally, I support and respect the prohibition against partisan activities by nonprofit, charitable (501C3) organizations.
I mention the above as an introduction to my concerns about comments made by Sarasota County School Board candidate Michelle Pozzie during a recent School Board meeting.
Pozzie wanted to express concerns about what she had heard from parents who said students had been bullied, humiliated and targeted during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Pozzie said that during the pandemic, students who were given parental approval not to wear masks were provided with yellow tags so that teachers and staff would know they had such authorization.
Pozzie said the tags were akin to the yellow, six-pointed Star of David that the Nazis forced Jews to wear during the Holocaust era so that they could be easily singled out for extermination.
It was a horrible comparison by Pozzie.
It belittled the history of the systematic killing of Jews in order to make a political point about our schools during the COVID pandemic.
To use such a comparison about school policies that were in place more than five years ago was odd.
It was also insulting to the memory of those who died during the Holocaust.
Norman Olshansky is president of the Suncoast Jewish Alliance in Sarasota.
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: A Sarasota figure compares COVID to Holocaust. That’s bad. | Opinion
Reporting by Norman Olshansky: Guest columnist, Sarasota Herald-Tribune / Sarasota Herald-Tribune
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