Friday, December 1, 2017

UK: 'Hitler had best ovens' Jewish book store told


Via The Jewish Chronicle:
Staff at a Judaica store have been left “shocked” after an anonymous caller rang the shop and said “Hitler had the best ovens”. 
Brauns Judaica, in Stamford Hill, north London received the call at around 6pm yesterday. 
The antisemitic comment was all that was said before the phone was put down. A member of staff at the shop told the JC: “It was very, very bad – it was very scary. If they start calling you, what’s going to be next? It’s really shocking.” 
The telephone call is the latest in a number of antisemitic incidents which have taken place in Stamford Hill, including swastikas being daubed on walls and roads and members of the area’s Jewish community being subjected to verbal and physical abuse.
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Thursday, November 30, 2017

Hungarian leaders say they keep Jews safe by keeping out Muslim immigrants


Via Times of Israel:
At a conference about anti-Semitism in Europe, senior Hungarian officials said the absence of violence against Jews in their country owed to its refusal to admit Muslim immigrants.

The assertion, which at least one Jewish expert on anti-Semitism disputed, came amid criticism of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s right-wing government by other European leaders of his immigration policy, and a dispute between the Hungarian leader and some Jewish community leaders who accuse Orban of encouraging or tolerating anti-Semitic rhetoric.

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Whereas other European countries have seen jihadist terrorist attacks against Jews and others in recent years, “Hungary has been consistently able to protect its citizens and residents, its borders and its fundamental elements of statehood from mass immigration and international terrorism,” Minister of State for Security Policy István Mikola said Wednesday at an event in Budapest titled “Are Europe’s Jews Safe?” and organized by the Hungarian Jewry’s watchdog on anti-Semitism, the Action and Protection Foundation.

Csaba Latorkai, deputy state secretary for priority social affairs, noted the 2015 killing of a Jewish security guard in Denmark by an Islamist along with other attacks, including the murder of 137 people in Paris by other Islamists later that year.

“Taking security and administrative measures to prevent such acts, the Hungarian government acted, and so in the autumn of 2015 it decided to set up a border fence, introduced a legal closing of borders,” Latorkai said in his speech, adding it was “in order to protect citizens and make Hungary one of the most secure places in world. No one should be afraid that there may be attacks on our streets.”

(...)

The chairman of the Action and Protection Foundation, Daniel Bodnar, said at the conference that while ant-Semitic violence remains extremely rare in Hungary, the country has seen anti-Semitic rhetoric proliferating over the past decade, notably through the far-right Jobbik party and its affiliated media.

In 2016 and 2015, his foundation recorded 23 and 53 incidents in Hungary, which has approximately 100,000 Jews, with no physical assaults of individuals. It has initiated dozens of criminal cases since its establishment in 2012.

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Germany: Jews stop wearing Kippot due to Muslim attacks


Via Jerusalem Post:
Members of the small Jewish community in the West German city of Bochum announced that they will no longer wear kippot because of attacks on them by Muslim youths.

(...)

The news outlet Radio Bochum first reported that a representative of the community said members will stop wearing kippot in public because they are routinely faced with insults on public streets when they are recognized as Jews.

“Muslim youths attacked people of the Jewish faith,” the segment said.

Bochum is an industrial city in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia with a population of nearly 365,000. Bochum’s Jewish community, which includes the towns of Herne and Hattingen, numbers over 1,000.

(...)

Bochum has been a hotspot for anti-Israel hatred. In 2014, some 120 activists marched to Bochum’s city hall chanting “Israel, child murderers” and “Allahu Akbar.” The anti-Israel demonstrators protested Israel’s war to stop the Islamic organization Hamas’s rocket attacks on Israeli territory. 

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Italy bars Palestinian terrorist and BDS advocate Leila Khaled


Via The Jerusalem Post (Benjamin Weinthal):
Convicted Palestinian terrorist Leila Khaled was barred from entering Italy on Wednesday on the grounds that she lacked a valid visa.

