Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Germany: Anti-Semitic incidents rise 16 percent in Berlin

The Berlin-based Research and Information Office on Anti-Semitism, founded in 2015, reported Monday that the number of anti-Semitic incidents in Germany’s capital has risen by 16 percent in 2016 over the previous year. Most incidents were non-violent, but nonetheless threatening.

The increase has prompted renewed calls for a permanent federal commissioner, to help ensure that the government won’t drop the ball when it comes to fighting anti-Jewish hate, Deidre Berger, head of the American Jewish Committee office in Berlin, said in a statement Monday.

She noted that people tell her they are increasingly fearful to be recognized as Jews in public. In many cases, authors of threats hide behind the anonymity of the Internet, creating a general atmosphere of angst, Berger noted. (...)

According to the Research and Information Office on Anti-Semitism report, a total of 470 anti-Semitic incidents were reported in Berlin in 2016, including 7 physical attacks, 18 verbal threats, 53 cases of damage to Jewish-owned property or Holocaust memorial sites, as well as 382 cases of harmful behavior. Of the latter, 152 were cases of Internet threats against Jews or Jewish institutions. Another 150 cases of anti-Semitic propaganda, graffiti and threatening letters were reported. There were no cases of extreme violence reported to RIAS last year.

Europe claims they support the two state solution. Well?

Via PMW:

The Yafa Cultural Center, which receives funding from the German development agency GIZ, Norway, and the European Union, recently posted to its website photos from the first Yafa Folk Dance Competition. The gold prize winner danced to the song Pull the Trigger. The following is a longer excerpt from the song's lyrics:

“The Zionists coveted [our] homeland,
compounding damage and enmity
But the popular revolution awaits [them]
The orchard called us to the struggle
We replaced bracelets with weapons
We attacked the despicable [Zionists]
We do not want [internal] strife or disputes
While this invading enemy is on the battlefield
This is the day that Jihad is needed
Pull the trigger.
We shall redeem Jerusalem, Nablus and the country.”

This song was previously broadcast on PA TV in 2010.

In keeping with the song’s theme of destroying Israel, the three top scoring dancers were awarded maps of “Palestine” replacing Israel. Palestinian Media Watch has documented that the PA and Fatah regularly disseminate maps that erase Israel from the map.

Hungary is removing statue of philosopher György (Georg) Lukács – He was Marxist and Jewish

Via Hungarian Free Press (h/t glykosymoritis):

Lukács was one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century. His book Geschichte und Klassenbewusstsein (History and Class Consciousness) remains mandatory reading for those studying philosophy. Thomas Mann was inspired by Lukács and portrayed him as Naphta in The Magic Mountain. Lukács had a major influence on forming the philosophical foundations of the New Left, both in Europe and America and his works are taught in major universities all over the world.

Why does Jobbik want to remove the statue? The fact that Lukács was a Marxist and Communist has little to do with it. Today several prominent Communists (e.g. Zoltán Komócsin) have streets named after them in Hungary.

Likely Jobbik’s trouble with Lukács is with his Jewish roots. Born Löwinger, his father József changed the family’s name to the Hungarian-sounding Lukács in the late 1800s when György was a toddler, and the family was fully assimilated into Hungarian society. They even obtained the status of Hungarian nobility and were part of the country’s rich and educated class.

Although Lukács had nothing to do with Judaism, Jobbik calls him Löwinger to emphasize his background and they even connect him and other Hungarian cultural and political figures with Jewish roots to the blood libel of Tiszaeszlár of 1882! Jobbik-controlled publications often publish lengthy anti-Semitic tirades (only in Hungarian) similar to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Jobbik politicians claim that Hungary’s culture and the “nation’s soul” have been poisoned by Jews like Lukács. This “pollution” must be “cleansed” and the ruling Fidesz party seems willing to assist the Kulturkampf to rid the country from this “Judeo Bolshevik menace. “

The removal of the Lukács statue is part of an effort to please Jobbik’s and Fidesz’s anti-Semitic voters. It is disguised as an anti-Marxist campaign and as usual in today’s Hungarian politics, Jobbik and Fidesz work tightly together as a carefully choreographed tag team.

UK: teenager who made “viable” bomb for “all-out race war” walks free

Via CAA:

A 17-year-old neo-Nazi from Bradford who made a homemade pipe bomb in order to start an “all-out race war” has been sentenced to a mere three-year Youth Rehabilitation Order and ordered to receive intensive counselling from a deradicalisation expert.

We condemn this unduly lenient sentence which entirely fails to deter terrorism against British Jews.

As we reported in January, the teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is a member of National Action, a violent neo-Nazi group which recruits teenage children and university students. The Home Secretary recently designated National Action a proscribed terrorist organisation after a long campaign by Campaign Against Antisemitism and others.

