Italy: Judge rules slurs against Jews in sport not racism

Via Ynet News (h/t Honestly Concerned):

Members of the Italian Jewish community were disappointed to learn of a recent court ruling in Rome which saw the acquittal of two soccer fans from the S.S Lazio team after being filmed in 2013 calling out anti-Semitic chants.

Policemen brought the two suspects in for investigation shortly after and they later stood trial for “incitement and racial hatred.”

However, the judge appears to have acquitted the two on the grounds that the phrase “Jewish Roma supporter” does not constitute racism, but is rather an acceptable and legitimate term because of the “historic sports antagonism between the two urban teams.”

“This is merely sports ridicule,” the judge said before discharging the two. He even justified his decision by saying that on the same day, Roma fans were not even present in the stadium.

In its essence, the judgement appears to legitimize both abusive chants, including explicit expressions of anti-Semitism, as long as they are expressed within the domain of competitive sport.

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UK: Bacon left near mezuzah is possible hate crime, say police

Via Jewish Chronicle:

Police are treating an incident which involved slices of bacon being hung outside a Jewish home as a possible hate crime.

The raw meat was laid on a metal bracket attached to the doorframe, close to the property’s mezuzah.

Hertfordshire Police are now appealing for witnesses to come forward.

The victim, who does not wish to be identified, reported a second incident to police, whereby a man performed a Nazi salute outside her kitchen window.

No arrests have been made so far, but a man has been questioned by police.

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Germany: Football fans call rivals 'Jews'

Via Watch: Antisemitism in Europe:

Last weekend it not only came to riots among the popular football clubs but also at the match between FC Rot-Weiß Erfurt e.V. and FSV Frankfurt 1899. Some supporters from the FC Carl Zeiss Jena were among the guest fans. When spotted some fans from FC Rot-Weiß Erfurt e.V. shouted the antisemitic slogan "Juden Jena" and the right wing slogan "Rotfront verrecke".

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Netherlands: Campaign against 'Jewish' Moroccan politicans

Via Joods.nl:

Dutch-Moroccans are being encouraged not to vote for the 'traitors of our community'.  The message, which is making the rounds via Whatsapp, refers to a recent debate about social security benefits paid to Dutch-Moroccans returning to Morocco.

It says "[Mohammed] Mohandis and other Moroccan Jews of the Labour Party support reductions, DENK is against."

DENK is a political party founded by Selçuk Öztürk and Tunahan Kuzu.

UK: Labour councillor in ‘appalling’ ‘anti-Semitic’ Rothschilds Twitter tirade

Via Jewish News:

A former Labour parliamentary candidate has been condemned for anti-Semitic postings on Twitter.

Serving Essex councillor John Clarke was criticised after endorsing a post online which said “The Rothschild Family” has used money lending and Israel to “take over the world.”

Claiming the post by ‘Tinnelle’ (@Tinnelle88) was “an oversimplified view of the world economy but containing a great deal of truth”, he was condemned as promoting anti-Semitic material by other users on the social media site.

The councillor, who is also chair of governors of local Essex primary school White Notley, and the local Parish Council, promoted the tweet, which is headlined ““Israel owns the senate, Congress and the Executive” of America… but who owns Israel?”.

The text of the post reads: “The Rothschild Family.. has been creating almost all of the world’s money at interest for a couple of hundred years”.

It adds that they “have used usury (money lending) alongside modern Israel as a imperial instrument to take over the world and all of it’s [sic] resources, including you and I… and if you have a problem with that, you’re and anti-Semite.”
The endorsement of the post by John Clarke, which was followed by a denial he was anti-Semitic

The endorsement of the post by John Clarke, which was followed by a denial he was anti-Semitic

Challenged by users about the post, Clarke, who is the current chair of Whitham branch of Labour, and was the constituency’s prospective parliamentary candidate, repeatedly denied being anti-Semitic.

