Founders of a Florida
Holocaust education nonprofit criticized a well-known writer for using its
tax-exempt status to promote his ideas on terrorism. In 2005, John Loftus
renamed the International Holocaust Education Center to the Intelligence and
Homeland Security Education Center using the same acronym, IHEC, the St.
Petersburg Times reported.
Loftus had helped establish the original IHEC to
promote the Florida Holocaust Museum. The IHEC was ready to complete its work in 2005
because its board believed the museum was promoting itself sufficiently. Board members agreed to allow Loftus to maintain control of the name because they
trusted and admired him. Loftus, who is not Jewish, is a former prosecutor who
has written some of the best-read accounts of how the Vatican and the West
failed to protect Jews during the Holocaust. Keeping the name helped Loftus
maintain the original institution’s tax-exempt status without having to file
with the IRS.
In a reply to the St. Petersburg Times, Loftus said he has made it clear that both groups are distinct. The new IHEC is hosting a conference this
week on what it describes as the threat from militant Islam. Board members of
the original IHEC told the St. Petersburg Times that Loftus had gone too far in
organizing the conference under IHEC’s auspices.
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