The boy, who praised the killer of MP Jo Cox, was arrested by the North East Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU) in July 2016 after a member of the public alerted police to a series of Snapchat photos of the bomb including threats to British Jews and other minorities and an image of the pipe bomb. One post showed a crude, home-made device, accompanied by the words “Incendiary explosive and home-made black powder. More to come.”

UK: Undercover investigation finds Palestine Solidarity Campaign 'driven by antisemitic motivation'

An undercover investigation by David Collier found hard-core antisemitism in the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

According to Collier, the research "suggests that over 40% of all public PSC protest activity is driven by antisemitic motivation."

"When I refer to antisemitism within this study, I avoided *all references to the conflict*. We all know the trick is to deflect accusations of antisemitism with a false cry about criticism of Israeli policy. I set out to avoid this. I was only interested in those pushing conspiracy theory, holocaust denial or classic antisemitic tropes. The argument that antisemitism is about legitimate criticism of Israel simply has no weight against this research. The bar for antisemitism that was used is unnaturally high. As an example, if the worst I found was an activist suggesting Israel should be destroyed, is committing genocide and Zionists are all Nazis, that activist *would not* have made the grade for this research. Let that fact sink in."

"The ‘antisemitism’ referred to here is *ONLY* ‘hard core’ antisemitism. Examples include: USA controlled by Zionists; Jews responsible for 9/11; the Paris Bataclan massacre was a ‘false flag’ to increase support for Israel; Ashkenazi Jews are fake; Zionist Jews support ISIS; Jewish Zionists stir up fake antisemitism; many varieties of Holocaust Denial; Israel harvests organs from the dead; Israel harvests organs from the living; Mossad wanted to assassinate Obama; the BBC is ‘the Zionist Broadcasting Corporation’, ‘Zionist tentacles’ controlling Parliament; Mossad did 7/7/2005 in London; Kristallnacht instigated by Communist and Freemason Jews to promote War against Germany; Babylonian Talmud advocates sex with child age three; Goyim bloodshed ritual by the Talmudic worshipers [sic] of Moloch, the children holocaust bloodthirsty monster…."

"The people found during this research sit on the top table of the PSC. They are the Chairs of PSC
branches, they stand next to the branch chair at the demo, they man the PSC stalls in
the High St, they sit in the front row of the PSC events and these are the only ones who answer when the PSC drumbeat calls to war. If these people are not the PSC, then who are?"

Full report here.

Monday, February 27, 2017

France: Jew attacked outside Paris recounts harrowing experience

Via Ynet News:

After he and his 17-year-old brother were attacked on Friday by a saw-wielding attacker and his friends in Bondy, France, the 29-year-old Jewish man relived the traumatic incident in his interview with Yedioth Ahronoth, revealing how angry he feels for not being able to defend himself.

"We stopped at the traffic light, when we suddenly noticed the driver in the car next to us was taking a good look at us, to try and see if we are wearing a kippa. He recklessly tried to block us twice. The third time, I drove near him and asked why he was doing that. He then started cursing us, using anti-Semitic slurs. I asked him to step out of his car, but he kept tailing us and trying to ram us,” he said.

Armand Azoulay, the father of the two, said in his interview with Yedioth Ahronoth that his sons were suffering from “psychological shock,” adding that “the assailants tried to pass them several times, and then they tried to push them off the road so their car would drive onto the sidewalk and cause an accident. My son didn't understand what was happening.”

According to the complaint the two brothers filed with the police, the driver answered their question with, “I do what I want, dirty Jews. You’re going to die.” And so, after attempting to ram them off the road, the driver forced the two to stop near a hookah lounge.

"When we approached the Hookah lounge, where a few of his Muslim friends sat, he called for them to come out,” the victim recounted. “Out of the lounge came five people. Additionally, in his car was also his dad trying to calm him down, saying ‘Enough, enough.’” He then added that “the assailant, aged 25-30, got out of his car with a hacksaw. When we saw it, we started running.

"He attacked me with it and I fell. His friends held me down to the floor while he punched me in the face and kicked me. My younger brother then got outside the car in shock to try and knock him down, and that’s how the saw was dropped.

“He yelled ‘I’ll kill you, you dirty Jew.’ My brother had to let him go because his friend came to his aid. The assailant grabbed the saw again, but two of his friends tried to calm him down and separate him and my brother. He still managed to cut my brother’s hand. (...)

“The problem in France is that you hear all the time about Jews being assaulted,” the man claimed. “We need to send a different message today. We need to hear about Jews defending themselves. Never in my life have I seen such hatred.”

Via Jewish News:

A white supremacist who idolised Adolf Hitler and posted online calls for his followers to kill Muslim and Jewish people has been jailed.

Sean Creighton, 45, made racist, Islamophobic, homophobic and anti-Semitic calls to arms on social media and was also found in possession of a weapons manual that could be used by terrorists.

He told police he was “a bit of a hater who hated for the people”, Kingston Crown Court heard.

In one instance, he posted an image of Hitler along with the message “kill the Muslims” online.