After sending the tweet, he was challenged, and replied by saying: “It would appear I am being called Antisemitic… I can assure you I am NOT”.

Probed further he said: “I agree original account probably Antisemitic. I am anti-Rothschild not Antisemitic. End of.”

He added: “Antisemite smear in constant overuse as those who use it expand their power base”, and that he objects to “Rothschild & co. against their greed, monopolistic exploitations & unchecked power.”

He concluded by saying he would block those who “accuse me of Antisemitism merely to close down legitimate criticism of Israel &/or Rothschild family. End of.

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Ukraine: Graves from the time of the Holocaust are looted in search of gold teeth

Via CFCA:

Zhytomyr - the looting of Jewish mass graves from the days of the Holocaust have become a widespread epidemic in the country, this emerges from reports in Ukraine. The looters desecrate the graves looking in search of gold teeth, jewelry and skulls which are sold openly in urban markets. In recent years dozens of such cases have been reported in cities in the Zhytomyr Oblast (province) in the west of the country, but most looters are never brought before justice.

The president of the European forum for Russian speaker Jews, Mikhail Ihodnin, says that Ukraine has many mass graves where thousands of Jews were buried who had been killed during the Holocaust years. “We are making efforts to finance concrete and maintenance works to prevent looting and to erect monuments so people would understand the meaning of the place, but unfortunately we do not have enough resources” the president of the forum said.

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Germany: Amazon site promotes sale of anti-Semitic book

Via Arutz 7:

Shimon Samuels, the Director for International Relations of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in France, sent an angry letter of protest to the founder of the 'Amazon' online marketplace, following the site's promotion of a German book which spreads anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

Samuels said that the book, titled Die Rothschilds: Eine Familie beherrscht die Welt (“The Rothschilds: A Family that Controls the World”), is unacceptable and "an outrage."

“This blood libel could have been drawn from the ravings of Hitler to the genocidal Charter of Hamas.” Samuels wrote.

Samuels also pointed out that the author, Tilman Knechtel, used the same cover for another book he wrote, "The Rockefellers." The cover portrays a black-robed figure with bloodied hands raising a dagger to stab a globe.

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Germany: Anti-Israel politician compares Jewish Facebook head with Nazi

Via Jerusalem Post:

The deputy head of Germany’s Social Democratic Party equated the Jewish Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg with a neo-Nazi terrorist on Sunday for her attendance at a Trump administration hi-tech meeting.

The politician, Ralf Stegner, who has previously called on Germany to stop all weapons deliveries to Israel, wrote on his Twitter feed about a picture of Sandberg next to US Vice President Mike Pence: “I thought that Ms. Tschzäpe is in jail.”

It appears that Stegner intentionally misspelled the name of the National Socialist Underground member Beate Zschäpe, who is currently on trial for a campaign of terrorist attacks. She is believed to be a key member of the neo-Nazi NSU group, which murdered eight Turkish and one Greek immigrants between 2000-2006. The NSU cell also murdered a German police officer.

Zschäpe has been on trial since 2013.

After criticism on Twitter, Stegner deleted the tweet. Stegner is from the left-wing of the Social Democratic Party, which is a coalition partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government.

Stegner later tweeted on Sunday: “Sorry, commentary was mistake – was therefore immediately deleted. The tastelessness associated with it was not intentional.”

Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the head of the Simon Wiesenthal’s Jerusalem office, told The Jerusalem Post on Monday, “Let me be clear: Mr. Stegner has a really serious problem, namely, antisemitism. It is not clear to me how a person who has been prejudiced can be vice president of the SPD.”

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Le Pen: Jews should sacrifice yarmulke in struggle against radical Islam

Via Jerusalem Post:

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen said French Jews should give up the wearing of yarmulkes as part of the country’s struggle to defeat radical Islam.

In an interview with Israel’s Channel 2, Le Pen expressed support for banning the wearing of yarmulkes as part of her broader effort to outlaw religious symbols in public, Britain’s Jewish Chronicle reported Sunday.

