In a robocall to Florida voters on Monday, the Newt Gingrich campaign said that because of Mitt Romney’s actions as governor of Massachusetts, “Holocaust survivors” were “forced to eat non-kosher” food.
“As governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney vetoed a bill paying for kosher food for our seniors in nursing homes,” the call said. “Holocaust survivors, for the first time, were forced to eat non-kosher, because Romney thought $5 was too much to pay for our grandparents to eat kosher. Where is Mitt Romney's compassion for our seniors?”
The robocall was first published online by StopPoliticalCalls.org founder Shaun Dakin.
It’s the second such attack from the Gingrich campaign this week. At a campaign stop in Pensacola, Fla., on Monday, Gingrich made similar allegations but stopped short of invoking the Holocaust.
“Let me note in passing that Romney as governor imposed on Catholic hospitals provisions against their religious strictures and Romney as governor eliminated kosher food from retired Jewish senior citizens on Medicaid, and he has no understanding of the importance of conscience and importance of religious liberty in this country,” Gingrich said at a campaign stop in Pensacola.
According to a report in the New York Post last week, Romney vetoed a bill as Massachusetts governor that would have provided $600,000 in additional funding to Jewish nursing home residents for kosher meals.
The Romney campaign said that the former governor had to slash hundreds of programs during a time of financial crisis, but eventually restored funding for the kosher meals.