Olga Deutsch, Europe Desk director at the Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor, told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday: "We applaud Italy's decision to deny entry to infamous terrorist Leila Khaled at Rome's Fiumicino Airport, the same place from which she once hijacked an airliner.  As a research institute, NGO Monitor documented Khaled's September 2017 speech at the European Parliament and alerted senior EU officials. We have long warned European governments that they have been funding radical, politicized NGOs, including those linked to the PFLP terror group and which were involved with Khaled's event."

She added, "We hope that Italy's move, coming on the heels of European Parliament President Tajani's decision to bar terror-linked individuals and organizations from EU premises, signals a new awareness among European leadership, and that it leads European Institutions and governments to reexamine policies that fund such NGOs".

Khaled, a member of the US- and EU-designated terrorist entity Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), has conducted speaking tours across Europe over the years to promote the abolition of Israel and the spread of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign.
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Wednesday, November 29, 2017

UK: Pensioner sentenced over anti-Semitic slogans


Via Jewish News:
A 68-year-old pensioner from Altrincham has been sentenced for carrying out a spray-paint graffiti campaign which saw him scrawl slogans which included “BDS”, “Gaza Bleeds” and “ZioNazis”.

Timothy Rustige pleaded guilty to eight counts of criminal damage, which were carried out between September 2016 and August 2017, and saw the messages written on the River Bollin Aqueduct in Dunham Massey. 


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Germany: MP accused of making anti-Semitic, racist videos for far-right group

Via Politico:
A senior member of the Alternative for Germany party is accused of having produced anti-Semitic and racist videos for a radical far-right group.

According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Peter Felser, a member of the Bundestag and one of the AfD’s parliamentary party deputies, is an owner of a production company called wk&f Kommunikation which, from 2001 to 2003, made campaign films for the extreme-right Republikaner (Republicans) party.

The Republikaner party has in the past been monitored by German intelligence services because of extreme views, FAZ reported.

The videos produced by Felser’s firm were banned. A German court found that one of the video clips was “endorsing, denying or downplaying the Holocaust,” Spiegel reported.

Felser told Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung he regretted the films, and agreed that “indeed, they could be understood as a denial of the Holocaust.”

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Russia: Bishop caims that Jews killed Czar in ritual murder


Via Haaretz:
Russia’s largest Jewish organization protested a local bishop’s claim, repeated by a justice ministry official, that the country’s last czar was murdered by Jews for ritual purposes.

Marina Molodtsova, a senior investigator for a special ministerial committee on the 1917 killing of Czar Nicholas II of Russia, said on Monday during a conference in Moscow that her committee will conduct “a psycho-historical examination” to find out whether the execution of the royal family was a ritual murder, the state-run Ria Novosti news agency reported.

At the same event, Father Tikhon Shevkunov, a Russian Orthodox Church bishop, said that, according to “the most rigorous approach to the version of ritual murder, a significant part of the church commission [on Nicholas II’s killing during the Russian revolution of 1917] has no doubt that this murder was ritual.”

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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:

German schoolbook publisher apologizes for anti-Semitic illustration

Via JTA:
A schoolbook publisher has apologized for using an anti-Semitic illustration in a text about the euro crisis and said it will send a substitute page to schools.
On Thursday, Berlin-based Klett-Verlag also said it was halting all further deliveries of the book, calling the error “serious.” The substitute page can be pasted in.
The book will not be removed from German schools’ bookshelves.
Klett-Verlag told Vice magazine blogger Philipp Frohn that the “regrettable mistake” would be corrected in a future edition, which will not come out for several years.
At issue is an image in the firm’s textbook about politics, called “Impulses 2.” It depicts the euro as a Pacman-like chomping mouth about to devour Europe superimposed over a symbol with the words “Rothschild Bank.”
The notion that the Jewish banking family is controlling the world for its own selfish purposes “is a classic anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that the Nazis made good use of,” Frohn wrote.
“The message to pupils … is clear: The driving force behind the whole nasty affair is a bank. A Jewish bank,” he added.
The book credits the notorious American illustrator David Dees, whose work the New York-based Anti-Defamation League called “anti-Semitic and conspiratorial” in a 2008 report. The ADL noted that Dees, on his own website, said he hoped his images would “wake others up about the onslaught of the elite’s power hungry world government plan of domination.”
His current illustrations include portrayals of Hillary Clinton as a zombie; Donald Trump chained around the neck by a golden fob bearing the words “The Fed” and a Star of David; and work suggesting that mass shootings in schools are a Jewish conspiracy against the NRA.
Frohn said the publisher reacted with surprise to his questions about how Dees’ illustration ended up in the textbook, which has been used in schools across Germany since 2012. The publisher responded after “internal discussions” to say that “the use of this caricature is in fact a regrettable mistake,” and promising to remove the image from its online version of the chapter “as soon as possible.” But it could take years before a new edition is published, a spokesperson added.
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Spain: First travelling Auschwitz exhibition hit by anti-Semitic hate campaign


Via Daily Telegraph:
Organisers of the first major off-site exhibition of objects and artefacts from Auschwitz have been targeted by virulent social media attacks leading up to the world premiere opening of the display in Madrid on December 1.

“People use the anonymity of social media to launch negationist and hate-filled messages. This shows us that there are still people who need to know this story,” Luis Ferreiro, the director of Spanish company Musealia, told the Daily Telegraph.

More than 100 messages have been reported to the Spanish authorities, including messages denying the Holocaust.

The exhibition features more than 600 objects from Auschwitz, including one of the freight wagons used to carry prisoners to the camp.

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Europe: 60 MEPs urge Federica Mogherini to marginalize financially and politically anti-Israel groups like BDS

This initiative comes shortly after, the European Parliament decided that terrorists like Leila Khaled would not be granted further access to the Parliament.

Via European Jewish Press:
In a letter, the cross party group of 60 [out of 751, less than 10 per cent, full list below] Members of the European Parliament urged Federica Mogherini to marginalize, both financially and politically organizations such as BDS that are increasingly becoming a virulent source in the spread of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism under the pretense of exercising freedom of speech and association. 
The move is spearheaded by representatives of the four major political groups, MEP Cristian Dan Preda, MEP Ioan Mircea Pascu (S&D, Romania) and a Vice-President of the  European Parliament, MEP Petras Austrevicius (ALDE, Lithuania), MEP Arne Gericke (ECR, Germany). 
It “calls upon ensuring that no public funds go to organizations calling for a boycott of the State of Israel, and to instruct agencies not to engage with companies, organizations or other entities involved with the BDS movement”. 
MEP Cristian Dan Preda, foreign affairs coordinator for the largest political group, the European People’s Party, and co-initiator of the letter underlined  his party’s  opposition to calls for the suspension of the bilateral agreements with Israel  as some of his extreme left wing colleagues echo directly from the BDS playbook.   “It’s in the interest of this House, and of our citizens, to see an upgrade in the partnership agreement with Israel. We should not allow the current stalemate in the peace process to dictate the terms of our relationship with Israel.” 
Swedish MEP and President of Europe Israel Public Affairs (EIPA) political Board Lars Adaktusson - a co- signatory - underlined that “the Union, and the Parliament, is in danger of being deemed irrelevant as a peace broker if it fails to address the incitement on its own soil against Israel.”  
Vice President of the European Parliament, Ioan Mircea Pascu indicated that boycotting strategic ties with Israel, a leader in the international intelligence and defence community, may prove counterproductive to the common security interests of both, EU and Israel. 
The 60 signatories, among which are Chair of Security and Defence, MEP Anna Fotyga (ECR, Poland), Vice-Preident Pavel Telicka (ALDE, Czech Republic), Dietmar Koster (S&D, Germany), Vice-Chair of Human Rights Beatriz Becerra (ALDE, Spain) urged their Foreign Affairs chief to “address the incitement to hatred and violence and discriminatory practice of calls for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against the State of Israel.”
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MEPs who signed the letter:
MEP Cristian Preda
MEP Ioan Mircea Pascu
MEP Lars Adaktusson
MEP Arne Gericke
MEP Petras Auštrevičius
MEP Fulvio Martusciello
MEP Niedermüller Péter
MEP Marijana Petir
MEP Ramon Tremosa Balcells
MEP Maria Grapini 
MEP Traian Ungureanu
MEP Beatriz Becerra
MEP Alojz Peterle
MEP Antonio López-Istúriz White
MEP Inese Vaidere
MEP Milan Zver
MEP Anna Fotyga - Biuro Poselskie
MEP Renate Weber
MEP Frédérique Ries
MEP Geoffrey Van Orden
MEP Ramona Manescu
MEP Hannu Takkula
MEP Tunne Kelam MEP
MEP Daciana Sârbu
MEP John Flack MEP
MEP Miltos Kyrkos
MEP Julia Pitera
MEP Artis Pabriks
MEP Iuliu Winkler
MEP Adina Ioana VALEAN