“Honestly, the dangerous situation in which Jews in France live is such that those who walk with a kippah are in any case a minority because they are afraid,” Le Pen said, using the Hebrew word for yarmulke. “But I mainly think the struggle against radical Islam should be a joint struggle and everyone should say, ‘There, we are sacrificing something.’”

Referring to French Jews, Le Pen added: “Maybe they will do with just wearing a hat, but it would be a step in the effort to stamp out radical Islam in France.”

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UK: Anti-Semitic fliers left on cars at Cambridge University

Via Cambridge News:

Vile leaflets denying the holocaust have been left on cars on Cambridge University property.

Police are investigating following a series of suspected racially-motivated incidents across the city, which seem to be targeting the Jewish community.

On Thursday (February 2) up to 30 leaflets were pinned to cars parked at university premises on Sidgwick Avenue, which supported claims made by convicted Holocaust denier David Irving.

(...)

The fliers reference the recent film Denial , which is based on the 2000 libel trial between Irving and Penguin books, where he was found to have falsified evidence to support his claim the Holocaust was a hoax.

Cambridge historian Sir Richard Evans, who is now president of Wolfson College, was a key witness in the trial, and appears in the film portrayed by actor John Sessions.

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Germany: Hamburg University employs antisemitic South African Islamic theologian

Via Jerusalem Post (h/t Honestly Concerned):

Israel’s Ambassador to Germany Ya’acov Hadas-Handelsman urged the University of Hamburg to dismiss South African Islamic theologian Farid Esack, who has been accused of antisemitism, promoting BDS and fund-raising for the PFLP terrorist group.

The Die Welt newspaper reported on Tuesday that Hadas-Handelsman met with Green Party Hamburg Sen. Katharina Fegebank, who is responsible for the publicly-funded University of Hamburg, and expressed his concerns.

A petition was launched by the group Christian Friends of Israel in North Germany calling on the Hamburg government to rescind Esack’s teaching assignment, the paper said, and the Christian Democratic Union Party in Hamburg is seeking to designate the BDS movement targeting Israel antisemitic.

Esack, who is chairman of the South African BDS movement, welcomed his “comrade” plane hijacker Leila Khaled, of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, at a fund-raiser in 2015. The EU and the US have classified the PFLP as a terrorist organization.

“This is a man [Farid Esack] who expressed antisemitic statements, and who is sympathetic to Holocaust denial. A person with such views has no place as an educator in a university, in particular not in Germany; due to both professional as well as moral and probably also legal reasons,” Israel’s embassy in Berlin told The Jerusalem Post last week.

Carsten Ovens, scientific spokesman of the Christian Democratic Union party in Hamburg, told Die Welt: “Who today under the flag of the BDS movement calls to boycott Israeli goods and services speaks the same language in which people were called on not to buy from Jews.”

Multiple Post press queries to university president Dieter Lenzen were not returned, and questions to the Green Party’s Fegebank on Tuesday went unanswered.

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For Second Year, Croatia's Jews to Boycott Holocaust Tribute

Via Haaretz:

Croatian Jews said on Monday they would boycott the country's main Holocaust remembrance event this week, accusing the authorities of playing down crimes perpetrated under the Nazi-backed Ustasa regime during World War II.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day is held on January 27 each year, the date in 1945 when the biggest Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz in occupied Poland, was liberated by Soviet troops.

Three months ago, rightist veterans of Croatia's 1991-95 independence war raised a commemorative plaque in the town of Jasenovac to comrades killed there at the beginning of the conflict Zagreb fought to secede from Serbian-led Yugoslavia.

Included in the veterans' plaque are words from a salute used by the Ustasha regime that killed tens of thousands of prisoners including Jews, Serbs, Roma gypsies and anti-fascist Croats, in the 1941-1945 Jasenovac concentration camp.

That prompted the association representing Croatia's remnant population of Jews, numbering somewhat over 1,500, to pull out of its primary Holocaust remembrance event, which is normally conducted in the Zagreb parliament.

