The New Antisemite

Monday, January 25, 2016

UK: "Hitler Was Right" anti-refugee protest

Via Twitter:

Anti-Refugee protest in Newcastle by the National Action group: "Refugees not welcome #HitlerWasRight".

Europe: 40% of European citizens hold anti-Semitic attitudes

The Israeli government's 2015 Report on Anti-Semitism, presented by education minister Naftali Bennett in a cabinet meeting on Sunday, revealed alarming increases in anti-Semitic attacks and attitudes in Europe.

The report, published three days before International Holocaust Remembrance Day, found that 40% of European citizens hold anti-Semitic attitudes, and detailed a sharp rise in anti-Semitic incidents in the EU, particularly in France and Britain.

France saw an alarming 84 percent increase in anti-Semitic incidents between January and May 2015, according to published data.

Britain also reported that anti-Semitic incidents reached peak levels in 2014 and 2015, increasing by 53 percent.

More than half of French Jews are considering emigrating from the country, according to the report.

UK: BBC Two’s ‘Newsnight’ gives a stage to Galloway’s anti-Israel conspiracy theories

Via BBC Watch:

Following the publication on January 21st of the results of the inquiry into the death of Alexander Litvinenko, the producers of BBC Two’s flagship current affairs programme ‘Newsnight‘ apparently reached the bizarre conclusion that their mission of providing audiences with “comprehensive coverage of the day’s important national and international news stories” could best be met by bringing George Galloway into the studio.

During that interview, Galloway made the following statement:
“Look, I know Plutonium [sic] 210. I was at Yasser Arafat’s bedside in France when he died from Polonium 210, so I know how foul a murder this was.”

Norway: "I've always seen myself as Jewish, but I began to deny it and hide it"

Via NRK (h/t SAW)

Michael Stark (24) says he was harassed in school. He was called "fucking Jew" and told jokes like "It's so cold here, can we burn a Jew?".

When he started working he didn't tell anybody about his Jewish life. "I didn't tell anybody about my religion. I stayed away from it because I didn't want to be seen as Jewish."

Michael's mother is Jewish and his father is Catholic, and he grew up with both religions.

He didn't tell anybody at home about the harassment he experienced. He identified as Jewish, but because of the situation in school he stopped participating in Jewish celebrations. "I said that 'It's Mom that's Jewish, not me'. I've always seen myself as Jewish, but I began to deny it and hide it."

It didn't help when he changed schools. "there was always somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody from the previous school. That way, it never ended. I was always 'the Jewish boy'."

Michael says that he's now decided to be more open about his religion and where he comes from, and that he won't be embarrassed to celebrate Hanukka or wear a kippah. He's received mostly positive comments. One coworker, a Muslim, told him "You and I must work together. You are a Jew and I'm a Muslim, we must team up."

Sunday, January 24, 2016

France: Jews leave France in record numbers (CNN)

CNN reports (click on link to watch the video):

Yoav Krief remembers the day he knew it was time to move to Israel: January 9, 2015.It was a Friday. Four Jews had just been killed in the Hyper Cacher, a kosher supermarket in Paris, two days after the Charlie Hebdo attack. One of them was Krief's friend.

"I was not good, really not good," Krief says of how he felt at the time. "I talked to my mom, and I said, 'We must go to Israel. We need to go to Israel.'"

Krief decided to leave France after a friend was killed in a terror attack. Krief, a French Jew who had just finished high school, moved to Israel with his family six months later, as part of the largest migration of Jews from Western Europe to Israel since the modern state of Israel was created.

Nearly 8,000 French Jews moved to Israel in the year following the Charlie Hebdo attack, according to the Jewish Agency, which handles Jewish immigration, or aliyah, to Israel.

[...]

'Difficult to live as a Jew in France'

Many French Jews settle in Ashdod, a city in southern Israel known for its large French population. You are as likely to hear French on the streets as you are Hebrew, especially in one of the city's many French cafés.

"It's great for me here, much better than France," says Charly Dahan, a musician who moved to Israel from Paris two years ago. Dahan sits in Café Lyon, a popular meeting spot for French Jews.

"This is the first time in my life that I am relaxed. In France, I also felt good, but the situation and the current problems... it's very difficult to live as a Jew in France," he adds. [...]