He was caught after the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command were made aware of a picture on social media of a man, later identified as Creighton, holding an assault rifle standing in front of a Nazi flag.

Judge Peter Lodder QC, the Honorary Recorder of Richmond Upon Thames, sentenced Creighton to five years in prison.

(...)

Creighton also had an electronic document entitled White Resistance Manual 2.4, which contains details of shotguns, improvised weapons and explosives, and harassment.
A Metropolitan Police photo of white supremacist Sean Creighton who has been jailed at Kingston Crown Court (Photo credit: Metropolitan Police/PA Wire)

Mr Sandiford described it as a “complete guide on how to prepare for and conduct a terrorist campaign”.

Authors of the document said they want to exacerbate existing tensions, to smash Jewish power and influence, destroy the legitimacy of government and punish white people who have committed acts of treason against their own people.

Via Against Antisemitism (h/t glykosymoritis):

Around 400 supporters of the schismatic Esfigmenou monastery on Mount Athos rallied in Thessaloniki to protest the recent conviction of the monastery prior and another monk to twenty years imprisonment each for construction, possession and usage of Molotov cocktails during an eviction of the order’s administrative offices in 2013.

The protesters displayed a huge antisemitic banner reading “Judeo-Masonry wages war on Greece and Orthodoxy.” [see photo below]

Earlier this month, protesters (zealots, football fans and Nazis) gathered outside Parliament in Athens to decry the conviction of the zealot monks chanting “Hands off the Orthodoxy” and “Jews out of Parliament.” [watch video below, 0’18’’] Golden Dawn MP Giannis Lagos was also part of the rally.

"Why I Left Germany"

Julia Schmidt @ Aish:

“You know it is not always wise to tell people that you are Jewish,” my son’s Hebrew school teacher told me. We belonged to a synagogue in Bonn, Germany. “Sometimes it can be dangerous and it is better to keep quiet.”

I cringed when I heard him say this, something he repeated numerous times, but I slowly adopted his advice. There was an incongruity living as a Jew in Germany. On the one hand there was a trace of fear, but by and large we lived in a bubble and denied the lurking anti-Semitism. We missed the more glaring signs of trouble.

(...)

I taught many academics English for their jobs at a scientific organization that also funded projects in Israel. It was here that my sensitivity to anti-Semitism was raised. Every now and then, one of my students would make a comment that left me feeling horrible. It was often about Israelis greediness for money and their demands for more of it. The warning bells started to go off in my head. Jews and money is a very old trope and it was said in such a way that left me feeling dirty.

Then came the summer of 2014 and the Gaza war. I was forced out of my complacency. The main German newspapers started a journalistic war against Israel. Every day I read with trepidation all the hideous crimes that Israelis were committing and the terrible death toll of Palestinians.

(...)

I was in a class with my students and the news in Israel had been particularly bad that day. In desperation I looked at them and said, “Do you think Israel has a right to exist?” They looked straight at me, still not knowing I was Jewish, and sighed in unison. They just stared at me and didn’t say a word. But their thundering silence spoke volumes. One student finally broke the silence and said that what the Jews have done to Arabs in Israel is what the Americans did to the Native Americans. I gasped inside as I realized that we had reached a new level of hatred. It was as if a veil had fallen and I started seeing what was really happening.

France: Court dismisses antisemitism charge in attack on Jewish family

Via Simon Wiesenthal Centre:

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, expressed rage at the Paris suburb of Créteil’s investigating Magistrate ruling to dismiss the antisemitic character of a 2014 attack on a Jewish couple, and the decision to close the case.

Three men had broken into the home of the couple, beating them and tieing them up, then raping the young wife. The three, together with a suspected accomplice, were charged with group rape, armed robbery, violence and extortion.

The attackers, reportedly, were heard to claim that the plan to attack Jews was because “they had money” and that their choice of victim was due to “their religious affinity.”

Their crime was evidently recidivist as, one month earlier, they had attacked an elderly Jew, identifiable due to his garb, in the same suburb.

Their defence lawyer, triumphantly, declared: “I cannot celebrate the rejection of the antisemitism charge, as it was never there… The case was built up by the media.”

Samuels noted that “the clearly antisemitic nature and the rape so shocked the Jewish community, that it resulted in a 2014 governmental proposed plan “to fight antisemitism and racism as a national cause.”

The Centre called on French Justice Minister, Jean-Jacques Urvoas, to ensure the reopening of this case.

UK: Lecturers rally round academic who claimed Jews should stop 'privileging' the Holocaust

Via Telegraph:

An anti-Semitism row has erupted at Bristol University as lecturers rally round an academic who claimed Jews should stop “privileging” the Holocaust.

The university is investigating Dr Rebecca Gould, reader in translation studies and comparative literature, after she was accused of using “the language of Holocaust denial” in an article.

