German-Jewish teen says fleeing Berlin for Israel over schoolyard antisemitism

Via The Jerusalem Post (Benjamin Weinthal):

15-year-old German-Jewish student Liam Rückert told the BZ daily on Friday that he plans to relocate to Israel to continue his education due to what he said was rampant Muslim-animated hatred of Jews in the Berlin public school system.

"I want to go to a boarding school like my brother in Israel. I already visited him and he is doing well there," Rückert said. His mother Billy is from Israel and taught her sons Hebrew.

In 2016, a student of Arab origin said during a discussion of the Middle East conflict in Rückert's class: "If there is a Jewish student in the class, I would kill him." According to the BZ article, students of Polish and Arab descent have targeted Liam with insults such as "shitty Israeli" and "shitty Jew." The Berlin school barred Liam from changing classes at the school named Jungfernheide. The school has the highest number of migrants in the city, with 62.1 % of the students having an immigrant background.

"I could previously trust my Arab friend Hussein," said Rückert, adding that the two boys "both had a secret: that I am a Jew and that he is gay." Rückert said he has anxiety to return to the school and declines to attend a required meeting every Friday because of the psychological pressure, the BZ wrote. Rückert is currently involved in an internship outside of the school.

Billy said the teachers sought to play down the antisemitic attacks. "We received no support from the school," said Billy on a German TV talk show.

The BZ wrote that antisemitic attacks in Berlin schools are a daily occurrence. Last week, the father of a German Jewish girl said his daughter was "accosted by Muslim students because she does not believe in Allah."

Josef Schuster, the president of the roughly-100,000 member Central Council of Jews in Germany, said in late March that "if Jewish students can no longer go to school without fear of antisemitic abuse, there's something wrong in this country." It is unclear if the rise of antisemitism in Germany, where 40% of the population hold modern antisemitic views - according to a government-commissioned study last year - will lead to a wave of aliyah.

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Germany: Arab German security guards besiege Israeli tourist stand in Berlin

English historian David Cesarini (1956-2015) noted: "Two million Muslims live in the UK and one thing that unites this diverse population is hostility towards Israel and its diaspora champions" (quoted by Christopher Caldwell in Reflections on the Revolution in Europe).  This observation applies to Germany, and other European countries, too.

Via The Jerusalem Post (Benjamin Weinthal):

Security guards who were assigned to protect the world’s largest tourism trade fair in Berlin harassed an Israeli booth on Thursday, screaming pro-Palestinian slogans.

The three guards were of Arab origin, according to witness accounts reported in the daily Der Tagesspiegel. The men yelled “Free Palestine” and “Freedom for Palestine.”

Police intervened and the security guards were suspended. It is unclear, according to the Taggesspiegel article, if the police are investigating the men for disturbing the peace.

Der Tagesspiegel wrote that Berlin officials have repeatedly drawn attention to the presence of young men who work for security companies who have contact with criminal gangs and radical mosques. The Israeli stand at the tourism fair sported the logo “Israel, the Land of Creation.”

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told The Jerusalem Post on Friday: “What happened to Germany’s commitment to ‘never again’ to antisemitism? This ugly incident at an international event in Berlin – by security guards no less – threatens to become in the new normal in Germany. Unless authorities actually crack down on virulent Jew-hatred, there could be, God forbid, further escalation of antisemitism in word and deed.” 

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Holland: Anti-Semitic vandalism rises 40% to highest level since 2007

Via JTA:

The number of incidents involving anti-Semitic vandalism recorded in the Netherlands last year increased by 40 percent, to a 10-year high of 28 cases. The increase in vandalism was part of a small overall

rise in anti-Semitic incidents in 2017 over 2016, the Center for Information and Documentation on Israel, or CIDI, wrote in its annual incidents report, which the group published Saturday. CIDI recorded 113 incidents in 2017 compared to 109 in 2016.

The data was published amid unprecedented developments in public debate on anti-Semitism in the Netherlands. This month, almost all of the political parties contending in the municipal elections in Amsterdam signed a document vowing tougher action against anti-Semitism.

The move followed a Palestinian man’s smashing of windows in December of a kosher restaurant in Amsterdam. Holding a Palestinian flag, he then broke in and stole an Israeli one before being arrested.