Fear of being seen as Jewish

But when the European Union studied the prevalence of anti-Semitism in 2013, it found that 74% of Jews in France avoid openly identifying themselves as Jewish at least some of the time, and more than a quarter of French Jews always do.

Dov Cohen, a French Jew who left Marseille for Ashdod last summer, says he never wore his religious skullcap, or kippa, in public.

"You have to watch out," Cohen says about his life in France. "You have to protect the children because of fights in the metro and on the buses. This pushed us to decide to make aliyah," he says.

"Here there is a feeling of security that no longer exists in France. Twenty years ago, maybe yes. But since the year 2000, there no longer is that feeling of security in France."

France: Antisemitic graffiti

Via 94.citoyens:

Residents of an apartment buildings in Joinville-le-Pont (Paris) found the following engraved into the doors of an elevator: Jewish star, swastika, "Nazis" and "Jihad".

Germany: “Jews out!” graffiti campaign continues in Berlin

Via Everyday Antisemitism, RIAS:

Berlin’s Alt-Mariendorf district continues to see a campaign of antisemitic graffiti, RIAS reports.

Following last year’s spate of antisemitic vandalism, the Jew-hating slogans have continued to appear in the area. At the beginning of January, the Alt-Mariendorf underground station and its surroundings were daubed with graffiti including, “Who is Rotschild [sic]? Western Terror Jews [sic] out!”, a swastika and several “Jews Out” and also the initials “JF”.

“JF” may be a reference to the Junge Front (Young Front). The Junge Front was the youth movement attached to the Volkssozialistische Bewegung Deutschlands/Partei der Arbeit (the VSBD/PdA), a far-right political party that was founded in Germany in 1971 and banned in 1982.

Germany: Non-Muslim students hide their anti-Semitism better than Muslim students

Via Everyday Antisemitism:

Arif Arslaner, founder of Kubi, an organisation that provides social work to seven schools in Frankfurt an Main, says the insults are particularly prevalent amounst Muslim students. He advises that it is important to distinguish between ideological hatred and students “merely” parroting hateful rhetoric to be provocative.

He notes the difference between Muslim and non-Muslim students is that the latter are less open, rather than less hateful. Kanbicak supports this view, noting that amongst students from more traditional German backgrounds, outright antisemitism is taboo and is more likely to be cloaked as criticism around Israel.

Merkel: "Anti-Semitism is more widespread than we imagined"

Via Times of Israel:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for “intensive action” against anti-Semitism on Saturday, urging vigilance particularly when dealing with young people from countries “where hatred of Israel and anti-Semitism is widespread.”

“Anti-Semitism is more widespread than we imagined. And that is why we must act intensively against it,” Merkel, who on Monday will inaugurate an exhibition in Berlin titled “The Art of the Holocaust,” said in her weekly video podcast.

(...)

“We must take care, specifically also in youth (from) countries where hatred of Israel and Jews is widespread,” she insisted, without mentioning specific countries or refugees.

“We have observed in several schools and meeting places (anti-Semitic) events (led) by young people, against which every adult has to act,” she said. “We must also encourage students who think differently,” she stressed.

Sweden: "Non- Jews approached me in stores and engaged me in conversation about Israel"

Dov Lipman felt safe walking around Sweden with a kippah. He doesn't see a problem with the fact that people approached a kippah-wearing Jew and felt it quite proper to start talking about Jews and Israel.

Dov Lipman @ The Jerusalem Post:

In response to Foreign Minister Wallström’s horrific accusations against Israel, I flew to Sweden as part of a World Zionist Organization delegation for a two-day trip to participate in an event in the Swedish parliament, and in one in the Jewish community. As I was leaving the Stockholm airport, a young man came over to me, introduced himself as a local Jew, and strongly suggested that I remove my kippa because he believed it was dangerous to wear one publicly in Sweden. I refused to do so, and posted about the incident on Facebook along with a selfie of my wearing my kippa in Sweden. I wrote that as a proud Jew I would not remove my kippa – even in Sweden.

The response was swift and stunning.

A debate erupted over whether I was heroic or naive. I received huge numbers of messages – some were filled with pride while others, particularly from close friends, begged me to remove my kippa.