MEP Dietmar Köster
MEP Olga Sehnalová, oficiální stránka
MEP Anna Zaborska
MEP Christofer Fjellner 
MEP Heinz K. Becker
MEP Jan Zahradil - oficiální stránka lídra ODS pro volby do EP
MEP Patricia Lalonde
MEP Alberto Cirio
MEP José Inácio Faria
MEP Miroslav Mikolášik
MEP Elisabetta Gardini
MEP Salvo Pogliese
MEP Alessandra Mussolini
MEP BARBARA MATERA
MEP Massimiliano Salini
MEP Gunnar Hökmark
MEP Branislav Škripek
MEP Rupert Matthews MEP
MEP Stefano Maullu
MEP Aldo Patriciello
MEP Светослав Малинов / Svetoslav Malinov
MEP Pavel Telička
MEP Iveta Grigule
MEP Charles Goerens
MEP Laima Andrikienė
MEP György Hölvényi
MEP Monika Beňová
MEP Esteban González Pons
MEP Viorica Dancila
MEP Andi Cristea

Source: EIPA (Europe Israel Public Affairs) here and here

Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Poland: 'Entry forbidden to Jews, Commies, and all thieves and traitors of Poland,' reads sign at the entrance of guesthouse

Via European Jewish Press:
The World Jewish Congress says it was ‘’deeply disturbed and disappointed’’ by the Polish government’s apparent failure to intervene to remove a flagrantly anti-Semitic banner at the entrance to a guest house near the western city of Wroclaw, and to prosecute those responsible for posting it.

Against a red and white backdrop that are the colors of the Polish flag, the sign at the Dom Polski guest house in Cesarzowice declares "Entry forbidden to Jews, Commies, and all thieves and traitors of Poland."

WJC CEO Robert Singer said that the sign “conjures up memories of ghetto benches and other chilling manifestations of anti-Semitism in Poland in the late 1930s. Given Poland’s history, we would have expected the authorities to act forcefully and swiftly to put a stop to such activity, which is illegal and utterly contravenes the democratic norms Warsaw is committed to upholding.”

According to press reports, the guest house belongs to Piotr Rybak, who is known for a number of anti-Semitic actions including the burning of a Jew in effigy on the main market square in Wroclaw (for which he was sentenced to a jail term) and for publicly insulting first lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda for her Jewish origins.
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Sweden: Antisemitism in Malmö leads to shrinking Jewish community