Last week, the rightist leader of the Party for Freedom, Geert Wilders, visited the restaurant. The Forum for Democracy party produced for the first time in the history of Dutch politics an ad campaign focused exclusively on anti-Semitism ahead of the March 21 municipal elections.

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UK: Jewish student says she does not feel safe at City University

Via The Jewish Chronicle:

Jewish students said they felt threatened and intimidated by a “hostile mob” as students at a London university passed a motion supporting the Israel boycott movement, BDS.

The vote at City, University of London, resolving to ban any links between the institution and companies linked with “Israeli war crimes”, was passed by a large majority on Thursday evening during a student union meeting.

Jewish students were jeered and sworn at by BDS supporters who took photographs of opposing speakers and those voting against the motion.

Gabriella Soffer, a student at City, described the BDS supporters as “a hostile mob”.

She wrote in a Facebook post: “Having experienced what I did tonight – people taking pictures of me and various other Jews individually, having someone behind me whispering obscenities in my ear to intimidate me and telling me to ‘shut the f**k up’ every time I spoke - I can safely say that no longer do I feel safe as a Jew at City.”

Student Union officials said they refused to eject the students taking photos because they were “afraid of the reaction of the opposing side”.

The Jewish students were a minority among the 150 people in attendance and seven said they chose to abstain from voting, for fear of being targeted afterwards.

One non-Jewish student described how “there was an extremely hostile environment in the room that even I felt highly uncomfortable in, despite not being on any particular side.”

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Polish Jews stunned, scared by eruption of anti-Semitism

Via ABC News:

Matylda Jonas-Kowalik has spent most of her 22 years secure in the belief that she would never know the discrimination, persecution or violence that killed or traumatized generations of Polish Jews before her. She once thought the biggest problem that young Jewish Poles like herself faced was finding a Jewish boyfriend or girlfriend in a country dominated by Catholics.

But an eruption of anti-Semitic comments in public debates amid a diplomatic dispute with Israel over a new Holocaust speech law has caused to her to rethink that certainty. Now she and others fear the hostile rhetoric could eventually trigger anti-Semitic violence, and she finds herself thinking constantly about whether she should leave Poland.

"This is my home. I have never lived anywhere else and wanted this to keep being my home," said Jonas-Kowalik, a Jewish studies major at Warsaw University. "But this makes me very anxious. I don't know what to expect."

(...)

Anna Chipczynska, the head of Warsaw's Jewish community, said members feel psychologically shaken or even depressed, and that the hostile rhetoric has triggered hateful phone calls and emails and other harassment.

In recent events, two men tried to urinate in front of Warsaw's historic Nozyk Synagogue, and then shouted obscenities when security guards intervened. One Jewish community member found a Star of David hanging from gallows spray-painted outside a window of his apartment. A woman found the word "Zyd" — Polish for "Jew" — written in the snow outside her home.

Agnieszka Ziatek of the Jewish Agency for Israel said she has seen a spike in the number of Polish Jews inquiring about immigrating to Israel.

(...)

Mikolaj Grynberg, a writer and photographer, said while young Polish Jews feel shocked and "lost," he, at 52, has long been aware of Poland's anti-Semitic undercurrent. While on book tours, Grynberg said people would sometimes ask him "why did you choose to write in our language?" as if he weren't as Polish as they.

As the descendant of Warsaw Ghetto survivors, he has faced years of hateful emails and online messages and says he has been prepared psychologically for a return of bad times.

"Each time you have an anti-Semitic wave, there are Jewish people who leave," Grynberg said. "It's not just a whim: It's about their fear. Jewish people know what can come after."

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Germany: Jews are increasingly under threat says Jewish leader

Via Breitbart:

Former president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany Charlotte Knobloch claims that Jews are increasingly under threat in public and may require police protection to lead a normal life without harassment and violence.

Ms Knobloch, who is now the President of the Jewish Community of Munich and Upper Bavaria, said that Jews are increasingly under threat, Die Welt reports. “Aggressive anti-Semitism, from verbal hostility on the Internet and in the analogue world to desecration and destruction to physical attacks are commonplace in Germany,” she said.

“Jewish life can only take place in public under police protection and the strictest security precautions, or it must be completely cancelled for security reasons,” Knobloch added.

The Jewish leader spoke about several recent anti-semitic cases including the vandalism of a Menorah in the city of Heilbronn, and the cancellation of a public Menorah lighting in Mülheim/Ruhr due to security issues.

