Standing alone amongst all major Jewish organizations, World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder backed Donald Trump's decision to omit any mention of Jews in his 2017 Holocaust commemoration statement. Lauder contended that other Jewish groups were "play politics" and engaging in "manufactured outrages" that distracted from "real" instances of anti-Semitic threats. The WJC also publicly backed David M. Friedman as President Trump's nominee for ambassador to Israel, in spite of critics who accused Friedman of trivializing the gravity of the Holocaust by comparing Jewish members of the liberal pro-Israel group J Street to "kapos", or Nazi collaborators.