Poland’s ruling party suspended a senator who posted online footage from a Nazi propaganda movie depicting violence against Jews to the sounds of klezmer music.read more
On Thursday, the Law and Justice party suspended Waldemar Bonkowski for posting the video on Facebook earlier in the week amid an acrimonious argument between many Poles and Jews over the Polish government’s passing this month of a law criminalizing blaming Poland for Nazi crimes.
(...) The French Jewish community may still be the largest in Europe, but it is shrinking rapidly. In 2000, it was estimated at 500,000, but the number now is less than 400,000, and sinking. Jewish districts that once were thriving are now on the verge of extinction. "What is happening is an ethnic cleansing that dare not speak its name. In few decades, there will be no Jews in France," according to Richard Abitbol, president of the Confederation of French Jews and Friends of Israel.read more
Without the Jews of France, France would no longer be France, said Former Prime Minister Manuel Valls in 2016 . But he did not do anything.
Recently he said that he had done his best, that he could not have done more. "The problem," he said, "is that anti-Semitism today in France comes less from the far right than from individuals of the Muslim faith or culture".
He added that in France, for at least two decades, all attacks against Jews in which the perpetrator has been identified have come from Muslims, and that the most recent attacks were no exception.
Valls, however, quickly suffered the consequences of his candor. He was elbowed to the margins of political life. Muslim websites called him an " agent of the Jewish lobby" and a "racist." Former leaders of his own party, such as former Foreign Minister Roland Dumas, said that Valls' wife is a Jew and hinted that he was "under the influence".
In France, telling the truth about Islamic anti-Semitism is dangerous. For a politician, it is suicidal. (...)
In French Muslim neighborhoods, Islamist imams denounce the "bad influence" of Jews and spread anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. French politicians stay silent.
Islamic bookstores in France sell books banned elsewhere, such as the fraudulent Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and CDs and DVDs of violent anti-Semitic speeches by radical preachers. For instance, Yussuf al-Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, who is prohibited from entering France and the US, says he regrets that Hitler did not "finish the job". French politicians stay silent.
Although synagogues in France have not been attacked since 2014, they all are guarded around the clock by armed soldiers in bulletproof vests who are protected behind sandbags, as are Jewish schools and cultural centers. (...)
A growing percentage of the French say that the Jews in France are "too numerous" and "too visible."
Reports for the Ministry of National Education reveal that expressions such as "Don't act like a Jew", intended to criticize a student who hides what he thinks, are widely used in public schools. Jewish students are more and more often the object of mockery -- and not just by students who are Muslim.
A few days ago, the comedian Laura Laune was the winner on the reality television series "France's Got Talent". Some of her jokes make fun of the fact that there were fewer Jews in the world in 1945 than in 1939. Jewish organizations protested, but in vain. Now, she appears to packed halls. The anti-Semitic comedian Dieudonné also fills the stadiums where he performs.
A public broadcaster in France is being criticized for airing a Belgian comedienne’s joke about the Holocaust.read more
France 2 aired the joke by Laura Laune, 31, on Friday in its 8 p.m. news journal. A winner of the 2017 season of the French version of “America’s Got Talent,” she was seen saying on stage: “What do sneakers and Jews have in common? They’re more common in 39 than in 45.”
World War II, during which six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust in Europe, began in 1939 and ended in 1945. The European shoe sizes of 39 and 45 translate to 8.5 and 11 in U.S. sizes, respectively. The flattering profile reportage on Laune noted her “boldness” and her popularity in the stand-up comedy scene in France.
Gilles-William Goldnadel, a well-known lawyer in France and a former member of the executive board of the CRIF umbrella of French Jewish communities, called the joke “horrific” on Twitter and accused France 2 and French media in general of pursuing a double standard on black humor that permits its application to Jews but not women.
“Public broadcaster: They sell the boldness of a joke by a woman on the Holocaust while they kick out Tex for a joke about women.”
The comedian Tex, whose name is Jean-Christophe Le Texier, last month was fired from France 2 for telling a joke about domestic violence against women during an appearance in November in a show on the private channel C8.
THE newly-appointed editor of Gay Times has been suspended over a shocking series of anti-Semitic, racist and disability-mocking tweets.
Josh Rivers was handed the role less than a month ago after being promoted from marketing manager of the magazine.
He has now apologised for the tweets - which have since been deleted - but has been suspended pending an investigation.