“Anti-Semitism is strengthening on the right and the left, in the Muslim community and also in the middle of society. That’s why we need an anti-Semitism commissioner,” Knobloch said, requesting that the German Federal government appoint an official with “strong powers”.

Many have blamed the influx of Muslim migrants under Chancellor Angela Merkel for the growth in anti-Semitic incidents. Fashion mogul Karl Lagerfeld blamed Ms Merkel directly earlier this year, saying: “One cannot – even if there are decades between them – kill millions of Jews and then bring millions of their worst enemies in their place.”

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Germany: Video of anti-Semitic rant outside Israeli restaurant in Berlin goes viral

Via JTA:

A video of a 60-year-old man spewing an anti-Semitic rant outside an Israeli restaurant in Berlin has gone viral. The six-minute video of the man haranguing restaurateur Yorai Feinberg on Tuesday has been viewed more than 600,000 times on the internet since it was posted the same day. The man was released and the case is under investigation for inciting hate and resisting arrest.

Feinberg, whose restaurant bears his name, told the German news media that he often had to deal with anti-Semitism on the street, and he receives about two pieces of hate mail per month. This time, a friend of Feinberg was on hand to record the exchange.

“This guy saw my menorah in the window and suddenly started shouting,” Feinberg told the Spiegel online. Dressed in a winter parka, the man at first tries to wave the camera away. But then he tells Feinberg that Jews belong neither in Israel nor in Germany, and says “nobody wants you people.”

“Everything’s about money with you,” he says at one point. “You will have to pay up in five or 10 years. And your whole family, your whole clan here,” he says, waving toward the camera. “What did you all want here after 1945? After 6 million of you were killed. What do you still want here?”

Feinberg, who had been trying calmly to shake off the man, then sees a police car passing by. He runs and waves down the officers.

At which point the man says, “No one will protect you … you can all go to the gas chamber. Either go back [where you came from] or off to the bloody gas chamber. No one wants you.” 

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Germany: 70 years after WWII every single Jewish institution still needs police protection

Via Watch Antisemitism in Europe: 

Over 70 years after the Second World War every single Jewish institution in Germany still needs police protection since there is a constant potential threat of anti-Semitic attacks.

In Berlin alone, nearly 60 Jewish facilities are guarded around the clock by an estimated 350 police officers. On top of that Berlin's Jewish community has its own security service, which works closely with the police.

4th night of Hanukkah during a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Berlin

JFDA - Jüdisches Forum für Demokratie und gegen Antisemitismus

Germany: Anti-Semitism rampant among Muslim refugees, study finds

Via Jewish Telegraphic Agency: 

Anti-Semitism among Muslim refugees is rampant and requires urgent attention, a new study suggests. But the study commissioned by the American Jewish Committee’s Ramer Institute for German-Jewish Relations in Berlin also suggests that refugees from persecuted minority communities are more likely to take a stand against anti-Semitism and for Israel.

Titled “Attitudes of refugees from Syria and Iraq towards integration, identity, Jews and the Shoah,” the research report was prepared by historian and sociologist Günther Jikeli of Indiana University and the University of Potsdam, Germany, with help from Lars Breuer and Matthias Becker. The study was commissioned by the American Jewish Committee.

The report, based on interviews with 68 refugees, comes amid a series of virulent anti-Israel and anti-America demonstrations in the German capital denouncing the U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Thousands of protesters burned homemade Israeli flags and crowded city subway stations chanting anti-Israel and anti-American slogans on their way to rallies. The numbers of refugees among the demonstrators was unknown.

At the same time, in a show of solidarity with Jewish communities in Germany, local imams joined with Christian and Jewish leaders in public celebrations of Hanukkah, including the annual candle-lighting ceremony at the Brandenburg Gate, where Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal of Berlin was joined in a cherry picker by Mayor Michael Mueller. Security has been tightened throughout Germany and at Jewish venues.

The tensions run deep, the new study indicates. Anti-Semitic attitudes and rejection of Israel are widespread among the newcomers, the head of the Ramer Institute, Deidre Berger, said in a statement. While many of those interviewed had positive impressions of Germany, they also tended to believe in conspiracy theories, such as about Jews or Israel controlling the world.

