Ward’s Words Hamper Florida
“Born to Read” Program
The Florida Library Association (FLA) has asked the state’s official “Born to Read” spokesman to issue a statement acknowledging his “tolerance for others’ religions and beliefs” following disparaging comments against Jews made earlier this year.
New York Knickerbockers point guard Charlie Ward was named spokesman for the state literacy campaign in January by Gov. Jeb Bush and Secretary of State Katherine Harris. A controversy arose after an April 22 New York Times Magazine article quoted Ward as calling Jews “stubborn” and saying during a Bible study session at the team hotel in Milwaukee, “There are Christians getting persecuted by Jews every day.”
FLA President Betty D. Johnson said the Association’s board of directors sent Ward a letter July 7 expressing its displeasure at the comments. “We feel it is important to take a stand as an organization in opposition to such intolerance,” Johnson said in July 9 letters to Harris and Bush, who declined to remove Ward after a request from the American Jewish Committee.
“I don’t believe Mr. Ward really understands that this sort of talk leads to genocide and to the kinds of things that happened in the Holocaust,” Johnson told American Libraries.
Ward has apologized to the Anti-Defamation League and agreed to work with Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.
Posted July 30, 2001.
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