But now three professors have rushed to her defence, saying they see “no evidence” of anti-Semitism in her article, which was published in a 2011 edition of the American radical left-wing magazine Counter Punch.

Professor Gene Feder, Professor Havi Hannah Carel and Dr Tom Sperlinger Reader have written a joint letter in which they say they are “dismayed” at the criticism.

France: Over the last three years 20,000 Jews have successfully made aliya

Via The Jerusalem Post:

Less than a week before the Jewish Agency Board of Governors is scheduled to convene in Tel Aviv for its annual conference, the head of its French delegation said aliya rates continue to soar in France, amid ongoing antisemitism and the agency’s outreach and education efforts.

During an interview with Daniel Benhaim, who oversees the agency’s offices in France, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland and Spain, he said France’s 450,000 Jews are undergoing a considerable exodus from a country rife with intolerance.

Indeed, over the last three years Benhaim said some 20,000 Jews, primarily from Paris, have successfully made aliya.

“It’s a very big number, and for sure greater than in previous years,” he said.

Benhaim cited three reasons for the spike in aliya.

“The first one is the concern about the Jewish place in Europe, as its identity changes and becomes increasingly Muslim,” he said. “The second one involves security for people in general, and Jews in particular. And the third one involves the economic conditions in Europe, which has remained in a crisis since 2008. I think all of these concerns together create a feeling of instability, and when there is a lack of stability there is more [motivation] to make aliya.”

Moreover, Benhaim said France’s forward-thinking younger generation of Jews is increasingly finding Israel to be a preferable option over Europe. (...)

Asked which regions of France most olim are leaving from, Benhaim said the vast majority are Parisian.

“Most of the Jews in France are living in Paris and the suburbs of Paris,” he said. “So, something like 70% are coming from those regions.”

In terms of the present security climate for Jews, Benhaim said, “Things are not better, but people are now used to it as a part of life.

“At the beginning, it [attacks against Jews] was a shock, and now it is more normal to have heightened security at synagogues and Jewish schools,” he said, adding that the agency has worked directly with all Jewish institutions to increase necessary safeguards.

“The fact that terrorists are targeting the general population now has changed the game slightly, but I’m not sure that the situation is better; only that people are more used to it now,” he said.

In the meantime, Benhaim said France’s volatile geopolitical climate will likely result in ongoing high rates of aliya, with over 5,000 this year, as it has averaged over the last three years.

“I think that aliya will continue to be important,” he emphasized.

The 2017 Jewish Agency Board of Governors meetings will take place at the Hilton Tel Aviv, from February 26 to 28.

- France: Antisemitism is “part of the air that we breathe” and its promoters are coalescing to form a toxic threat to the Jews

- 'Since Ilan was murdered, anti-Semitic crimes have continued in France. The situation of Jews has worsened'

- France: Socialist primary winner had backing of prominent anti-Semites

Friday, February 24, 2017

Belgian anti-racism official defends Palestinian he helped convict for hate speech

Via JTA:

Jews from Belgium’s Flemish Region said they “lost all confidence” in the country’s anti-racism authority over its lawyer’s defense of a Palestinian man whom the same lawyer helped convict for hate speech over calls to slaughter Jews. (Note: none of the Belgian French-speaking organisation (the CCLJ and the CCOJB, the latter a member of the European Jewish Congress and the World Jewish Congress) reported on the events in Antwerp, the subsequent condemnation and UNIA's attitude...)

The unusual rebuke Thursday by the Forum of Jewish Organization of Flanders came after the Jewish weekly Joods Actueel published a leaked email written by Johan Otte, a judicial expert of the Interfederal Centre for Equal Opportunities, or UNIA.

In it, Otte condemned the conviction on Tuesday for incitement to violence by a criminal tribunal in Antwerp of a man who in 2014 shouted anti-Semitic slogans during a protest rally in that city. The man, who is Belgian Palestinian, according to the media in Belgium, was given a six-month suspended sentence. Two defendants who also stood trial alongside him were acquitted.

Otte’s rebuke, in which he called the sentence “distorted justice instead of true justice” is remarkable also because UNIA was one of two complainants who initiated the trial against the man the court convicted. The other party was the Flemish Jewish forum.

“The email clearly illustrates that UNIA’s sympathy lies with the perpetrator over his would-be victims,” the Jewish group wrote in their statement.

According to the Gazet van Antwerpen daily, the defendant, who is appealing his sentence, shouted about Khaybar – a place in modern-day Saudi Arabia where in the seventh century Muslims massacred and expelled Jews. According to Joods Actueel, the defendant also shouted about slaughtering Jews.

Joods Actueel editor-in-chief Michael Freilich said the case was the latest in a list of failures to confront anti-Semitism by the Belgian state authority for fighting racism. He added UNIA’s track record suggests “it is only paying lip service” to the fight against anti-Semitism when in reality it fails to act on this type of racism as vigorously as it confronts other forms of xenophobia.

