Romania: Firm discriminated against Jewish employee, court rules

Via Jerusalem Post:

A judge in Romania awarded $5,700 in damages to a Jewish man who sued his employer for not giving the claimant time off on Passover and humiliating him because of his ethnicity.

Bernard Ciurariu won his workplace discrimination against NTT Data Romania last week in the city of Iasi, the news site Info Crestin reported.

The claimant was “punished because he did not go to work during the Jewish Passover, although the law affords him days off on that holiday,” the judge said, according to the report.

This and other forms of discrimination began against Ciurariu after the death of his father last year. His employers learned that he is Jewish because his father received a Jewish funeral. From then on, he was excluded from projects relevant to his work and sidelined at the workplace, he complained.

read more

Romania: Elie Wiesel’s childhood home vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti

Via JTA:

Unidentified individuals spray painted offensive graffiti on the external walls of a museum for Elie Wiesel in Romania, where he was also born, in what police said was an anti-Semitic incident.

The florescent pink graffiti that was painted on the Memorial House Elie Wiesel in Sighet in eastern Romania read “public toilet” and “Nazi Jew lying in hell with Hitler” as well as “Anti-Semite pedophile.”

Wiesel was one of the world’s most famous Holocaust survivors before he passed away in 2016 at the age of 87. A Nobel prize laureate for literature, he was honored last year by locals in his hometown. They marched from the museum, which was built where Wiesel was born and grew up, to the train station where in 1944 he boarded with his family a train to the Auschwitz death camp in Poland.

read more

Romania: 'Juden Raus' inscription found on railway station in Cluj

Via European Jewish Press:

An inscription "Juden Raus" (Jews out) was found this week on one of the pillars of the railway station in Cluj, a city in northwestern Romania. Police have been notified.

The MCA Romania - The Center for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism in Romania has addressed a complaint to the Romanian railways, the General Prosecutor of Romania and the Ministry of Transportations.

But according to Jewish journalist Andrea Ghita, the inscription was still there on Friday. "The station administration and the Romanian Railways do not seem to care a about the inscriptions and anti-Semitic symbols that pollute the platform," she said.

She recalled that on the wall of the Cluj railway station there is a plaque in memory of the 16,000 Jews deported from this city by the Nazis to Auschwitz in the summer of 1944.

"We hope that the perpetrators will be quickly discovered but judging from recent incidents such as the profanation of cemeteries and other anti-Semitic, anti-Hungarian or anti-Roma inscriptions, I have no hope that they will be identified," Ghita, who said she was worried by these incidents,  said. She mentioned in particular anti-Semitic graffiti and Holocaust-denying messages found last June on the façade of the Synagogue in Cluj. (...)

Today only 400 Jews live in Cluj and several thousand in the rest of Romania, both due to the Holocaust and the departure of many Jews to Israel under the communist regime of Nicolae Ceausescu.

read more

Romania: Actress Xonia blasted for raunchy photoshoot at Holocaust memorial

The now common trivialization of the Holocaust.

Via The Sun (H/T Watch AntiSemitism in Europe):

A pop star and former Neighbours actress has provoked outrage by posing for a raunchy photoshoot in front of a memorial to the holocaust. Xonia, 28, posed suggestively in hot pants, a low-cut top and thigh-high boots at the Bucharest Holocaust Memorial in the Romanian capital. 

The stunning blonde, whose real name is Loredana Sachelaru, was widely criticised after sharing the provocative photographs with her army of followers on social media. 

And many fans questioned her choice of venue for the photoshoot, wondering whether she understood that it was a memorial to Jews killed in Nazi death camps. 

Xonia was born in Australia but her parents are Romanian and she has dual citizenship. 

Many also questioned why the security guards who protect the memorial around the clock allowed her to pose for the raunchy photographs there. 

Netizen said: "Those people were gassed and you chose the monument that commemorates them to show your a** there?! Very ugly!" 

Xonia did not reply to her critics but she has left the photographs on her social media page and is also reportedly planning to use one of them on the cover of her new album.

read more

Romania: Large anti-Semitic tags found at historic Cluj synagogue

Via The Times of Israel:

Members of Romania’s Jewish community filed a complaint with police Monday after anti-Semitic graffiti and Holocaust-denying messages were discovered on the facade of a synagogue in the of Cluj-Napoca. 

“It is the desecration of a historical monument, we notified the police, the gendarmes and the town hall,” said Robert Schwartz, president of the Jewish community of Cluj. 

He said the wall of the building had been defaced with graffiti of a Star of David crossed out with an ‘X’ and a message written in English “The Holocaust never happened.”

read more

European study shows 10 per cent of people don’t want Jews in their countries

Via Jewish Chronicle:

More than 10 per cent of central and eastern Europeans do not want Jews as citizens of their countries, according to a new report.