One tweet read: "I wonder if they cast that guy as 'The Jew' because of that f****** ridiculously larger honker of a nose. It must be prosthetic. Must be."
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Avram and Emanuel Rosenthal, 5 and 2 years old respectively, were rounded
up to be murdered shortly after their picture was taken in Lithuania in 1944
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Soccer fans in the Netherlands used a picture of child victims of the Holocaust to taunt a rival team in what Dutch activists against racism called a new low for anti-Semitic rhetoric in sports.
The photo featuring two toddlers wearing a yellow star was widely circulated on Twitter under the hashtag #anti020week. The digits are the Amsterdam-area dial code, which in soccer jargon references the city’s main soccer club, Ajax. The picture, in which one child appears to be nearing tears, also featured the caption “When 020 had only one star.”read more
The children pictured, Avram and Emanuel Rosenthal, 5 and 2 years old respectively, were rounded up to be murdered shortly after their picture was taken in Lithuania in 1944.
Shared by many supporters of the Feyenoord team of Rotterdam, the photo offers an extreme example of how fans of Ajax rivals mock the memory of the Holocaust. Ajax players and supporters are often called “Jews” in recognition of the large Jewish community that had existed in the Dutch capital before 80 percent of its members were murdered in the Holocaust by Germans and Dutch collaborators. Some Ajax fans self-identify as Jews.
Past incidents included songs about burning Jews and the SS, and the use of gas and Hamas, but using archival photos of individual victims is unusual.
An Italian MP on Wednesday denied any anti-Semitic intent after publishing a jibe on Facebook asking if a Jewish colleague had bushy eyebrows because he wanted to "cover the marks of the circumcision".
"There was no anti-Semitism," said Massimo Corsaro, a member of a group of lawmakers close to former Puglia Governor Raffaele Fitto that broke away from Forza Italia, regarding the comment directed at Democratic Party (PD) MP Emanuele Fiano.
"I intended to call him a dickhead". Fiano is the author of bill that seeks to tighten up the law against apology for Fascism.
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| “Leaked nude pictures of Anne Frank” mockery |
Activists of the Austrian students’ organization Aktions Gemeinschaft (AG), which is affiliated with the Faculty of Law at the University of Vienna (Wien) and is closely and politically associated with the Austrian People's Party, spent their time spreading jokes about Jews and mocking the disabled in a closed Facebook group.
In the latest edition of the Austrian news weekly "Falter", excerpts from chat conversations were published. The members of the Facebook group include staff members of the faculty, as well as candidates standing for the current elections of the Austrian Students’ Union (ÖH) Students.
The representatives regularly chatted with each other in both a Whatsapp group and the aforementioned closed Facebook group which is called "Fakultätsvertretung Jus Männerkollektiv". In their chats, for example, shortly after the caption “leaked nude pictures of Anne Frank”, an illustration appears of a single rose emerging from a pile of ashes.
Elsewhere in the chats, there is an illustration of a girl who is a member of the Hitler youth (Hitlerjugend) movement. She is holding a basket filled with swastika flags and rabbits in her hands along with the caption: “Wishing a happy Easter to all the men as well as all the chicks in this respectable group.” In addition, one may find in the comments a picture of a child with Down's Syndrome sitting in a tub with a pitchfork drawn on his arm as well as the inscription “Poseidown” and various illustrations of Hitler.
First and foremost, on visiting the group, one is struck by the many revealing photos of female students or of raves in which the assembled party appears to be largely drunk or intoxicated.
Within the AG itself, those revelations were met with indignation: “It is absolutely outrageous that members of this organization have created a Facebook group in which posts containing such inhuman content are shared” said organization's spokesman Valentin Petritsch.read more
Kiev - a new antisemitic scandal in Ukraine: Viktor Varganov, a member of the Academy of Science, entertained the conference of the Party of Batkivshina led by Yulia Tymoshenko, with jokes about Jews, which were met by long applauses.
"Jews of the wrong kind stand above us! Honorable colleagues, by saying this I mean that in every village, in every area, they have to be raised as they did in some of our counties. As they say, if sport could have been put to good use, then five Jews would be hanged on each pole. Don’t forget, please forgive me in the name of God, but hurray Ukraine" announced Vergonov, a member of the Ukrainian Union of journalists and director of the National Library of Agriculture.