“Anti-Semitic thinking and stereotyping are very common … even among those who emphasize that they ‘respect’ Judaism or that there is no problem living together between Muslims, Christians and Jews in their countries of origin and in Germany,” Jikeli said in a statement.

Berger said that given the depth of anti-Jewish hostility in Arab countries, this is not surprising based on the stereotypes that are implanted in schools, mosques and government propaganda in some countries.

“[N]onetheless,” she said, “the dimensions of the problem are much larger than expected.”

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Sweden: Not even Jewish funerals are safe from harassment.

Via The New York Times (Paulina Neudig):

This past Saturday, a Hanukkah party at a synagogue in Goteborg, Sweden, was abruptly interrupted by Molotov cocktails. They were hurled by a gang of men in masks at the Jews, mostly teenagers, who had gathered to celebrate the holiday. Two days later, two fire bombs were discovered outside the Jewish burial chapel in the southern Swedish city of Malmo. Who knows what tomorrow may bring?

For Sweden’s 18,000 Jews, sadly, none of this comes as a surprise. They are by now used to anti-Semitic threats and attacks — especially during periods of unrest in the Middle East, which provide cover to those whose actual goal has little to do with Israel and much to do with harming Jews.

Both of these recent attacks followed days of incitement against Jews. Last Friday, 200 people protested in Malmo against President Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The protesters called for an intifada and promised “we will shoot the Jews.” A day later, during a demonstration in Stockholm, a speaker called Jews “apes and pigs.” There were promises of martyrdom.

Malmo’s sole Hasidic rabbi has reported being the victim of more than 100 incidents of hostility ranging from hate speech to physical assault. In response to such attacks, the Simon Wiesenthal Center issued a travel warning in 2010 advising “extreme caution when visiting southern Sweden” because of officials’ failure to act against the “serial harassment” of Jews in Malmo.

Today, entering a synagogue anywhere in Sweden usually requires going through security checks, including airport-like questioning. At times of high alert, police officers with machine guns guard Jewish schools. Children at the Jewish kindergarten in Malmo play behind bulletproof glass. Not even funerals are safe from harassment.

Jewish schoolteachers have reported hiding their identity. A teacher who wouldn’t even share the city where she teaches for fear of her safety told a Swedish news outlet: “I hear students shouting in the hallway about killing Jews.” Henryk Grynfeld, a teacher at a high school in a mostly immigrant neighborhood in Malmo, was told by a student: “We’re going to kill all Jews.” He said other students yell “yahoud,” the Arabic word for Jew, at him.

A spokesman for Malmo’s Jewish community put the situation starkly. You “don’t want to display the Star of David around your neck,” he said. Or as spokesman for the Goteborg synagogue put it, “It’s a constant battle to live a normal life, and not to give in to the threats, but still be able to feel safe.”

The question that has dogged Jews throughout the centuries is now an urgent one for Sweden’s Jewish community. Is it time to leave? Some are answering yes. One reason is the nature of the current threat.

Historically, anti-Semitism in Sweden could mainly be attributed to right-wing extremists. While this problem persists, a study from 2013 showed that 51 percent of anti-Semitic incidents in Sweden were attributed to Muslim extremists. Only 5 percent were carried out by right-wing extremists; 25 percent were perpetrated by left-wing extremists.

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Europe: "Trump is not to blame for Muslims re-enacting Kristallnacht on the streets of Amsterdam"

Via Tablet Magazine (James Kirchick):

(...) Donald Trump is not to blame for Muslims re-enacting Kristallnacht on the streets of Amsterdam. Neither is Israel. Europeans are. In particular, Nazi Germany’s attempt to solve Europe’s “Jewish problem” has been followed by decades of nauseating indulgence of Arab and Muslim fantasies about wiping out Israel, and the assumption that every adverse development in the mostly one-sided “peace process” between Israel and the Arab world, and every real or imagined indignity visited upon any Palestinian by any Israeli–Arab offenses against Palestinians or other Arabs don’t count–is a natural reason for people to attack and murder Jews anywhere and everywhere in the world.