The study, carried out by the Pew Research Centre, found that while 80 per cent of people surveyed would accept Jews as fellow citizens, the rest were not sure or declined to answer.

Less than half from the 18 countries surveyed would accept Jews as family and fewer than three quarters said they were happy to have them as neighbours.

The study, entitled Religious Belief and National Belonging in Central and Eastern Europe, found that Jews were a lot less popular in some countries than others.

In Armenia a third of respondents said Jews should not be citizens.

Countries which had large Jewish populations before the Holocaust were more likely not to want Jews as citizens.

Lithuanians surveyed were against the idea at 23 per cent, while in Romania 22 per cent said they did not want Jews as citizens.

In the Czech Republic the figure was 19 per cent, and in Poland, 18 per cent.

Respondents from more educated backgrounds were more likely to accept Jews as family, neighbours and citizens, researchers found.

read more

Romania: Ten Jewish tombstones smashed in capital

Via Times of Israel:

An anti-Semitism organization said Tuesday that vandals smashed 10 tombstones at a cemetery in the Romanian capital in “a premeditated act.”

The Center for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism in Romania said the tombstones were broken into pieces at the Jewish cemetery in southern Bucharest overnight Monday, Holocaust Remembrance Day, when the millions of Jews killed by the Nazis are commemorated in Israel.

The center called for an investigation and for the perpetrators to face justice.

read more

Romania: Monument to Israeli casualties of helicopter crash defaced with anti-Semitic slurs

Via i24news:

A Romanian memorial in honor of six Israeli Air Force members, who died in a helicopter training exercise in 2010, was defaced with anti-Semitic slurs, the Israeli Ynet news site reported Saturday.

The unknown vandals covered the monument with swastikas, a drawing of a pig, and sprayed the hebrew words for "You're pigs," transliterated into Roman characters.

read more

Romania:Antisemitism in school

Via Ynet:

Dvir Mashash moved to Romania from Israel when she was 13.  She says the kids there wouldn't call her by name.  They addressed her as "Jew", supposedly as a joke.

Even the teachers joined in.  "One teacher asked at the beginning of the year who's Jewish.  I raised my hand, and she said 'we're going to have a very interesting year'.  She failed me on every test."

Romania: New coin honors antisemitic bank governor

Via Times of Israel:

The US Embassy in Romania on Friday criticized the country’s central bank for releasing a coin bearing the image of a former bank governor who it said actively promoted anti-Semitism.

Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email
and never miss our top stories   Free Sign up!

The embassy called the bank’s decision to honor Mihail Manoilescu, the former governor of the National Bank of Romania, “disappointing.” In a statement, it said he was “an active promoter of and contributor to fascist ideology and anti-Semitic sentiment.”

Manoilescu was foreign minister in 1940, when Romania was allied with Nazi Germany. A supporter of the fascist Iron Guard, he signed a diktat under which Romania lost large swaths of territory to Hungary.

read more

Romania: New culture minister held antisemitic exhibit

Via Attila Somfalvi:

Last Wednesday, Corina Suteu was appointed as the new culture minister.

Suteu once curated an exhibit displaying antisemitic caricatures.  The caricature below displays a chareidi Jew with an SS emblem.

Romania: Bucharest mayoral candidate accuses Jewish community of lying about Holocaust dead

The Jerusalem Post reports:

A Romanian watchdog group on anti-Semitism said it was worried by the mayoral candidacy of a Bucharest politician who said local Jews lied for money about the number of their brethren killed in the Holocaust.

Marian Munteanu of the National Liberal Party, Romania’s second largest, made the accusation in a press statement he co-signed in 1994, when he was part of the Christian-nationalist Movement for Romania organization.

Jewish groups put the number of Romanians killed in the Holocaust at 420,000 to “obtain illicit moneys from Romanian people through disinformation and manipulation of public opinion, with the complicity of treacherous elements who infiltrated the Romanian institutional structures,” the statement read, the online edition of Evenimentul Zilei reported on Thursday.

The Elie Wiesel National Institute for the Study of Holocaust warned that Munteanu “presents a concern” not only because of his nationalist rhetoric and “statements minimizing or denying” the Holocaust, but also for “misrepresenting” reality today, according to the Agerpres news website.  The institute cited an April 13 statement by Munteanu, who, in criticizing legislation from last year which proscribes anti-Semitic speech and Holocaust denial, said the law itself was anti-Semitic because it singles out Jews.

In Romania, he said, “there is hardly anti-Semitism, rather xenophobia. We are all philo-Semites because we are Christians.”

read more

Read also: Bucharest mayoral candidate outed as Holocaust denier

Romania: Pro-fascism journalist appointed to TV board

Via AP (h/t CFCA):

Romania's Holocaust institute on Wednesday protested the appointment of a well-known journalist to the board of the country's public television station, saying the move is disrespectful to the victims of the Holocaust.