Total strangers scolded me for placing myself in danger. People in Israel scolded people outside Israel for not returning to their homeland where they can wear a kippa freely. Others strongly defended those who live in the Diaspora.

The responses of the hundreds of people who reacted online are available to see. What the public has not seen is what happened in Sweden as I walked around in my Kippa. Swedish Jews told me how happy they were with my post, and that it emboldened them to remain strong and proud of their heritage.

One of the main synagogues tweeted my Facebook post with the message in Swedish: “sometimes you need a foreigner to spell out the obvious #jewishpride.” Non- Jews approached me in stores and engaged me in conversation about Israel. One 20-something-year old who approached me – who fit the classic Scandinavian external profile – ended our conversation by saying, “People should just learn to talk. You dispelled so much of what I had thought about Israel and about Jews.”

Via BLICK:

JUSO (Young Socialists Switzerland) is a youth organization connected to the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland.

Recently they posted the antisemitic cartoon above on their Facebook page. It shows President and Commerce Minister Johann Schneider-Ammann feeding a fat Jewish man, who has a large nose and sidelocks. Schneider-Ammann says ".. and a spoon for... the international financial lobby". The hungry child next to him gets nothing.

JUSO removed the cartoon and published a statement saying that they understood that the cartoon could be interpreted in an antisemitic way and that this in no way reflects on their basic values. They apologize without reservation and assure everybody that there were no antisemitic intentions behind it.

Update: apology text via Haaretz:

“We understand that the cartoon allows for an interpretation through anti-Semitic codes and stereotypes that absolutely do not correspond with JUSO’s basic values,” the organization wrote in a statement on Jan. 23. ”We would like to apologize unreservedly for this regrettable error and affirm that there was no intention to reproduce anti-Semitism.”

France: Jewish pro-Palestinian activist says Kippah signals ‘allegiance to Israeli policies’

Via JTA:

French Jews condemned a prominent Jewish pro-Palestinian activist who said that the act of wearing a kippah is a sign of allegiance to the policies of the State of Israel.

Rony Brauman, a former president of Doctors Without Borders, made the statement last week during an interview on the Europe1 radio station about the Jan. 11 stabbing of a devout Jew in Marseille, allegedly by a 15-year-old boy who told police he assaulted the victim as part of the jihad of the Islamic State terrorist group.

“We have to wonder about the significance of wearing a kippah — not for that person,” Brauman said of the victim in Marseille, “as I have no reason to suspect him, but in society in general.” In addition to an affirmation of faith, Brauman said, wearing a kippah is “an affirmation of loyalty to the State of Israel, why not after all, but also, and this is much more problematic, a sign of a kind of allegiance to the policies of the state of Israel.”

According to the Tribune Juive daily, both CRIF, the umbrella group of French Jewish communities, and French Chief Rabbi Haim Korsia condemned this statement. André Mamou, the paper’s editor-in-chief, wrote in an op-ed that, “what made this left-wing physician venture so far into self-hatred is incomprehensible.”

Belgium: Right-wing politician "not accusing" Jews of Stalin's purges in anti-Zionist op-ed

Jean-Marie Dedecker is a Belgian Flemish politician and head of the right-wing LDD party. Last year he was awarded the Prize for Liberty by the Flemish classical-liberal thinktank Libera!.

In a recent op-ed in the Belgian magazine Knack Dedecker supposedly 'criticizes Israel' - warning Europeans not to accept 'Israelis crimes' just because Palestinians are killing Israelis. But as Jewish journalist Hans Knoop responds, the entire article is antisemitic.

Dedecker accuses Jews of using Western guilt for the Holocaust to whitewash their crimes against humanity in Palestine.

He brings quotes (not necessarily authentic ones) from right-wing and left-wing Israelis to demonstrate the vile nature of Jews and to demonize the Jewish people.

He even uses Stalin's purges in order to demonize Jews. Blaming the Palestinians for the Holocaust, he says, is as perverse as blaming the Jews for Stalin's purges. After all, Dedecker claims, many gulags were headed by Jews. He accuses "the Jew" Uritzky of turning the secret police into a "real murder machine". He says that "the Jew" Genrikh Yagoda was Stalin's most effective executioner and was responsible for millions of deaths, and points out that "the Jewish mass-murderer Lazare Kaganovitch" starved millions of Ukrainians.

