Facebook has rejected as “political” a paid post promoting a Christian organization’s exhibit coming Sunday on how the Holocaust began.
Vision Israel, a nonprofit in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, is rolling out its walk-in exhibit “Shoah: How was it Humanly Possible?” at the Colbern Road Library Center there from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Sunday only. It is free to enter and browse at one’s leisure.
But when Vision Israel co-founder Dwight Widaman tried to pay Facebook to promote the event to a wider audience this week, the social media platform rejected it on Thursday as political and denied Widaman’s swift same-day appeal.
The appeal’s rejection by Facebook said “it’s been determined that it still doesn’t comply with our policies.”
“Your ad,” Facebook’s notice to Widaman reads, “may have been rejected because it mentions politicians or is about sensitive social issues that could influence public opinion, how people vote and may impact the outcome of an election or pending legislation.”
“The exhibit doesn’t go into anything current or political,” Widaman tells The Heartlander. “It’s basically the historical aspect of antisemitism, and how it led to the Holocaust. …
“I was shocked,” Widaman says, that a historical exhibit on a subject in textbooks and library books across the country “produced by the world’s foremost museum on the Holocaust is rejected by Meta.”
Social media posts can often be blocked by an errant, unthinking, unfeeling algorithm Widaman notes, though adding he believes appeals are supposed to be judged by a sentient human being.
The exhibit, produced from materials supplied directly from Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, warns humanity of the horrifying dangers of demonization and dehumanization of a people.
It’s a message only made more urgent, Widaman notes, by the savage Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, the terrorist’s barbaric firebombing of Jewish Americans in Boulder, the arson at the Jewish Pennsylvania governor’s home, and the brazen executions of a young Jewish couple on the streets of Washington, D.C.
Notably, the woman killed in that shooting outside a Jewish event, Sarah Milgrim, hailed from nearby Kansas City.
Yet, Facebook refused Vision Israel’s money to boost the Facebook “event” for the exhibit that Widaman had created on the platform.
“I was dumbfounded,” Widaman told The Heartlander Friday.
Widaman, the newly installed president of the Evangelical Press Association, says he and his wife Anita, Christians who together publish the digital Metro Voice Newspaper on the intersection of faith and culture, “have always had an interest in Israel and particularly the Jewish people’s place in scripture and realizing the special place that they hold in the heart of God.”
But they started their nonprofit Vision Israel after a 2015 trip to Israel with their two daughters illustrated the power of being there – as well as the need to expose young Americans to a more robust familiarity with the Holocaust and how it happened.
“We thought that we needed to take them to Israel because they were at that age where their values are being formed about world events,” he says.
“We felt it really wasn’t being covered adequately in school.”
Moreover, his daughters have observed antisemitic outbursts on campus – and now can answer them with the knowledge of having been to Israel and seen the interracial, interreligious society there.
Along with the fact that, as one daughter discerned, “They’re just like us.”
Vision Israel’s exhibit has primarily been displayed in schools and such – including at the Midwest Christian College Expo the Widamans stage each year in Kansas City – since it was rolled out in late February. Sunday’s showing at the Colbern Road Library Center is to be the first for the general public.
In the brief time Widaman’s promotional post was allowed on Facebook, 26 people had responded and some 1,000 had seen it – indicating the post’s spread most likely would’ve boosted attendance Sunday.
It’s not the first time Facebook has censored Widaman. He says innocuous news posts also have been banned – such as one merely noting rising water levels in the Sea of Galilee from recent rainfall, which Facebook inexplicably deemed too political.
Other conservative and religious organizations face similar treatment from social media platforms.
What’s the lesson in this instance?
“Well, to me the lesson is that this proves that we need exhibits like this more than ever,” Widaman says. “It means that antisemitism is systemic in Big Tech like Facebook.
“And so we just need to push on. We’re gonna redouble our efforts.”
Indeed, he says he hopes to make it a traveling exhibit in the entire multistate region.
A little promotion would help, no doubt.
All images provided courtesy of Dwight Widaman.
Michael Ryan – The Heartlander
Michael Ryan is Executive Editor of The Heartlander. A Kansas City native, he's been an award-winning reporter, editor and opinion writer at newspapers in Kansas, Missouri, Georgia and Texas. See more at www.heartlandernews.com
