Wiesenthal Center Statement Re: Defense of John Galliano’s Antisemitic Rant

June 22, 2011

In reaction to former Christian Dior designer John Galliano’s lawyers’ defense that he was intoxicated or drugged at the time when he made his vicious anti-Semitic remarks, Rabbi Marvin Hier, Founder and Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center said:

“Just as in the case of actor Mel Gibson, this argument does not wash. There’s an old Yiddish proverb: Vos bei a nichteren oif dem lung, iz beim shikker oif der tsung - What a sober man thinks, a drunkard speaks. A better defense would be, ‘I said it, I meant it, it won’t happen again, and I am truly sorry.’”

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).

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