"We took the decision on the basis of reactions by the government, parliament and the president. The problem is not [just] a plaque in Jasenovac including the Ustasha salute, but the relativization of everything [to do with the Holocaust]," community leader Ognjen Kraus told the state news agency Hina.

The center-right government of Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic - now on an unrelated visit to Israel - proposed last month forming a commission that would legally regulate reappearances of symbols from any past totalitarian regime.

Kraus dismissed the gesture. "If swastika or Ustasha symbols are equated with the [communist] red star, what are we talking about? Are we going to revise history? Establish a commission to tell us what World War II was about?" he said.

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UK: The Guardian wonders how to tackle antisemitism

The Guardian is now suddenly interested in fighting antisemitism. 

Let them know what you think:

If you are trying to tackle antisemitism online we would like to hear from you. Are you running a campaign? Perhaps you tweet positive stories or have organised a petition.

Please share your experiences in the encrypted form below, anonymously if you prefer. We will ensure that the information you provide us is kept secure, and will include a selection of your contributions in our ongoing reporting.

UK: Professor accuses Jewish students of being part of an Israeli plot

Via CAA:

Professor Moshe Machover, who teaches philosophy at the University of London has been exposed voicing support for Hamas, a genocidal antisemitic terrorist organisation which is proscribed under the Terrorism Act. He also accused Jewish students of being under the control of the Israeli embassy.

During a panel event at Queen Mary University of London Friends of Palestine Society, he said: “I’m not opposing their [Hamas’] armed struggle — they have a perfect right to resist with arms. I don’t condemn them. Who is responsible for the rise of Hamas in the Gaza strip? Israel. The most successful struggle was low level violence, popular mobilisation and kids throwing stones. In occupied Lebanon, Hizballah was using armed struggle very successfully, but in the case of Hamas their tactics aren’t very useful.” Machover appears to be complaining that terrorism by Hamas is not as effective as terrorism by Hizballah.

When asked by an audience member if “Israel had a right to exist” he replied “certainly not”. When challenged by a Jewish student, he retorted: “These are the kind of questions that the Israeli propaganda machine actually briefs its representatives to ask?…I know what briefing you get. I have been in this game before you were born, and I know what briefing you get. You always use the same formulations because you are singing from the same sheet of briefing. Long experience, it is a long experience that leads me because I know what Shai Masot [an Israeli embassy official included in an Al Jazeera film we have reported to Ofcom] is up to.” Under the International Definition of Antisemitism recently adopted by the British government, denying Israel’s right to exist and accusing Jews of being part of a conspiracy is antisemitic.

Queen Mary University of London told Cub Magazine: “We have a clear Code of Practice on Freedom of Speech within the law, and all events that take place on our premises are subject to security checks. Once these conditions are met, we believe that our students are able to judge for themselves the merits or otherwise of opinions put forward and views debated.” The Friends of Palestine Society also issued an apology for the “resentful ideologies” that were expressed.

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German data suggests decline in antisemitism in 2016, contrary to report

Via Jerusalem Post:

Antisemitism in Germany appears to have slightly declined in the past year, contrary to a Diaspora Affairs Ministry report published last week.

A statement last week by the ministry said that reported antisemitic attacks in Germany had doubled from 2015 to 2016 – but The Jerusalem Post later learned the number given for 2015 was mistaken.


The ministry report said that between January and September 2015, 194 antisemitic incidents were reported in Germany, and that the number had risen to 461 during the same period in 2016, indicating a dramatic increase.

Official Bundestag documents, however, showed that the number of antisemitic incidents recorded in Germany between January and September 2015, were in fact 538 – 77 more than for the same months of 2016.

Having been subsequently alerted to the mistake by the Post, the ministry reviewed the data and found that the figure 194 had actually been the number recorded for Berlin alone. The ministry was due to release a correction and said the original mistake was caused by a technical error.

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