UNIA’s press service did not reply to requests for comment by JTA and Joods Actueel.

On Friday, Liesbeth Homans, the minister in charge of equal opportuities within the government of te Flemish Region — one of three entities that make up the federal Belgian state — called for a review of UNIA’s activities in light of Joods Actueel’s report.

In 2011, a police superintendent, David Vroome, told Joods Actueel that an employee of UNIA’s predecessor said that Jews “think they can get away with everything because they have money, financial power but also because they keep triggering our guilt over the Holocaust.”

France: Muslim parliamentary assistant 'likes' anti-Semitic and negationist posts

Via L'Express:

L'Express and le Canard Enchaîné were the first newspapers to report that Yacine Chaouat, a parliamentary assistant to Senator Roger Madec (Socialist Party), had been posting jihadi propaganda on his Facebook account involving beheadings, calls to join the jihad, denigration of the kafirs (the infidels).

One of his acquaintances identified him and alerted the authorities to the "really worrying" facts.

"At the beginning, it was about 'liking' anti-Semitic and negationist posts", she said, adding that the 'likes' were followed by jihadist propaganda.

Yacine Chaouat, a former deputy to the mayor of Paris, was at the heart of a controversy in 2015 when he was appointed to the newly-formed national secretariat of the PS, because of his conviction in 2010 for domestic violence. Under pressure, he resigned.

At the time, Yacine Chaouat, denounced on Facebook, a "double penalty". "It is with sadness that I find that in today's France, as Muslims we do not have a second chance," he wrote.

Experts consistently argue that antisemitism is to be found only among the disaffected, uneducated, dispossessed young Muslims in the 'banlieues'. This case shows how wrong and biased their arguments are. It also shows that it never stops with the Jews!

France: Jewish brothers kidnapped, attacked with wood saw near Paris

Via i24NEWS:

Men of 'Middle Eastern appearance' forced brothers off road in suburb outside Paris

Two French Jewish brothers were briefly abducted and abused by a group of men in a Paris suburb in an incident that ended with the brothers being beaten and attacked with a wood saw, the victims' father told i24NEWS on Thursday.

Armand Azoulay, who is a leader of the Jewish community in Bondy, located some 11 km northeastern of the center of Paris, said his sons aged 29 and 17, were forced off the road by a group of men described as having a Middle Eastern appearance.

The attackers forced the brothers to stop their car, and one of the attackers then "grabbed my son by the throat" and took out a "wood saw" Azoulay said. He attempted to saw off the finger of one of his sons, but did not succeed.

"The finger has not been severed," Azoulay said, responding to an earlier rumor that his son's finger had been cut off.

A report by the National Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, or BNVCA, published a case report Thursday based on a police complaint by the victims, saying the brothers were hospitalized in a state of shock.

The driver and a passenger in the attacking vehicle hurled anti-Semitic slogans at the brothers, including “Dirty Jews, You’re going to die!” Azoulay told i24NEWS.

"This was an anti-Semitic attack in all its forms," he stressed.French Jews have been hit with a wave of anti-Semitism in recent years, with a record 8,000 or so French Jews moving to Israel in 2015 alone, according to Israeli figures.

4% of Jews in Belgium and France left for Israel between 2010 and 2015

The report does not take into account the Jews who left Europe to the United States, Canada and Australia. Antonio Tajani, the President of the European Parliament, warned: “According to the Jewish Agency, almost ten thousand Jews moved to Israel in 2015, including eight thousand from France alone. This was double the 2014 figure. This, sadly, is the result of a persistent climate of hatred towards Jews: their numbers fell substantially from two million in Europe in 1991 to one million four hundred thousand in 2010. Yet Europe without Jews would no longer be Europe."

Via The Guardian:

Demonstration in Brussels

Some European countries have seen an increase in the number of Jews leaving to live in Israel but the numbers fall short of an “exodus”, according to a new study.

The Institute of Jewish Policy Research compared recent trends of Jewish migration with cases of mass migration in response to persecution or major political upheavals in the past.

Jonathan Boyd, the IJPR’s executive director, said: “There is no evidence of an exodus of Jews from Europe, even though the numbers of Jews emigrating to Israel from some countries in recent years – most notably France – are unprecedented.”

Two victimes of the massacre at the
Jewish museum in Brussels perpetrated
by Mehdi Nemmouche (2014)

He added: “It is clear that Jews in parts of Europe are genuinely concerned about their future, most likely because of antisemitism, but the levels of anxiety and apprehension are nowhere near those experienced during previous periods of intense stress, like the 1930s and 1940s. Drawing those types of parallels has no basis in empirical reality.”

The IJPR looked at six countries – France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Sweden and the UK, which account for about 70% of European Jews. It concluded there had been an increase in migration, especially from France, Belgium and Italy; but in the UK, Germany and Sweden levels of migration were not unusual.