Encouraging poor and disenfranchised Muslims to stew in hate propaganda so as to direct their resentments away from their lazy and corrupt rulers and towards “Zionists” is a threadbare trick that only people hardened by centuries of colonial administration could continue to play, especially in the wake of the Holocaust. Europe has grown rich through such grotesqueries, which also provide a convenient safety-valve for the social and economic dissatisfactions of the continent’s underclass along with a self-administered dose of exculpation for the mass extermination within living memory of the vast majority of Europe’s Jews in gas chambers and before firing squads. Claiming that divide-and-rule tactics used against one’s own population constitute some higher form of morality is a truly rare kind of obscenity. As anti-Semitic mobs raged across his country, former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt—a fervent twitterer who is never at a loss when it comes to criticizing baleful developments in other countries—saw fit to tweet this.

Yet to obfuscate the ways in which Muslims are actually attacking Jews in Europe and the Middle East, fueled by hate-propaganda produced by other Muslims, is to engage in an equally dangerous species of denialism. Events over the weekend should spark a long-overdue, honest conversation about anti-Semitism in Europe, the sources of which people are too afraid to talk about–but should. The rise of nationalist movements across the continent in recent years has led many to assume that the far-right is mainly responsible for resurgent anti-Semitism. But the facts indicate that assumption is false: Anti-Semitic harassment in Europe is predominantly Muslim in origin, with leftists coming in a strong second place.

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Miss Germany 2011 kept her Jewish heritage a secret and moved to America

Via The Jewish Telegraphic Agency:

Last week, the story of a Jewish woman competing in the Miss Germany competition went viral, appearing in JTA along with media outlets around the world. Tamar Morali, 21, said organizers told her she was the first Jewish woman to get this far in the beauty pageant.

It turns out the story — and the world of beauty pageants in general — isn’t as straightforward as it seems.

In 2011, a Jewish woman, Valeria Bystritskaia, was crowned Miss Germany. But out of fear of anti-Semitism Bystritskaia, a Russia native who moved to Germany at the age of 7, kept her Jewish heritage a secret. (...)

Bystritskaia, 31, is the Moscow-born daughter of a Ukrainian-Jewish mother and Russian father. In 1993, she told JTA, she and her mother moved to Germany to escape anti-Semitism, eventually settling in the city of Karlsruhe. Her mother warned her not to tell anyone about her Jewish heritage, though Bystritskaia said she was bullied in school for being a foreigner.

At 17, she was discovered by a modeling agent, and after four years of modeling she entered her first beauty pageant. She went on to win more than 30 titles, and at age 25 she was crowned Miss Universe Germany. She represented Germany in the Miss Universe 2011 pageant, although she did not place in the top 16.

Bystritskaia said organizers never asked about her religious background and she did not tell anyone, so the fact that she was Jewish was never reported.

Following her victory, however, Bystritskaia experienced anti-Semitic harassment on social media. She said she’s still not sure how people found out about her Jewish background.

“The worst was someone who wrote ‘Hitler forgot about her and her family,'” she told JTA in an email this week.

That spurred her to leave the country.

“It was that reaction, in fact, that convinced me that I couldn’t live as a Jew in Germany,” she said. “My title period ended in 2012, and by 2013, I had moved to America.”

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Europe: Historically, labelling Jews as such has significant, overwhelming and unambiguously anti-semitic cultural meaning

This comment (screen shot) was left @ Politico following an article about "the decision to label settlement goods" which "causes friction within the bloc and strains ties with a staunch ally".  

Clockmed: "We should exterminate all Jews everywhere"

Reader Sebastian makes some interesting points on the comments section.  They are worth noting:

After all, Israel’s arguments that it is being singled out for labelling solely because it is Jewish. This is exacerbated by the fact that historically, labelling Jews as such has significant, overwhelming and unambiguously anti-semitic cultural meaning from the perspective of virtually all Jews.

Personally, I would be happy if all occupied territories around the world were labelled as such, but the fact that the EU is “technically” now in a situation of apartheid by treating the Israeli people as second class citizens under the law, it is impossible for me to ever see this anger by Israel going away.

The EU seems to be calculating that they will take a bit of flack from Israel and things will get back to normal. I think they have massively massively underestimated the cultural significance and outright seriousness of their actions. I can’t see Israelis or any government they elect ever letting this one go.

Posted on 1/4/16 | 4:03 PM CET

The only difference is that neither Morroco nor Turkey are Jewish states and the Turks and Moroccans affected are not Jewish. That and that alone (directly or indirectly) is why Morroco and Turkey have never been threatened with labelling. You want more examples world wide. I believe there are about 200 of them.

