Beaufort County GOP accuses county auditor of using an anti-Semitic slur in emails

Less than a month before the statewide primaries, the Beaufort County South Carolina Republican Party has asked one of its members — a public official running for re-election — to apologize for using an anti-Semitic slur.

The party voted 14-0 Thursday evening after a candidate forum in Bluffton to request that Beaufort County Auditor Jim Beckert, who was in attendance, write a formal letter of apology to party Chairwoman Sherri Zedd for twice addressing emails to her as "Arbeit Zedd."

"Arbeit" is a German word for "work." During the Holocaust, Nazis put the phrase "Arbeit Macht Frei" — or, "Work Sets You Free" — on the gates of concentration camps such as Dachau and Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The New York Times has labeled the phrase "notorious." The Southern Poverty Law Center has cited its usage in a list of "hate incidents."

Zedd, who was also at the meeting and is Jewish, said she immediately recognized the word and interpreted it as an anti-Semitic slur.

Beckert denies that he had any ill-intent by using the word.

An April 20 letter from the party's officers to Beckert said: "The term Arbeit in not part of Chairman Zedd's name, in fact this is considered a degrading, insulting religious slur to most. The term is most offensive to persons of the Jewish faith whose ancestors suffered the horrors of the holocaust."

After viewing the emails, Zedd asked Beckert for an explanation.

"It's just not an everyday word that was used," Zedd said after the meeting. "It was surprising to see that in my email. ... I've been corresponding with him since he ran the first time in 2014, so he knew who I was."

She said she had no idea why Beckert would refer to her in that manner.

But Beckert says that Zedd gave the word to him as part of her name, even spelling it for him, a notion Zedd refutes.

According to documents handed out at the meeting, two emails sent from beckertforauditor@gmail.com — the address listed on Beckert's campaign Facebook page — to Zedd's AOL account were addressed to "Arbeit Zedd" in the "to" line.

Gmail users can modify the names of contacts in their account settings.

Copies of the emails show they were sent March 19 and April 4 and contained questions about campaign events and speaking engagements. One, which asks if the party will be scheduling a debate for county auditor candidates, ends with: "Thank you. Jim Beckert."

Beckert did not deny sending the emails.

"But I do have to say that I speak, read and write only English," he told the 50 or so people, including voting party members, who had gathered at Rose Hill for the meeting. "And many know that I do have dyslexia, and I have issues with spelling as well. So, when somebody gave me a name that I'd never heard before and was not able to spell, my question was, 'Spell it.' But the name was given to me by Mrs. Zedd."

After the meeting, he said he thought "Arbeit" was a "proper first name."

When asked about the word and its pairing with a Jewish person's name, Hilton Head Island's Congregation Beth Yam Rabbi Brad Bloom said: "I'm sure that person, if they were taken on a tour of a concentration camp and saw what ovens are, I'd like to think they'd rethink what they said."

Beckert has had a controversial tenure as auditor since he was first elected in 2014.

In 2016, he sued Beaufort County Treasurer Maria Walls and the county over the release of his personnel file, which Walls obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. The case was later dismissed.

That same year, Walls accused Beckert of over-taxing and under-taxing county residents' vehicles — she presented an audit to Beaufort County Council that showed 11,000 errors on individual vehicle accounts.

Beckert is being challenged in the June 12 South Carolina Republican Primary by current county deputy treasurer George Wright.

During Thursday's meeting, party member Pat Stanton said Beckert had, before sending the emails, requested the party endorse him in the race, and asked the party to post his campaign materials on its website — two requests that were denied by Zedd.

Following the March 19 and April 4 emails, the word "Arbeit" was dropped from messages sent from Beckert's campaign Gmail account.

According to party documents, members had twice requested that Beckert explain and apologize for his actions.

Beckert said he considers the matter concluded.

During the meeting, as he faced scrutiny from his fellow party members, he produced a sheet of paper he said was an internet search that showed Zedd's name listed as "Arbeit G. Zedd."

When asked how he was able to produce that paper so quickly — after saying he had no idea he would be questioned at the meeting — he said:

"I've been carrying that around for two and a half weeks ... just in case the question were to come up. ... You're darn right I have (been carrying it), because I understand the seriousness of it. And I would never say anything that would be remotely anti-Semitic, especially considering the fact of family members on my wife's side. It's inappropriate. I would not do that. It's not my character, it's not my nature."

Zedd said she'd like to see a formal written apology.

"(W)e've been asking for an apology for weeks, and we finally got one tonight that was verbal," she said.

"But, you know, I think the board would like it in writing."

Beckert said Thursday he's considering whether he will write the requested formal apology.

This story was originally published May 18, 2018 at 4:06 PM with the headline "Beaufort County GOP accuses county auditor of using an anti-Semitic slur in emails."