Suggesting a definition of an exodus as 30% of the Jewish population, it said 4% of Jews in Belgium and France had left for Israel between 2010 and 2015. The proportion leaving from the UK, Germany and Sweden was between 0.6% and 1.7%.

The context, said the report, was a significant demographic transformation of Europe, with an inflow of migrants from the Middle East, north Africa and south Asia, which had implications for European culture, traditions and politics. (...)

Daniel Staetsky, the author of the IJPR report, said: “European demographic and political landscapes are changing … Large segments of Jewish populations in European countries perceive antisemitism to be on the increase. There is no perfect tool to measure the prevalence and strength of antisemitic attitudes in the general public, but some phenomena can be measured by their effects.

“Migration plays a very central role in Jewish demography, as Jews are known to move in response to a particularly acute deterioration in the political or economic situation. If Jews feel unwelcome in Europe, their movement out of Europe will serve as the first sure sign of that.”

As Jews flee Belgium, a seder marks a family exodus

How my JTA reporting about an anti-Semitic cartoon changed my views of Belgium — for the worse

Fleeing France, an African Jewish family makes aliyah

"In the Paris region, there are virtually no more Jewish pupils attending public schools"

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

France: Muslim hero of the left is anti-semitic, homophobic, sexist, anti-France etc.

This has come as a terrible shock to the French people. Countless articles and editorials have been since the story has come out about the "Mehdi Meklat case".

The cover of the leftist magazine Les Inrockuptibles, featuring France-haters Mehdi Meklat (right), and Badrou (Badroudine Saïd Abdallah), Meklat's partner on the radio (left) and former minister of Justice Christiane Taubira (center), who is so "sensitive" to discrimination and racism...

The most serious aspect in the case of Mehdi Meklat of the Bondy Blog, who posted on Twitter (under the nickname of Marcelin Deschamps before using his real name name) a spate of anti-Semitic, homophobic, sexist messages while also targeting a number of personalities with vile messages which could land him in a court, is the responsibility of the media who hired, supported, promoted and praised him...

Media outlets (Mediapart, Libération's Bondy Blog, Télérama, Le Monde, Les Inrocks, France 2, France Inter ...) either did not know who Mehdi Meklat was, and their credibility is deeply flawed, or they knew and still promoted him - this raises questions about their intentions and how they conceive their role in reporting what is happening in French society.

An aggravating factor is the different standards applied by professional do-gooders and self-righteous in the field of anti-racism and the fight against discrimination. If a young member of the far right party FN, for example, had written the incriminated tweets the condemnation would be, quite rightly, immediate - he would have been nailed to the pillory by the same media, and would certainly have found himself in court.

Bur for people like Mehdi Meklat who disseminate racist, homophobic and sexist tweets the treatment is quite different. Excuses and praise are found in abundance.

Last week, Mehdi Meklat was a guest at the most prestigious literary programme in France (La Grande Librairie hosted by François Busnel) to speak about his book - the book is published by the prestigious Seuil.

Mehdi Meklat wrote, for instance, that he was sorry Ben Laden is dead.

"Come on let's stick a violin in Mrs Valls' arse". Manuel Valls is the former socialist P.M. and his wife is Jewish and a musician.

"Bring in Hitler for him to kill all the Jews."

"You, the white people should die ASAP."

"I will push a burning light bulb into Brigitte Bardot's arse until she spits blood."

"I spit sputum on the lousy face of Charb and of all this from Charlie hebdo."

"Sarkozy = the synagogue = the jews = Shalom = yes, my son = the money."

"I won 20 dollars at the PMU (horse racing bets), but I didn't re-bet the money because I'm a Jew."

The content of Badroudine Saïd Abdallah's tweets are in the same vein and he signed some "Fuck France". He wishes he could dress up as Ben Laden at Ground Zero on the night of Halloween. For him, France stinks of shit, of hatred and of Le Pen...

World famous... The Washington Post and The New Yorker wrote about Mehdi Meklat and Badroudine Saïd Abdallah...
Two millennials in France want to change narrative about Muslim communities

THE OTHER FRANCE - Are the suburbs of Paris incubators of terrorism?

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Sweden: Anti-Semitic incidents have trebled in Malmö in recent years

Via Brendan O'Neill:

The Twitterati is laughing its head off at Trump and his alt-right cheerleaders for saying there are cultural tensions in places like Malmo in Sweden. Everything is cool in Sweden, they say.

Anti-Semitic incidents have trebled in Malmö in recent years. A chapel that serves Jews has been repeatedly desecrated. A local rabbi says he is regularly spat on and abused. The Jewish community centre was bombed. The Telegraph says more than 30 Jewish families have left the city. Should we not talk about this? Perhaps it's Islamophobic to talk about anti-Semitism?