The Elie Wiesel Institute for the Study of the Holocaust said that Oana Stanciulescu is unsuitable for the position due to her criticism of a recent law that punishes Holocaust denial or the promotion of the fascist Legionnaires' Movement with prison sentences of up to three years.

Her place on the 13-member board, approved by Parliament Tuesday, has generated strong reactions in a reflection of the difficulty Romanians have had in coming to terms with their history in the quarter-century since communism ended.

In a reflection of that turmoil, the party that represents the interests of ethnic Hungarians walked out of Parliament ahead of Tuesday's vote, and the head of the Jewish community, Aurel Vainer, also protested.

read more
 
Stanciulescu does not just speak out against criminalizing Holocaust denial, she supports the fascist Romanian Legionnaire Movement.  Via Bucharest Life:

Romania’s Holocaust Institute on Wednesday protested the appointment of a well-known journalist to the board of the country’s public television station, saying the move is disrespectful to the victims of the Holocaust. According to the institute, the journalist in question – Oana Stanciulescu – has in the past written articles praising Legionaries killed in Spain fighting for Franco, as well as Nae Ionescu – one of the Legion’s leading theorists – and Romania’s wartime dictator Ion Antonescu.

read more

Romania: Jewish cemetery desecrated

Via CFCA:

Sfântu Gheorghe - Four youths vandalized several tombstones at the Jewish cemetery.  more

Sweden: Hungarian promoter of antisemitic writers invited to Göteborg Book Fair

Via Hungarian Free Press:

Géza Szőcs, a Romanian-born poet, is one of the foremost promoters of Hungary’s anti-Semitic writers from the Transylvania region (today part of Romania). He was invited to the Göteborg Book Fair. According to the official program, Mr. Szőcs is scheduled to appear on Saturday, September 26th, in the afternoon, with Ms. Katalin Mezey as moderator.

We protest the invitation of Mr. Szőcs to speak at the Göteborg Book Fair.

In May 2010 Mr. Szőcs was appointed Hungary’s Secretary of State for Culture by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. In this role Mr. Szőcs succeeded in making anti-Semitic writers part of the required public school curriculum.  more

Romania: 22% of Romanians wants a Jew-free country

Via JTA:

Nearly a quarter of Romanian respondents on a survey on Jews said their country should have no Jewish residents.

The results of the survey among 1,000 Romanian adults were published last week by the Elie Wiesel National Institute for Holocaust Studies in Romania, which commissioned the Centre for Opinion and Market Studies to conduct the poll in June.

Eleven percent described Jews as “a problem for Romania” and 22 percent said they would like them only as tourists. Media reports about the poll did not specify its margin of error.  more

Romania: Envoy to Armenia recalled over antisemitic, homophobic jokes

I suppose dismissing the Armenian Genocide wasn't helpful.

Via CFCA:

Bucharest - Romania’s ambassador to Armenia was recalled to Bucharest for consultations after he expressed what critics said were antisemitic and homophobic statements.

Sorin Vasile made the controversial statements last month during a speech at the American University of Armenia, according to MCA Romania, the Center for Monitoring and Combating Antisemitism. He was recalled Friday, according to a report on romaniatv.net.

“He dismissed the Armenian genocide by a phrase, adopted homophobic attitudes and made jokes about Jews being greedy” and “ready to break any law in order to make a profit, a clear antisemitic stereotype,” MCA Romania founders Maximillian Marco Katz and Marius Draghici wrote in a statement Friday.

Romania: Jewish group calls on President to stop anti-Semitic smear campaign against Jewish businessman

A group representing European Jewish communities has appealed on Romanian President Traian Basescu to look into the case of an Israeli Jewish citizen who reportedly has been the victim of an aggressive anti-Semitic smear campaign in Romania.

46-year-old Elan Schwarzenberg, an Israel-Romanian businessman active in real estate, advertising, media and commerce, is currently the subject of an ongoing investigation conducted by the National Anticorrution Directorate (DNA).

More: EJP

Romania: "We have no anti-Semitism," says prime minister

Of course, if you don't include the Holocaust celebrations on national TV, attacks on synagogues, and politicians who support WWII war-criminals.

Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta touted his country’s attitude toward anti-Semitism and Holocaust education, claiming on Monday that there was no anti-Semitism in Romania.

More: Jerusalem Post

Romania: Attacks on two synagogues

A firebomb thrown into a former synagogue in central Romania caused minor damage, a local Jewish watchdog group said Tuesday.

The firebomb was aimed at the wooden part of the floor of the former synagogue of Sighisoara, the Center for Monitoring and Combating Antisemitism in Romania said in a statement about the recent attack.

The building, which has been converted into a cultural center, is in proximity to the site of an earlier attack in Ploiesti, near Bucharest, where a local synagogue’s windows were shattered when vandals pelted them with stones, wrote the watchdog group’s director, Maximillian Marco Katz.

More: Times of Israel