It is indeed incorrect to blame the Palestinians for the Holocaust in Europe, but it is a fact that the Palestinian leadership pushed for a genocide of all Jews in Muslim countries including Palestine.
Dedecker can claim that he said that it's 'perverse' to blame Jews for Stalin's purges, but this is in fact what he's doing.

Knoop points out that the big Stalin purges happened long before the State of Israel was founded and the Jews were the one group who suffered most from Stalin's terror regime. Bringing the purges up as nothing to do with "criticizing Israeli policy". Dedecker simply wants to show that Jews are despicable.

In fact, Dedecker points out that Orthodox people of all religions are all the same, and does so by denigrating Judaism:

"Ultra-Orthodox Jews men man only touch their wives, the others are apparently infectious. As compensation for the discrimination, the rabbis decided that one may pick his nose on the Sabbath. This isn't seen as work but rather fits the motto 'you should scratch where it itches'."

Dedecker concludes his indictment of Israel, the Jewish lobby and the Jews in general, by claiming that Israel recently adopted a law that bans people who criticize the "Promised Land". Though Israel doesn't need to worry, Dedecker also says that he doesn't want to ever visit Israel again.

Knoop says that Dedecker denies being an antisemite, since it's banned by law, and that as usual in such cases, he will mention his Jewish doctor or that last year he helped a Jewish neighbor with his car. However, if he's not an antisemite, he surely sounds like one.

Vatican: Pope silent when asked to recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people

Last year the Pope wrote in an email that "anyone who does not recognize the Jewish people and the State of Israel — and their right to exist — is guilty of anti-Semitism".

Jews assumed this means the Pope thinks that not recognizing Israel as Jewish is antisemitic. But that's not what he said. He said the Jewish people and the State of Israel have a right to exist. Each one separately.

The Pope repeated that statement a few months later: "Israel has every right to exist"

Does it have a right to exist as the state of the Jewish people? The Pope never said so.

Christian Today, a British Christian news-site, reported that the Pope was "ambushed" with that question and that Israel as a Jewish state is a "highly controversial issue".

Via Arutz 7:

The rabbi told Arutz Sheva that during the visit he turned to the pope and asked him to declare that the church recognizes the state of Israel as the state of the Jewish people, but the clearly embarrassed pope simply responded with silence.

Rabbi Arusi said that while the Catholic church has conducted something of an about face in recent years regarding its relations with the Jewish people, there remains much that it must do.

"The church ignores the state of Israel as the state of the Jewish people, they talk about the Holy Land, but not about the state of Israel," he said.

"Therefore during the meeting with the rabbis after the public event, I turned to the pope and I told him that we appreciate his words against anti-Semitism, but today there is a new and very fierce anti-Semitism built on the basis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

The rabbi called on the pope to be "the Balfour of the Catholic church, and since the land of Israel is the Holy Land and they recognize our birthright, they should declare that the state of Israel is the state of the Jewish people by virtue of the Bible, without diminishing the rights of the Palestinians to a state."

In response, "the pope was very embarrassed by my request, he was never told that directly, and afterwards he smiled but didn't say a thing. I think that the time has come for them to indeed recognize the state of Israel as the state of the Jewish people."

Via Everyday Antisemitism, RIAS:

RIAS have reported antisemitic posters used in a campaign in student elections at the Freie Universität, one of Berlin’s major universities.

The left wing group “Liste 15/Tierbabys und Klassenkampf” [List 15/Baby Animals and Class War] posted up campaign posters featuring a piglet drinking from a Starbucks cup, together with the slogan “Kapitalistenschweinchen sind nicht koscher” [“Capitalist pigs are not kosher”].

The word “kosher” is used to denote food prepared in accordance with Jewish law. It has also found wider use in common parlance to describe legitimacy or genuineness.

Conflating Jews with capitalism, and leveraging anti-capitalist sentiment against the Jewish people, is a centuries-old phenomenon.

(...)

Starbucks, whose Chairman and CEO is Jewish, has long been the focus of anti-Israel campaigners. In 2006, 2009, 2010 and 2014 there were several calls to boycott Starbucks for ‘supporting Israel’

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