How easy it is for comfortable, happy, non-Jewish columnists in London and New York to say "Everything is fine in Sweden!" They are stupidly pushing more and more people towards Trump, because he appears to be the only person willing to discuss the new cultural and social tensions. The alt-right is the only beneficiary when the left engages in the Orwellian airbrushing tactic of saying "Everything's cool". It's about time the left took the problem of anti-Semitism seriously.

UK: Bristol University lecturer claims that Jews should stop 'privileging' the Holocaust

Via Telegraph:

Bristol University is investigating claims of anti-Semitism after an article by one of its lecturers emerged, in which she says Jews should stop “privileging” the Holocaust.

Dr Rebecca Gould, a reader in translation studies and comparative literature at the elite Russell Group university, has been accused of using the “language of Holocaust denial”.

(...)

The article is titled Beyond Anti-Semitism and was published in a 2011 edition of the American radical left-wing magazine Counter Punch while Dr Gould was an assistant professor at the University of Iowa.

She claims that the Holocaust is “available to manipulation by governmental elites, aiming to promote the narrative most likely to underwrite their claims to sovereignty.”

Dr Gould goes on to say that casting the Holocaust as a “holy event” allows it to be used as a tool by the state of Israel to “whitewash its crimes”.

She adds that “Israel must find a way of not passing on the crimes the Nazis introduced into the world onto the next generation of its citizens”.

She concludes by writing that “perhaps the time has come to stop privileging the Holocaust as the central event in Jewish history”.

When contacted by The Telegraph, Dr Gould declined to retract her comments, arguing that her article was a “rallying call to action” for “people of conscience horrified by the slaughter of six million Jews by the Nazi regime to stand up against all atrocities and injustices today around the world, including in the occupied Palestinian territories”.

Denying claims of anti-Semitism Dr Gould quoted Edward W. Said: "The task of criticism...is to make distinctions...To oppose Zionism in Palestine has never meant, and does not now mean, being anti-Semitic."

Russia: Hostage taker refers to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion

Via Sputnik:

On Monday, a man from Moscow took his own family hostage, locking them in their own apartment. Earlier, the man had requested asylum in North Korea, China and Iran.

(...)

Before the hostage situation unfolded, the man had posted on his VK.com page, calling for help with getting in touch with embassies of China, North Korea and Iran: "Get the media attention. I don't care if I end up in jail or a funny farm <…> I need to get in contact with an embassy. <…> If you want to help me, contact the embassy of China, North Korea or Iran. Pass along my message: I will talk only when I'm on the territory of [any one of] these embassies."

The man ended his message with a peculiar advice: "Read the protocols of Zionist wisemen. I have proof!"

Via CAA:

Grossly offensive and antisemitic graffiti has been found on park benches next to Kew Pier in the London Borough of Richmond-upon-Thames.

While walking her dog on Sunday 12th February, Drorit Etzioni, a Jewish lady, spotted the antisemitic graffiti and took photos. “Bank of England” surrounded by stars of David was daubed in thick black paint on one bench and “Goyim, Holohoax, Google” on another. She was left shaken by the graffiti. A friend reported the incident to Campaign Against Antisemitism and the police on her behalf so that it can be thoroughly investigated and the graffiti removed. Kew Pier and nearby Kew Gardens are popular spots for young families and tourists.

Germany: DİTİB claims hate speech among members against Jews, Christians not known by administration

Via TurkishMinute:

The German-based Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DİTİB) has claimed that its central administration was not aware of anti-Semitic and anti-Christian messages posted by its members on Facebook, vowing to investigate them.

Deutsche Welle reported on the statement of DİTİB, an organization that has nearly 800,000 members and 900 associations connected to mosques of the Turkish congregation in Germany. The country hosts at least 3 million people of Turkish origin.

DİTİB Executive Director Nevzat Yaşar Aşıkoğlu issued a statement in Cologne describing the hate messages as provocative and said that such actions would have consequences.

Hessen radio announced on Sunday that DİTİB’s Facebook account spread hate speech against Jews and Christians in Turkish.

Germany: Suspect arrested in bombing that hit Jewish migrants in 2000

Via Times of Israel:

A 50-year-old German far-right extremist suspected of carrying out a bloody bomb attack that injured 10 immigrants — six of them Jewish — in 2000 was arrested after bragging to fellow inmates about the crime, officials said Wednesday.

Dusseldorf prosecutors said the suspect, identified only as Ralf S. in line with Germany privacy laws, was arrested Tuesday in the nearby town of Ratingen, ending an almost 17-year hunt for the perpetrator.

The suspect had been a questioned by police soon after the bombing at Dusseldorf-Wehrhahn train station on July 27, 2000, but wasn’t arrested at the time due to a lack of evidence.

Prosecutors said they received a tip from a prisoner in 2014 that the man had bragged about the crime, prompting them to re-open the case and follow up 330 leads.

The victims were on their way home from a German-language class when the pipe bomb exploded. Among the wounded was a 26-year-old woman from Ukraine who suffered a miscarriage.

