Germany: Alliance between neo-Nazis and German Arabs is 'expression of a deep hatred of Jews'

 
Via Jerusalem Post:

The interior ministry of Germany’s most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia, announced  last month that “strange alliances” were formed to launch antisemitic protests against Israel's self-defense war against Hamas, including a coalition of German neo-Nazis parties and Germans of Syrian, Turkish and Lebanese origin.

The German journalist, Stefan Frank, who reports on contemporary antisemitism in the federal republic, listed last week the alliance of antisemitic organizations and groups on the website of the Swiss news outlet Audiatur.

The antisemitic network involves “Young people from Syria and Lebanon who join forces with right-wing extremists [Turkish] Grey Wolves,” according to the interior ministry.

“Turkish supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood traditionally support Hamas, who conducted a missile war against Israel,” noted the interior ministry, adding “Also the right-wing extremist scene (neo-Nazis, NPD, and The Right) showed solidarity with Palestine.”
The NPD is an abbreviation for the main neo-Nazi party in Germany, The National Democratic Party of Germany. The Right is a small neo-Nazi party. Both the NPD and the Right support the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign against Israel.

Germany’s parliament declared BDS an antisemitic campaign in 2019. The EU and the US designated Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, a foreign terrorist organization.

A North Rhine-Westphalia government spokeswoman said the alliance between neo-Nazis and German Arabs had "nothing to do with the fact that the right-wing extremists suddenly became friendly to the Arabs. It's just the expression of a deep hatred of Jews."

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UK: Labour MP attended pro-Palestinian protest, accuses "infiltrators" for antisemitism

Via Guido Fawkes:

Since her suspension from the Labour Party was lifted in 2016, Naz Shah seemed to have genuinely learnt from her mistakes and put the nasty business of antisemitism behind her. That was until last week, when the Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion was filmed speaking at a Pro-Palestine rally in Bradford. Recently released footage shows protestors chanting in Arabic “lift the curse of the Jews off the Muslims in Palestine!”, “God, support them with your soldiers! God, we ask you to make the Jews lose!”, and, “God, purify al-Aqsa from impure people”. Turns out spotting Antisemitic rallies is more difficult when there’s no 10-foot hook-nosed, red-eyed inflatable there…

Pictures, posted on social media, show protestors holding placards that read “Zionism is racism” and “Tell me Israel how are you any different than Hitler”. It seems that Naz Shah just can’t keep out of trouble…

To her credit Naz Shah was quick to distance herself from these signs. In a tweeted statement Naz Shah wrote:

“Over recent weeks, a small minority of individuals have been trying to infiltrate demonstrations about the situation in Palestine to spew hatred.

I was made aware that an individual at one of the rallies I spoke at, made remarks following the rally in Arabic – a language I do not speak. The individual was not a speaker but gained access to a microphone – the translation of their comments given to me are not remarks I’d ever make.

I will never shy away from using my voice to raise the plight of the Palestinian people but I will never tolerate antisemitism and I totally condemn anyone perpetrating it.”

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Austria: Student assaulted for reading book on Jews, cops accuse her of provocation

Via Algemeiner:

Police officers in Vienna were under extra scrutiny on Friday in the wake of a woeful response from two street cops to a complaint of serious antisemitic harassment from a frightened 19-year-old student.

The unnamed student, from the region of Carinthia, is a Jewish Studies major at a university in the Austrian capital. Earlier this week, she was traveling on Vienna’s underground rail system, the U-Bahn, while reading a book with the visible title, “The Jews in the Modern World.” Three men in the same carriage spotted what the student was reading and proceeded to shower her with vicious insults. Calling her “Jew slut” and “child murderer,” the men also pulled her hair, according to Austria’s Kronen Zeitung newspaper.

The shocked student exited the train at the next station and found two police officers at street level. However, when she described the incident, the officers questioned her choice of reading material, asking whether she thought it was appropriate to read a book with such a title during a “time of such conflict.”

The two officers also asked the victim whether she was Jewish. When she replied that she was not, she was wrongly told that she was not eligible to file a complaint of antisemitism.

When she turned up at a police station, the young woman met with a similarly disinterested response. When she asked whether the perpetrators could be apprehended, she was informed that this would be “difficult,” and advised to “forget about” the entire outrage.

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North Macedonia: Country's first Jewish lawmaker broke taboos, hit by antisemitism

 
Via Jerusalem Post:

Politics was supposed to be a very brief interlude in Rashela Mizrahi’s career as a scientist.

...

But what might have ended as the axing of a novice politician snowballed into the country’s first-ever wave of antisemitic rhetoric — with Mizrahi as its target.

Branko Trickovski, a well-known journalist and a supporter of the left-wing SDSM party, ridiculed Mizrahi on Facebook, describing her as a zealot for Macedonian and Jewish nationalism, who gets her strength from “eating hummus made of dead Jews.”

Mersiha Smailovic, a former official from the ministry that Mizrahi had headed, on Facebook wrote that Mizrahi was planning to place an Israeli flag at her office. Another SDSM activist called her a “Jew who worked for the Nazi occupation in World War Two.”