Posted on 1/5/16 | 3:41 PM CET

Israel signed an FTA with the EU that makes a clear distinction between Israel and Israeli-occupied territories. Nobody forced it to. That is why Cyprus and the Sahara are totally irrelevant in this context. Turkey and Morocco are not violating the obligations they voluntarily undertook viz. the EU. Israel is.”

Livni did it because she was forced too. The EU has never attempted to force such terms on Morrocco or Turkey or China or anybody else exploiting disputed or occupied territories. [...] 

The difference now is that this discrimination has entered into EU law as it is actually implemented in practice, which now means the EU is technically in a state of apartheid.

Posted on 1/6/16 | 11:05 AM CET

Sadly someone left this comment:

Germany: Karl Lagerfeld says Germany 'cannot kill millions of Jews so you can bring millions of their worst enemies in their place"

Via The Daily Mail:

Fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld has sparked outrage by evoking the Holocaust as he attacked German Chancellor Angela Merkel for opening the country's borders to migrants.

The 84-year-old German said his country 'cannot - even if there are decades between them - kill millions of Jews so you can bring millions of their worst enemies in their place'. He added while speaking on a French television show: 'I know someone in Germany who took a young Syrian and after four days said, "The greatest thing Germany invented was the Holocaust"'.

Several hundred people lodged official complaints about Lagerfeld's comments, the French media regulator said Monday after he appeared on the 'Salut les terriens!' (Hello Earthlings!) talkshow on the C8 channel on Saturday.

The veteran Chanel designer, who was born in Hamburg just as Adolf Hitler came to power, had earlier lambasted Merkel for taking more than one million asylum seekers since the migrant crisis of 2015.  

'Merkel had already millions and millions (of immigrants) who are well integrated and who work and all is well... she had no need to take another million to improve her image as the wicked stepmother after the Greek crisis,' said Lagerfeld.

'Suddenly we see the pastor's daughter,' he said in reference to Merkel's father, who was a Protestant minister in the former East Germany.

Lagerfeld, who is rarely afraid of controversy, said he was going to 'say something horrific' before criticising the chancellor for the 'huge error' of accepting so many refugees from war-torn Syria and elsewhere.

'Look at France, the land of human rights, which has taken, I don't know, 10,000 or 20,000,' he added.

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UK: Israeli businessman claims anti-Semitic 'hounding' in Scotland

Via BBC:

An Israeli businessman in Aberdeen has claimed he is being hounded by campaigners he describes as anti-Semitic protestors who want to force him and his family out of Scotland.

Nissan Ayalon, who sells Israeli cosmetics, compared his treatment to "a game of chase the Jew".  

However, the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign insist they are not racist or anti-Semitic. They said they were only objecting to the selling of Israeli products. 

Mr Ayalon sells products made with Dead Sea minerals from stalls in shopping centres.

He previously had stalls in Belfast and Glasgow, but felt forced to close them down, and moved to Aberdeen where he said the treatment had continued. 

Mr Ayalon told BBC Scotland: "It's like I don't have the right to exist. I have to justify my existence. I have to ask for permission to live, to walk to work. 

"We were accused of murdering, mass murdering, slaughter, criminals, we were called criminal enterprise. We were called baby killers.  

"There is nowhere else for me to go. I love it here, where is my equal opportunity?" (...)

Jewish Human Rights Watch (JHRW) is an organisation which was set up to address a claimed rise in anti-Semitism in the UK. 

JHRW's Robert Festenstein said: "If you target a Jewish man and drive him from Belfast to Glasgow, and then from Glasgow to Aberdeen, and then try and drive them from there, however you claim you might not be anti-Semitic it's impossible not to acknowledge the truth. 

"And it's not enough for them to say we're only interested in the product he's selling. 

"It's about as serious a case as we've found."

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France: Nationalist charged with threatening to kill Macron, Jews

Article from July.

Via Times of Israel:

A 23-year-old man has been charged with plotting to assassinate French President Emmanuel Macron at France’s Bastille Day parade, a judicial source said Monday.

The self-described nationalist, who was arrested last Wednesday, told investigators he wanted to kill Macron at the July 14 national day parade in Paris, a source close to the investigation said.

