The New Antisemite

Monday, March 20, 2017

Europe: Ira Forman worried about antisemitism in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Russia

Removing a special envoy position for combating anti-Semitism would send a bad signal to the rest of the world concerning American attitudes on the issue, the former envoy in the Obama administration said Wednesday.

Ira Forman served as the U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism in the State Department from 2013 to 2017. According to Bloomberg, the Trump administration in its budget proposal is considering discontinuing Forman’s and other special envoy offices in an attempt to balance out a $54 billion increase in defense spending. This prompted a bipartisan group of 167 House members to send a letter to the Trump administration Monday asking that he fill the “crucial” office that “enables the U.S. to show the world its commitment to these ideals” of human rights “particularly at a time when anti-Semitism is dangerously on the rise.”

Forman said he believes the special envoy office will be filled, though he didn’t base that assumption on any inside information or contact with the White House. The position is congressionally mandated, so it would require legislation to remove the office.

Forman said that in maintaining itself as a world superpower, the U.S. not only has to sustain its economic and military position in the world, but it also must maintain core values. Combating anti-Semitism is part of that, said Forman, who spoke at Georgetown University's Center for Jewish Civilization. (...)

Forman is most concerned about Jewish communities in France, which has the largest Jewish population outside the U.S. or Israel with nearly 500,000, and Turkey, where he believes anti-Semitism is used frequently as a political tool. Belgium, the Netherlands and Russia also made his list.

Poland: New book on killing of Jews exposes raw nerve

Via CBS:

A prominent Polish historian presented evidence Wednesday about Polish villagers’ widespread killing of Jews fleeing Nazis during World War II, touching a raw nerve in a country still grappling with its role during the Holocaust.

The research is likely to irk the nationalist Polish government, which has taken aim at those seeking to undermine its official stance that Poles were only heroes in the war, not collaborators who committed heinous crimes.

In launching the English-language version of her 2011 book, “Such a Beautiful Sunny Day,” Barbara Engelking details dozens of cases of everyday Poles raping Jewish women and bludgeoning Jews to death with axes, shovels and rocks. The book, which came out in Polish under the previous government, takes its title from the last words of a Jew pleading with peasants to spare his life before he was beaten and shot to death. It offers a searing indictment of Polish complicity that will now reach a far wider audience.

“The responsibility for the extermination of Jews in Europe is borne by Nazi Germany,” she writes. “Polish peasants were volunteers in the sphere of murdering Jews.”

(...)

Havi Dreifuss, a Tel Aviv University scholar and director of Yad Vashem’s center for research on the Holocaust in Poland, said Engelking’s research has shed new light on the last phase of the Holocaust, after Jews were packed into ghettos and sent to extermination camps, and how even those who had managed to survive that still faced the wrath of their compatriots.

She said estimates range between 160,000-250,000 Jews who escaped and sought help from fellow Poles. She said only about 10-20 percent of those survived, with the rest rejected, informed upon or killed by the rural Poles themselves.

“This research reveals not only the Jewish immense efforts to escape, as well as the Jewish despair and helplessness. It also exposes the terrible reality in which those Jews found themselves: a reality where very few acts of kindness were lost among the countless acts of cruelty, abuse and meanness,” she said.

UK: Labour Hall Green candidate deselected after sharing 'anti-Semitic' Facebook posts

Via Birmingham Mail:

A Labour Party candidate has been deselected from a council by-election after sharing anti-Semitic Jewish conspiracy theories on social media.

The controversial Facebook posts from Alison Gove-Humphries emerged four days after she had been selected by members in Hall Green to stand for election in May.

The Birmingham Board of the Labour Party met on Friday night to begin the process of approving potential candidates for the 2018 council elections.
Read More

Mrs Gove-Humphries had argued the controversial posts were shared by her on a private Facebook page and were taken out of context . She highlighted a previous association with the Holocaust Education Trust.

But the Board decided to remove Mrs Gove-Humphries from its list.

UK: “Scum Nazis” scrawled across Belfast memorial for commander of the Jewish Legion during First World War

Via CAA:

The Police Service of Northern Ireland is investigating a graffiti attack on the memorial to the former commander of the so-called Jewish Legion as a hate crime.

“Scum Nazis” was scrawled across the memorial to Lt Col John Henry Patterson DSO who commanded the so-called Jewish Legion during the First World War, which was the first Jewish fighting force in nearly two millennia. Whilst his men fought with distinction, Lt Col Patterson, who was not Jewish, had to defend them from the antisemitism of his superiors, peers and subordinates, even threatening to resign his commission on multiple occasions in protest at the treatment of his soldiers. Lt Col Patterson sacrificed any hope of a successful military career in order to stand by his Jewish soldiers and ensure that they were treated fairly.