It triggered “a stream of hundreds of antisemitic messages. Death threats. Even against my daughter,” Mizrahi said of her two-year-old, her younger child she had with her husband, a 43-year-old welder who comes from a Christian Eastern Orthodox family.

“I’m still afraid. Not so much for me but for my daughter. I never thought this could happen in this country, where antisemitism never used to be a part of life,” Mizrahi said. “It has changed how I see my country.”

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UK: Jews targeted in multiple antisemitic incidents at two London hospitals

 
Via Campaign Against Antisemitism:

Jewish patients and a staffer have been targeted in multiple antisemitic incidents at two London hospitals.

In one incident on Tuesday morning of this week, a staff member allegedly made a cutthroat death-threat gesture towards a Jewish patient, who was attending the Royal Free Hospital for a blood test. The patient reportedly noticed that the practitioner was wearing a Palestinian Authority flag on her jacket and a badge that read “Stop killing our children”.

The patient asked for a different practitioner to administer the test, but as she walked away the staffer “swiped her finger across her throat.” Campaign Against Antisemitism has been in contact with a witness and officials from the hospital.

The hospital is investigating the incident, and the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust said in a statement: “We do not tolerate racist or antisemitic behaviour of any kind, from anybody on our premises. The Royal Free London is proud of the rich diversity of the patients that we serve and we are taking these allegations extremely seriously. Although we have not received a formal complaint, we will investigate this matter thoroughly.

“We would urge anybody who experiences racist or antisemitic abuse in any of our hospitals to report it immediately to a member of our security team or to the patient advice and liaison service.”

However, this incident, which was highly publicised on social media, came barely a fortnight after a much less prominent incident at the same department in the same hospital. In that incident, another Jewish patient was also present for a blood test. The tests were being administered by a practitioner of reportedly Pakistani origin. When the Jewish patient came into the room, the practitioner left the room. The patient was reportedly told to wait to be tested, and in the meantime other patients were all being tested before him, including some who arrived later than he had.

Eventually, the patient asked a female attendant whether he would be seen, and she assured him that he would be seen imminently, and he then asked if he had not yet been seen because of prejudice, a question that the attendant, apparently now blushing, refused to address. The patient was deeply upset and immediately left the hospital, without being tested, despite the urgency of the test.

Eventually, after intervention by a Jewish governor and a senior staffer at the hospital, the patient returned to the hospital some days later and was seen immediately, but the case is reportedly being investigated.

Elsewhere, a Jewish staffer was the target of antisemitic abuse at the Royal London Hospital in East London. Hadasa Mayerfeld, 27, a Jewish neonatal intensive care nurse, reports that she was left “shaken” after being told by a man, “I want to kill all your people”.

The incident took place in on Tuesday in a hospital lift as a man noticed her Magen David necklace and shouted: “So you don’t support a free Palestine? How can someone who comes from people who kill all our innocent children get a job working here? I want to kill all your people, we need to kill all you people.”

A second man in the lift, apparently dressed in a religious Muslim garment, stood by and laughed.

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As hate surges, prominent European Jews worry war against antisemitism is lost

 Via Times of Israel:

In Germany, a man wearing a kippah was beaten on the street. In Austria, a student was harassed on the train for reading a book mentioning Jews in the title.

In London, a nurse said she was threatened at her hospital for wearing a Star of David necklace. And in Belgium, an Orthodox Jewish woman was told “Get away, dirty Jewess” by a man with whom she tried to share a park bench.

The full dimensions of Europe’s current surge in antisemitic activity are not yet clear, but by some measures, including those by the British Jewish community, the extent is unprecedented. Meanwhile, the range and density of incidents are unusual.

Local Jewish leaders are responding with sometimes uncharacteristic pessimism.

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Belgium: Flemish public TV - If Jews are "chosen" they should act it, minister with Jewish ancestry might not be objective, Israel only vaccinates Jews

 

Via Elder of Zion:

This is sort of unreal.

On a Flemish public TV show, which appears to have aired even before the current Gaza war, there are four segments:

The first, with the Bishop of Antwerp defining Judaism and telling Jews what their moral obligations are. Obviously, Palestinians have no such moral imperatives.

...

Segment 2 shows Meryem Almaci, head of the Green Party, also telling Jews what they need to do in order to gain the approval of enlightened antisemites like her:

...

Then there is a panel discussion about Sophie Wilmès, Belgium's Foreign Minister, and whether her mother's Jewish background disqualifies her on issues related to Israel. Even though she was brought up Catholic, she has those Jew genes that means that you might not be able to trust her.

...

Finally, we have a classic blood libel, where Jews are spreading the plague among goyim while they remain secure in their ghettoes.

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UK: Jewish actors fear being ‘blacklisted’ for connection to Israel

Via Jewish Chronicle:

Jewish actors have told the JC that they are terrified of being “blacklisted” for having any connection to Israel and are hiding their identity in order to make sure they get work.