As noted on his Facebook page, Eduard Dolinsky, the director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, the jokes were not only greatly appreciated by head of the Batkievshina party, Yulia Tymoshenko, but also by the leader of the nationalist party Svoboda, Oleg Tejnybuk, who was present in the audience. Dolinsky posted the videotape recording of the academy member as he told his joke to the applauding audience, drawing a wave of vehement criticism.
The NRK (Norwegian TV) does not give up… after being lambasted in international media for poor taste and a disgusting attempt to make light of the Nazi extermination camps, they have another go.
In yet another “entertainment” program, appropriately called black humor, they now want the Norwegian public to guess what details you have to send the IRS every year.
Alternative A: a treasure trove? Alternative B: A treasure chamber? Alternative C: a tax return file? or, alternative D: extermination of Jews?read more
A former adviser to Tony Blair has told of his shock at witnessing an anti-Semitic rant at a Proms reception.
Martin Bright, a former Observer journalist who once worked for the former Prime Minister’s Faith Foundation, was horrified when BBC journalist Henrietta Foster was told by a fellow guest to ‘get back in the oven’ – a reference to the gas chambers used by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
The fellow guest, who has been identified by The Mail on Sunday as Dr Leslie Jones, the editor of the Quarterly Review magazine, made the comment in reference to an appearance Ms Foster made in My Nazi Legacy, a documentary about the children of Hitler’s officers.
(...)
Last night Ms Foster (unrelated to Michael Foster), who is writing a history of Hungarian Jews, said she thought Dr Jones had made the remark at the reception on the Friday before the last night of the proms, because he incorrectly thought she was Jewish.
She said: ‘We had fallen out at a previous reception over Brexit – I told him to **** off because he had voted out. Then he came over to me last Thursday and said, “You were in that film, weren’t you?”, and told me I was cruel in my filmed question to the son of a Nazi officer.
‘Then he just said: “Get back in the oven. Do you understand me? Just get back in the oven.” ’
After Mr Bright and another guest remonstrated with Dr Jones, he insisted that it had been a joke. Dr Jones last night declined to comment.
Christopher Biggins has made a tearful apology after being removed from Channel 5’s Celebrity Big Brother house for making a "joke" about the Holocaust.
Channel 5 ruled the 67-year-old actor made remarks "capable of causing widespread offence" following a conversation on the show with former X Factor star Katie Waissel.
Biggins, who had made earlier controversial comments about Aids and bisexuals, told the 30-year-old, who is Jewish: "You better be careful or they'll be putting you in a shower and taking you to a room."
Yesterday, he told The Sun he begged Waissel for forgiveness.
He said: "I found Katie and said 'I am mortified. I would never do anything to upset you. I love you and I'm really sorry'.
"I am mortified by what's happened, really mortified. Most of my friends, in fact, are Jewish. I apologised to Big Brother and Katie."
He added: "I love Jewish people. Listen, my best friend is Lesley Joseph. You can't get much more Jewish than that.
University students in the Netherlands redesigned the dorm room of a Jewish classmate with motifs from a Nazi death camp during the Holocaust, Dutch media reported.
The incident at Leiden University, which was reported Friday by the Dutch daily Volkskrant, involved members of the prestigious Minerva Society, the oldest student association in the Netherlands.
Several seniors are believed to have redesigned the room of a freshman living in the university’s dorms as a prank. According to the Volkskrant, the redesign is a humoristic initiation rite for freshmen in which seniors come up with creative ideas on how to reshape one room.
A video of the room obtained by Volkskrant shows a bare room with mass graves painted on its floor, barbed wire hung on pipes and the German words “Arbeit macht frei” spray-painted on the walls – a reference to the slogan meaning “work makes you free” that Nazis hung on several death and concentration camps.
There were also train tracks painted on the walls in an apparent reference to the trains in which Nazis deported Jews to their deaths. A large Nazi swastika made of sticks also was displayed on one wall.
Some unconfirmed reports said the freshman in question was Jewish, Volkskrant reported.
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Poznan - During the meeting of City Hall's officials choosing new streets' names, Professor Janusz Kapuscinski (the representative of PiS, "Law and Justice" party, leading group of upcoming-in-a-week election to Polish Parliament), proposed to name the street leading to the garbage incinerator (still under construction) as "Oswiecimska Street". Oswiecim is the name of Polish town where Nazi build The Death Camp Auschwitz... That proposal was met with laughter approval and understanding of fellow aldermen rather than with outrage. Though one of them did call the proposal "a joke of bad taste". more