In accordance with his dying wish, Lt Col Patterson was reburied in Israel in 2014 in order to be close to the soldiers who fell under his command.

The memorial had only recently been restored following an attempt to set it alight.

Hungary’s Ugly State-Sponsored Holocaust Revisionism

Via Tablet (h/t glykosymoritis):

Does it matter if a country consciously lies about its past? An excerpt from the new book, ‘The End of Europe' By James Kirchick

Why does it matter if a country consciously lies about its past? Inculcating in future generations a litany of myths about national innocence, perpetual victimhood, and lost honor grants license to irresponsible and dangerous behavior. Today’s fight over memory politics in Hungary echoes the mid-1980s German Historikerstreit, or historians’ controversy. That dispute centered on whether the crimes of Nazi Germany were singular evils or comparable to other mass atrocities, in particular, those of Stalinism. The intellectual combatants of the Historikerstreit brought no new facts to bear but only argued over how to interpret what was already widely known. In the words of the German essayist Peter Schneider, so heated was the argumentation, so deeply did it impinge on Germany’s understanding of itself, that the fusillade of polemics in the feuilletons attracted “a level of curiosity among the general public normally aroused by photos of the British royal family in swimsuits.”

(...)

After much back and forth, Nolte and his confrères were soundly refuted in the court of German public opinion. Among Germans today, it is a consensus view that the Holocaust was a singular event and that Germany has a duty to preserve the memory of the Holocaust and impart it to future generations. Germans have so thoroughly imbibed the awful lessons of their history that their country is one of the more immune in Europe to far-right populism.

Hungary, by contrast, has undertaken no such reckoning. In the same way that Ernst Nolte wanted ordinary Germans to feel a straightforward patriotism, uncomplicated by guilt over the Nazi past, Viktor Orbán and Mária Schmidt wish to muddy the distinctions between victim and perpetrator in order to present a simplistic view of Hungarian history. Nolte’s complaint that preoccupation with the Holocaust served “the interests of the persecuted and their descendants in a permanent, privileged status” sounds indistinguishable from Schmidt’s allegation that the progeny of the victims of Hungarian fascism “would like to consider their ancestors’ tragic fate an inheritable and advantageous privilege.” It is inconceivable that a German chancellor today would express a desire to “preserve Germany for the Germans.” Yet this is precisely the sort of language, redolent of the 1930s, that Viktor Orbán uses today about Hungary. Convinced that Hungarians are perennial victims of global machinations—abetted by his “evil” domestic opponents—and unencumbered by comprehension of, or a sense of humility about, where heedless nationalism has taken his country in the past, Orbán feels emboldened to advance a chauvinist political agenda.

Norway: Left-wing party split on proposal to ban circumcision

Via Jerusalem Post (h/t morsmal):

A proposal to support a ban on ritual circumcision and label it child abuse is splitting the leadership of a liberal party in Norway that supports outreach to Muslim immigrants.

Socialist Left secretary Kari Elisabeth Kaski will push for language supporting the ban in the party’s official platform during a general assembly meeting this weekend, the Klasse Kampen far-left news site reported Thursday.

The plank would propose 15 years as the minimum age for non-medical circumcision of boys, pending their consent. Jews typically have boys circumcised at 8 days old in a ritual called brit milah. The Muslim variant typically occurs later in life but before the age of 13.

Party leaders Audun Lysbakken and Snorre Valen oppose the plan.

“For Norwegian Jews, such a ban would be difficult to deal with,” Lysbakken said. “From the minority’s perspective, this proposal therefore is deeply troubling and I hope those promoting it will reconsider.”

France: Why some Jewish parents are taking their kids out of public schools

Via KUOW:

When her 7-year-old son, Noah, came home from school with a black eye, Virginie Selem decided she had finally had enough.

“He told me someone at school had called him a dirty Jew,” says Selem, a mother of three living in Alfortville, a middle-class suburb southeast of Paris.

Selem describes her family as not especially religious, but at the start of the next school year, she took her three children out of the French public education system and put them in a private Jewish school.

“When [Noah] was in public school he came home feeling ashamed,” Selem says. “I wanted my kids to come home from school without feeling shame.”

French law prohibits collecting statistics based on race, ethnicity and religion, so it is difficult to quantify the number of Jewish students leaving public schools. But anecdotal evidence — and a steady flow of Jews leaving not only French schools, but France itself — points to a climate of insecurity that may be getting worse.

Much of that insecurity seems to be fueled by tensions between France’s Muslim and Jewish populations at a moment of particular volatility after some high-profile terrorist attacks aimed at French Jews.