There is also deep concern that far from supporting its Jewish members, the actors’ union, Equity, is “fanning the flames of antisemitism”.

Dame Maureen Lipman this week resigned from the union in fury after it called on members to join Saturday’s pro-Palestinian march in London, at which protesters burned Israeli flags and held up antisemitic placards.

Actress Tracy-Ann Oberman — who also voiced her outrage over the Equity statement — said Jewish actors were beginning to hide their Stars of David at auditions.

“We are terrified of being thought of as Zionists,” she said. “One actor was turned on when it was found that they had family in Israel.

“Jewish actors are frightened of owning their identity, and they are scared that they will be blacklisted.”

One young actor told the JC: “It was the first day of a Zoom read-through for a possible new theatre show. We all introduced ourselves online, which is standard practice — who we are, where we are from, what we have been up to professionally.

When it was my turn, having had very little acting work due to the pandemic, I explained that I had been working on a treatment, hopefully for TV, based on my own family’s experience and history of fleeing pogroms in Russia.

“In front of the whole cast and director, an actor sneered on the screen and told me ‘look what you’re doing in Palestine. That’s a pogrom’.

“I felt sick. Like the two are somehow connected and I had to feel the weight of responsibility to defend myself against something that had nothing to do with me or my own family’s lived experience, that our own personal horrors were somehow being dismissed and diminished. The Chinese actor in the same cast was not made to feel the same fear in having to speak about the Uyghurs.

“So it’s hard not to feel unsafe as a Jewish actor — and it’s made me feel that I won’t be talking about my heritage or Jewish identity going forward.”

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UK: Police investigating attack on Jewish-owned business in Derry as hate crime

 
Via Belfast Telegraph:

Police are investigating a hate crime in Londonderry connected with the recent escalation of violence in Israel and Palestine.

The business premises of a Jewish person were painted with graffiti.

Enquiries into the incident, which was reported last Saturday, May 15, are ongoing, the PSNI said.

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Belgium: Soccer star unapologetic for chanting he’d ‘rather die than be a Jew’

 
Via Times of Israel:

A professional soccer player from Belgium who sang with fans that he’d “rather die than be a Jew” has defended his actions, which are now the subject of a disciplinary review.

Noa Lang wrote an unapologetic message on Instagram on Saturday following the discovery of a video showing the 21-year-old Holland native chanting about Jews following a match in which his club, Brugge, defeated the Anderlecht team of Brussels.

The reference to Jews, according to Belgian sports papers, was about supporters and players of Anderlecht, whom rival teams refer to as “Jews.” The same phenomenon exists for Amsterdam’s Ajax team, the Tottenham Hotspur club of London, and Bayern, Munich’s soccer club.

Ignoring calls to apologize, Lang wrote that he didn’t mean to offend but would not like to further discuss the subject.

“My dad’s Surinamese and my mother’s Dutch. I know all about racism and bias,” he said. “I chanted enthusiastically with supporters I met for the first time after winning. As a former Ajax fan I know very well the soccer world’s nicknames. I did not mean to offend anyone. I’m done with the subject and won’t be revisiting it.”

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Germany: Man attacked in Munich because he was mistaken for a Jew

 Via Bild:

Last Saturday night, a (non-Jewish) man was sitting outside a restaurant with a friend, when a passer-by punched him to the floor and shouted "Jew-pig, you dirty hipster!" while grappling with him.  The attacker, who was with a friend, then ran away.

Both men were arrested.  They had previously sat in the same restaurant, getting drunk, and were finally thrown out.  The attacker is a German-Mexican national.

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UK: Belfast synagogue threatened to be picketed if the Jewish community did not condemn Israel

 
Via Belfast Telegraph:

In a separate incident, the synagogue in north Belfast was threatened to be picketed if the Jewish community did not condemn Israel for recent air strikes in Gaza.

The threat disrupted the Shavuot service, a Jewish holiday. The service managed to go ahead with 10 congregants — the minimum number of people required for Jewish communal worship.

More congregants were expected to attend but had been discouraged by the threat, which was received via a phone call.

The PSNI are “monitoring the situation” and are “treating this as a hate incident at this stage”.

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Netherlands: Holocaust monument in Cuijk defaced with white paint and the text ‘free Palestine’

Via Netherlands News Live (translated from NOS):

The Jewish monument in Cuijk is covered with white paint and the text ‘free Palestine’. It is unclear who is behind the action. The police say they are looking for witnesses.

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UK: Norwich synagogue defaced with slurs, "Free Palestine", swastika

via Arieh Kovler:

  The synagogue in Norwich, England this morning. Police are appealing for witnesses

 

Germany: Lebanese-born man arrested for planned attack on Bremen synagogue

 Via Jerusalem Post:

German police in the northern city of Bremen arrested a 42-year-old man on Wednesday for a planned attack on a synagogue in the city’s Schwachhausen district. This man was also born in Lebanon.

"An individual intended to attack the synagogue in Bremen," states an exclusive report by the German magazine Der Spiegel.

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