Via Arutz Sheva 7 (Manfred Gertenfeld):
The third-largest Swedish town Malmö is considered by many experts to be the capital of contemporary European anti-Semitism. A few of the many aspects that justify this characterization are exposed in part of a new German documentary titled “The eternal anti-Semite – the story of an unrequited love.” It was shown very early this morning –- on the occasion of the anniversary of Kristallnacht -- on Bavarian TV.
The film follows the German Jewish author, Henryk Broder, who travels in Germany, France and Sweden. He is often accompanied by Hamad abdel Samad, an Egyptian writer living in Germany. Several Egyptian Muslim theologians have issued a fatwa that abdel Samad must killed for heresy. In the film he is seen with police bodyguards. 
Before Broder and Abdel Samad came to Malmö they made appointments with the head of the police and the mayor, but those were cancelled at the last minute. They met the town’s American rabbi, Shneur Kesselman. He tells them that the shrinking community had to put bullet proof windows in the synagogue. Even that did not help. A bomb went off in front of the synagogue and another bomb was thrown into the chapel of the Jewish cemetery and totally destroyed it. 
The rabbi, who belongs to the Chabad movement, says that he is regularly harassed when walking on the street. From passing cars people may shout insults at him such as “Death to the Jews.” Objects thrown at him include an apple, a lighter, a glass and a bottle. Kesselman arrived in  Malmö twelve years ago. He says that if he had known the reality for Jews in the town he would not have come, but now he will not leave out of loyalty toward the shrinking Jewish community. 
Kesselman expects many children of community members to leave Malmö. A few weeks ago, long after the movie was completed, stones again shattered the synagogue’s windows. On that occasion a former chairman of the Jewish community told the press that most incidents are perpetrated by Muslims or Arabs. 
A Jewish teacher at a public elementary school in a problematic neighborhood in Malmö is also interviewed. He speaks about shootings in the neighborhood, sometimes with lethal consequences. Children from other classes sometimes open the class doors and shout anti-Semitic insults at him. An eleven year old yelled Heil Hitler. The school’s management does not want to publicize the anti-Semitic incidents saying: “they are only children.” 
Before driving through a Malmö neighborhood with a large number of migrants, the police warns the filmmakers that they should not leave the car or even stop. This translates into plain English as: “This is a Muslim ghetto where the police have lost control.”
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Monday, November 27, 2017

Germany: TV pulls the plug on Roger Waters concert due to antisemitism

Via The Jerusalem Post (Benjamin Weinthal):
The German public television outlet WDR canceled its slated cooperation concert with the former Pink Floyd band member Roger Waters on Saturday because of a wave of protest against the singer’s anti-Jewish views.

Malca Goldstein-Wolf launched a petition campaign to prevent WDR from using taxpayer money to fund a “Jew-hater.”

She said the chairman of the Cologne-based TV outlet Tom Buhrow is allowing the spread of antisemitism by televising Waters, who is an energetic supporter of the BDS campaign, which targets Israel and has used antisemitic imagery at his concerts.

Buhrow responded in a Facebook post to Goldstein-Wolf on Saturday, writing “I sense that not many words and arguments will convince you, rather only clear action. The cooperation with the concert was ended.”

Goldstein-Wolf’s online petition titled “No support for the antisemite Roger Walters with public funds of the WDR” garnered nearly 1,400 signatures.
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German state exhorts gov't to ban Kuwait Airlines over Israel discrimination

Via i24NEWS:
The parliament of the central German state Hesse unanimously passed a resolution on Friday calling on Chancellor Angela Merkel and the federal government to stop Kuwait Airways from operating in Germany due to the airline's ban on Israeli passengers. 
As Kuwait does not recognize Israel, its law prohibits companies from doing business with Israelis. 
“Such legislation is contrary to the principles of an open society and is not only an ‘anti-Israeli’ policy, but also a clearly anti-Semitic one,” the resolution read. 
The issue has come to light as a German court recently upheld Kuwait Airways' right to refuse to carry Israelis aboard its flights. The case involved an Israeli student living in Frankfurt who sued the airline for canceling his ticket due to his nationality. 
Christian Democratic Union parliamentary leader Michael Boddenberg called the resolution “a clear signal against anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli policy,” according to the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper.
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