Spain: Antisemitic graffiti at the University of Barcelona

Via CFCA:

Barcelona – this antisemitic graffiti (all the Jews to the gas chambers) was written on the wall of icons powered by the BDS organization of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, not far from the "apartheid week".

The organization said that the they will erase the graffiti because the organization's intent is to condemn "Israel’s Apartheid". But the fact is that the organization offers a perfect platform for anti-Semitic messages, among other expressions of hatred.

Holland: Anti-Semitic slogans ('Cancer Jews') shouted by Muslims at demonstrations that have nothing to do with Jews

Via European Jewish Press (Yossi Lempkowicz, Editor-in-Chief):

(...) Jewish groups, who are regularly expressing their worries at electoral gains of populist parties across Europe, will probably also be somewhat relieved with the elections results in the Netherlands.

While some of these parties are openly pro-Israel and try to connect to the Jewish communities, representative Jewish groups are avoiding open contacts with them because they fear for democracy and European values.

But there is no doubt that a significant number of Jews in the Netherlands voted for Wilders out of fear from the radical Islamists. The same will probably happen in France.

Just look at what happened last week in Rotterdam where in the midst of a diplomatic crisis between the Netherlands and Turkey, hundreds of young men confronted police, hurling stones at them while shouting "Allahu Akbar". Some in the crowd shouted "cancer Jews". It was one of several incidents recently in the Netherlands where anti-Semitic slogans were shouted at demonstrations that had nothing to do with Jews.

For Dutch Jews, the affair also underlined a growing concern over the defiance of a minority among local Muslims, whose anti-Semitic attitudes and actions are generating an anti-Muslim backlash in a once-tolerant society.

"It shows the centrality of anti-Semitism as a core identity value among some Muslim immigrants and their descendants," says Manfred Gerstenfeld who has written extensively about the Netherlands.

A similar situation happened in 2014 in France, amid protests over Israel’s strikes against Hamas in Gaza. Anti-Semitic hostility led dozens of French Arab rioters to besiege a synagogue in Sarcelles, a Paris suburb.

Such situations have led some Jewish voters to be inclined to turn to anti-Islam and anti-immigrant parties rather than voting for mainstream parties which are criticizing Israel's policies and sometimes are lenient towards Islamist extremists. So what is good for Jews in Europe?

Germany: Frankfurt Mayor urges cancellation of BDS 'Don't buy from Jews' event

Via The Jerusalem Post (Benjamin Weinthal):

Frankfurt Mayor Uwe Becker hammered a pro-Palestinian group on Monday and Wednesday for promoting a Nazi-style boycott against Israel and told a local center to cancel a June event with the organization.

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against the Jewish state that the group – German Coordinating Circle Palestine/Israel, or Kopi – supports, pursues “deeply antisemitic propaganda,” Becker told the Frankfurter Rundschau daily. He added that BDS uses “the same language as the National Socialists... ‘Don’t Buy from Jews.’”

Becker announced on Wednesday that he plans to stage a protest against the Kopi event in front of its location in June, according to a report in the Rundschau.

The anti-Israel event, titled “50 Years of Israeli Occupation,” is slated to take place at the Ka Eins Conference Center in Frankfurt on June 9 and 10.

Becker is a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union Party.

Co-organizer of the protest demonstration, Sacha Stawski told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday: “Frankfurt is a multicultural city with a strong connection to Israel. There is no place for one-sided Israel-hatred. An event which criticizes the core of Israel’s existence, which calls for a boycott of the Jewish state, which demonizes and delegitimizes Israel and which applies a double standard on the Jewish state – which it does not apply to any other state – has nothing to do with legitimate criticism and should not take place here.”

Stawski, who is editor-in-chief of the Frankfurt-based media watchdog organization Honestly Concerned, added, “We are grateful to Mayor Uwe Becker for his outspoken criticism and we are still hopeful to be able to prevent this antisemitic hate-fest from taking place.”

He called the participants “an assembly of Israel-haters and antisemites, who regularly propagate for the demise of the Jewish state, who speak of an ‘ethical cleansing’ of the Palestinian population and who compare Jews to Nazis.”

Poland: Commemorating the blood libel of Poznań

Erik Ross writes how Poznań commemorates its blood libel:

The pious history tells how, in 1399, a group of Poznań Jews — wanting to see if the wafers were indeed, in the Church’s phrase, “the Body of Christ” — decided to bribe a poor Polish woman to steal three hosts from the Dominican church down the block. One version of the story says she smuggled the hosts out in her mouth.

read more

The blood libel is commemorated in churches and signs around the old 'Jew street'.

Ceiling paintings commemorating the blood libel at the Church of the Most Holy Blood of the Lord Jesus. Built in the 18th century and recently renovated

Plaque inside The Church of the Most Holy Blood of the Lord Jesus

Jews supposedly trying to get rid of the stolen hosts in a swamp. A church was built over the site.

