HOLOCAUST CHIC AT THE VIDEO MUSIC AWARDS

Are yellow stars the latest fashion trend? Just days after Billy Joel appeared onstage in New York with a yellow Star of David emblazoned on his lapel, the fashion statement made another appearance – this time at the MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday night.

Nev Schulman, an actor and producer, strolled the red carpet in a red blazer with a bright yellow Star of David on his chest. Above it was another patch – a red heart.

Schulman, who grew up in a Jewish family in New York, is best known for his film and follow-up TV show titled Catfish.

After the awards show, he posted on Twitter: “We cannot tolerate hate against any group or identity. I’m proud to be Jewish. #lovewins.”

Schulman’s costar on Catfish, Max Joseph, made a sartorial statement of his own at the awards show, by wearing a blue T-shirt simply emblazoned with the word “Jew.”

Last week, hit singer Joel came out onstage for an encore at his show in New York City wearing two yellow stars – one on his left chest and the other on his back.

Both artists made their statements in the aftermath of a neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, earlier this month, where a counterprotester was killed. The white nationalist demonstrators waved swastika flags and chanted “Jews will not replace us.”

While both Schulman and Joel received some criticism for the move, others praised the concept as brave.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday that “Billy Joel’s father was in Dachau. If anyone has the right to use the Yellow Star as a gesture of solidarity to victims of the Nazis and in defiance of latter-day Nazis in Charlottesville and elsewhere around the world, it would be Billy Joel. Kol hakavod [‘Good going’], Billy!”

http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Holocaust-chic-at-the-Video-Music-Awards-503617