Ella Emhoff, the stepdaughter of US Vice President Kamala Harris, is taking part in a public fundraising campaign for Gaza, an expose published by the New York Post on Saturday found.
The daughter of Harris’s husband Doug, Ella Emhoff, who is Jewish, attached the appeal to her Instagram page, with its 315,000 followers.
She neglected to mention the Hamas attack that took place on October 7 and the Israeli children killed in it, instead merely writing that the campaign was “supporting urgent relief for Gaza’s children.”
While it is unclear whether she herself has made a donation to the campaign being run by the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund, the campaign has so far brought in $7.8 million.
The Palestinian charity is based in Kent, Ohio, and successfully raised $21 million for their causes in 2021, the report states.
US Representative speaks out
“It is of tremendous concern and I find it abhorrent. To be honest with you, I am kind of stunned by it. It is disturbing to the maximum degree,” Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a Republican from New Jersey said of the news.
Van Drew serves on the US House Homeland Security Committee and has said that he sees the chances of Hamas gaining access to any financial aid sent to Gaza as “certain.”
Representatives of Emhoff have previously pointed out that she does not consider herself Jewish.
“Ella is not Jewish. It’s not something she grew up with. Ella truly has no qualms with the faith, but she does not want to speak on behalf of Judaism, as she does not celebrate herself,” a representative for Emhoff told The Forward back in 2021.
Emhoff appears to have a good personal relationship with her stepmother, the vice president, who congratulated her on Instagram upon graduating from Parsons School of Design in New York City.