An expert on Anne Frank came to pop star Justin Bieber's defense Monday about what the singer wrote in the Anne Frank House guest book.
Had Frank been born 70 years later, she would have likely been a "belieber," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Simon Weisenthal Center in Los Angeles.
"There's nothing insulting about that," Rabbi Hier told CNN. "She was very modern and she could very likely be his fan and on Twitter."
Hier has studied Frank's life and journal closely in preparation for the creation of a permanent exhibit at his center's Museum of Tolerance in Beverly Hills.
"Anne Frank was a very modern girl," he said. "In the room, she had pictures of Hollywood stars. She was infatuated with Hollywood."
WHO WAS ANNE FRANK?
Anne Frank hid with her family in the "secret annex" of an Amsterdam house for two years before she was captured by Nazis in 1944. She died a teenager in a Nazi concentration camp in 1945.
Frank was 13 when she and her family began hiding in a dark and damp "secret annex" of the house to escape the German roundup of Jews in Holland in July 1942.
She never left the house for two years, spending much of her time writing in her diary, until she and her family were found and arrested by Nazis in August 1944.
Anne Frank died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in March 1945. Her diary survived to tell her tragic and inspiring story.
While his comment about Frank drew criticism from around the world, Bieber and his camp have remained silent on the issue -- and plan to keep it that way.
There will be no official statement from Bieber or his representatives, a source close to the star told CNN on Monday. Bieber did not mention it to his millions of followers on Twitter and Facebook.
The site itself expressed no complaints:
"We think it is very positive that he took the time and effort to visit our museum. He was very interested in the story of Anne Frank and stayed for over an hour.
We hope that his visit will inspire his fans to learn more about her life and hopefully read the diary."