He said he also wanted to attack “Muslims, Jews, blacks, homosexuals,” the source added.

Police arrested the man at his home in the northwest Paris suburb of Argenteuil on Wednesday after being alerted by users of a chatroom linked to a video game where he allegedly said he wanted to buy a firearm.

Three kitchen knives were found in his vehicle and analysis of his computer found that he had conducted internet searches on potential targets, the source said.

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UK: Man shouts death threat at Jewish passenger in “shocking” antisemitic attack on Tube train

Via TheJC:

Police are treating as a hate crime an incident in which a man threatened to kill a Jewish passenger during a “shocking” antisemitic tirade on a London Tube train.

The passenger, who did not wish to be named, said he feared for his life when the man shouted at him: “I am the next Hitler and I am going to kill you," gesturing with his hand to simulate a gun, and making a “bang” sound to indicate a bullet being fired.

The incident happened as the passenger, a solicitor who works in the City of London, was travelling home to Golders Green on the Northern Line

He told the JC that the man had got on the train at Old Street station and sat down opposite him.

The passenger said:  “The moment he sat down he stretched his legs out to me and started nudging me.

“He then removed his legs and starting swearing at me extremely loudly.

“After about a minute of non-stop abuse he got up and went towards the doors and came back to show me a picture on his phone which said something about ‘Jews killing babies.’”

The passenger, who was wearing a kippah, said: “It was clear to me and everybody in the carriage that he was targeting me because I am a Jew.

“I was extremely shocked at being spoken to like that and when he approached me with his phone I was extremely scared and expecting him to punch me at any moment.”

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Ukraine: Firebomb hurled at synagogue in Lviv

Via Haaretz:

Unidentified individuals hurled a firebomb at a synagogue in Lviv and, in a separate incident, wrote anti-Semitic slogans on another Jewish community building in the western Ukrainian city.

The incident involving a firebomb occurred on June 30 but was discovered only Monday, according to the Strana news site. The perpetrators may have aimed the firebomb at a window of the synagogue on Mikhovsky Street but missed it, hitting the building facade, the director of the Chesed-Arieh Jewish group, Ada Dianova, told Strana.

The contents of the firebomb fell to the foot of the building and burned there, resulting in no damage to the interior, she added. No one was hurt in the incident.

The anti-Semitic slogans painted on a former building of the community on Sholem Aleichem Street included the words” “Down with Jewish power” and: “Jews, remember July 1,” an apparent reference to a pogrom that took place in Lviv on that date in 1941.

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Portugal: Israeli ambassador and Jewish leader physically threatened on campus - demonstrators shouted "Hamas! Hamas!"

This happened at the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, Universidade Nova de Lisboa.  Interestingly, the shocking incident was kept under wraps!

Via Romeu Monteiro:

A Portuguese student told Romeu Monteiro about an event he helped organize at his public college campus in Lisbon in February 2016:

"We were locked inside with the demonstrators on the other side of the door screaming "Hamas! Hamas!" and they would not go away. 

It was anti-Semitic: the topic of the talk we organized was not Israel, it was Portuguese-Jewish heritage. 

The dean forbade police from coming on campus to remove the demonstrators. After a while we had to activate the emergency plan to evacuate. 

6 body guards surrounded the Israeli Ambassador and we also had to protect Esther Mucznik [a prominent Portuguese Jewish leader/speaker]. 

Some people were actually trying to physically attack them, we had to push them. The demonstrators were mostly radical leftist students."

UK: Man at polling station arrested after threatening to kill Jewish voter

Via CAA:

A man has been arrested for allegedly threatening to kill a Jewish man at a polling station at approximate 17:20 today.

A Jewish man arriving at a polling station on the Webb Estate near Clapton Common in north London allegedly heard a man shouting from a window above: “F***ing Jews, kill all the Jews. What are you doing here?”. The Jewish man entered the polling station, cast his vote and then asked to be escorted away from the polling station by one of the volunteers there. As he left, the suspect allegedly started shouting antisemitic abuse again, at which point the Jewish victim called Stamford Hill Shomrim, the Jewish volunteer neighbourhood watch patrol.

Shomrim attended within minutes and called the police. Whilst waiting for the police to arrive, the suspect allegedly threatened Shomrim volunteers with a crowbar, but they stood their ground until police arrived to make an arrest.

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