A 15th century stone tablet tells the blood-libel. It was recently re-gilded.

Italy: BDS conference cancelled in Rome after protests from Jewish community

Via EJP:

A conference organized by the anti-Israel Boycott Disinvestment Sanctions (BDS) movement in Rome in the context of the ‘’Israel Apartheid Week’’ was postponed after the Jewish community and the Israeli embassy called for its cancellation.

The conference, entitled "Gaza, we break the siege’’, included the participation of American Ann Wright and of Stefano Fassina, a leftist politician. It was due to have taken place in a room at the Rome City Hall but the authorities finally refused to make the room available. (...)

Noemi Di Segni, President of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, had called on Rome mayor, Virginia Raggi, to prohibit the event by stressing that the BDS "is not a movement of opinion but a real anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish hate catalyst.’’ ‘’Every institutional legitimacy to these criminals is thus not only inappropriate, but downright dangerous for the whole of society,’’ she said.

Ruth Dureghello, president of the Jewish Community of Rome, spoke of an "appalling event," stating that:" In Rome there can be no space for anti-Semitic positions or associations who want the destruction of Israel.’’

The Deputy Chief of Mission of the Israeli embassy in Rome Dan Haezrachy had pointed the finger at ‘’the inadequacy of the place chosen to host an event supported by an anti-Semitic organization.’’

The president of the Rome Jewish Community of Rome Ruben della Rocca had judged "very serious" than in an institutional site would be hosted "a racist movement like BDS.

Via The Jewish Chronicle:

An anti-Israel activist seen to be promoting boycotts was spotted buying his falafel lunch at the Israeli chain Maoz, in Amsterdam. The man dressed in a high visibility vest, with the Palestinian flag and the words “Boycott Israel” written in bold, was pictured filling up on salad for his falafel. The picture caused amusement on a Dutch Jewish news Facebook page, where people have been quick to point out the irony. The Maoz chain was founded by Israeli husband and wife Nahman Milo and Sima Bar-On. According to the chain's website customers have the pick of two main items, the Maoz Falafel Sandwich and the Maoz Falafel Salad Box.

UK: Anti-Semites are becoming bolder in Britain, and that should worry us all

Gideon Falter, Chairman of Campaign Against Anti-Semitism:

Today in Britain, it is practically impossible for a Jewish layperson to achieve a prosecution for an anti-Semitic hate crime. I see you raising an eyebrow, so I will explain.

Recently my charity was approached by a non-Jewish lady who had been mistaken for a Jew and consequently borne the brunt of unsolicited threats and abuse whilst minding her own business in a busy public place. As a non-Jew, she expected that her abuser would be swiftly investigated and prosecuted. Unfortunately victims of anti-Semitism experience a very different reality, as she soon found out.

But the Chairman of Campaign Against Anti-Semitism would have no such difficulty, you might think. It is certainly what I thought. Let me tell you my story. On 4th July 2015, neo-Nazis planned to march through Golders Green, the heart of Jewish London, during the Jewish Sabbath. That was unacceptable to the Met, so they proposed confining the neo-Nazi “anti Jewification” march to the memorial at the centre of Golders Green to those who died fighting the Nazis.

Only when we threatened a large counterprotest which threatened to cause traffic problems did the Met decide to move the neo-Nazis to a kettling pen in Westminster. I decided to go along and see what they had to say. Most did their best to stay within the law on incitement, which meant that their speeches were angry, rants against an unspecified “you know who”, but when Jeremy Bedford-Turner took the mic, he felt no constraints.

Even his audience of neo-Nazi thugs seemed surprised by his candour as he intoned that “...all politicians are nothing but a bunch of puppets dancing to a Jewish tune, and the ruling regimes in the West for the last one hundred years have danced to the same tune.”

Evoking medieval libels which claimed that Jews drank the blood of non-Jewish children, Bedford-Turner told his followers, that the French Revolution and both World Wars were massacres perpetrated by Jews. He concluded that England was “merry” during the period of the expulsion of Jews from England and concluded with a call to “free England from Jewish control.”

This is out-and-out incitement of the kind that is criminalised because history shows us where it leads. I reported Bedford-Turner’s speech to the police, and presented them with the video the neo-Nazis had helpfully placed online. Most Jewish people would at this point encounter apathy from the Met. Perhaps because I run a national charity which works with Downing Street and the Home Office, and because my evidence was incontrovertible, the case was passed straight to the Crown Prosecution Service’s counterterrorism division. And that is where the trail went cold.

UK: ‘Beware of Jews’ road sign was part of project on identity, artist reveals