A few months after the attack, a Dusseldorf synagogue was firebombed, prompting fears of a wave of far-right violence. German news site Spiegel Online reported that the suspect was known for having extremist views and operated a store selling military gear near the site of the bombing.

Germany: AfD politician under investigation for sharing picture ‘asking Hitler to come back’

Via Independent:

A German politician is under investigation for allegedly circulating a photo of Adolf Hitler and pleading for the Nazi leader’s return.

Elena Roon, the Alternative for Germany’s (AfD) regional chair and parliamentary candidate in Nuremberg, is accused of sharing the image with fellow members of the populist party in a WhatsApp chat.

“Missed since 1945”, the caption reportedly read. “Adolf please get in touch! Germany needs you! The German people!”

Party officials said they were treating the allegations very seriously, forming a panel to investigate Ms Roon, although it was unclear whether she would be removed as an election candidate.

In a statement, she said she didn’t want Hitler to return “under any circumstances”, admitting she posted the images but insisting she did not condone them.

“I distance myself from right-wing extremism and anti-Semitism,” Ms Roon added.

The controversy comes as the AfD moves to expel its leader in the region of Thuringia, after he provoked outrage in Germany for calling the Berlin Holocaust memorial a “monument of shame”.

UK universities urged to tackle rising tide of antisemitism on campus

Via Guardian:

Universities are being urged to act swiftly to tackle antisemitism on campuses after a series of incidents in recent weeks – including Holocaust denial leaflets, fascist stickers and swastikas etched on and around campuses – which have fuelled anxiety among Jewish students.

Leading academics, student representatives and experts on antisemitism expressed concern at the widespread nature of the incidents, which have affected a number of higher education institutions across the country.

Earlier this week it emerged that a swastika and a “Rights for Whites” sign had been found at halls of residence at Exeter, which the university described after an initial investigation as “an ill-judged, deeply offensive joke”.

There have also been incidents reported at Cambridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Sussex and University College London recently, which the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) said indicated some level of coordination. It is thought to be part of a wider spike in hate crime targeting Jews and other minority communities.

Israeli envoy raps Russia for blocking anti-Semitism definition

Via Times of Israel:

Israel’s ambassador in Moscow criticized Russia for blocking the international adoption of a definition of anti-Semitism, which he linked to a recent string of allegedly racist statements about Jews by Russian politicians.

Gary Koren made his unusual statement on anti-Semitism in Russia in an interview with Interfax, the news agency reported Wednesday. Koren singled out Russia for blocking the definition’s adoption by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, an intergovernmental group of 57 member states.

“The OSCE has attempted to determine a text, which ought to define what can be classified as anti-Semitism and what its working definition is,” the envoy said. “We are discussing this issue with the Russian Foreign Ministry and hope that Russia will adopt this definition in the future.”

Europe: Top European rabbi says synagogues no longer safe haven

Via The Jerusalem Post:

“Synagogues are no longer a safe haven,” a top European rabbi said Sunday at a panel discussion about the situation of Jews across the continent, held in the framework of the Munich Security Conference.

“At the back of almost every Jew’s mind is the possibility of what could happen. Sadly, in Copenhagen, Brussels and in Paris, that has become a reality,” Chief Rabbi of Moscow Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis, said at a breakfast event he was hosting titled “Securing Jewish Communities across Europe.”

“The Jewish community finds itself targeted from a number of directions; from the extreme Right, the extreme Left and Islamic terrorism,” he said, referring to terrorist attacks that have targeted Jews in European countries in recent years.

The event took the form of a panel discussion featuring MK Tzipi Livni, Deputy CEO for Diplomacy of the World Jewish Congress Maram Stern, director of the International Center for the Study of Radicalization Dr. Peter R. Neumann and former director of Europol Jürgen Storbeck. German journalist Richard Schneider moderated the discussion.

Stern expressed a similar sentiment to Goldschmidt, noting that while he feels comfortable walking the streets in general, when the synagogue is his destination he begins to feel uneasy. (...)

Neumann described Jews as a “priority target.”

“They are the first ones to be targeted.

German party condemns BDS, compares movement to pre-WWII antisemitism

Via The Jerusalem Post (by Benjamin Weinthal):

German politicians from the Christian Democratic Union Party (CDU) in Hamburg submitted a resolution in early February calling on the state senate to take decisive action against the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, deeming it as antisemitic.

The CDU is the opposition party in the government, while the Social Democrats and the Green Party make up the governing coalition in Hamburg.

The CDU politicians condemned “BDS initiatives and activities as antisemitic,” adding that the senate, as well as government agencies, should assess all activities as hostile to Israel and take actions against BDS.

The resolution appears to the be first state government legislative act seeking to blunt BDS. The CDU sponsors of the resolution are Carsten Ovens, Karin Prien, André Trepoll, Dennis Thering, Birgit Stöver, Dennis Gladiator, and Jörg Hamann.

The resolution urged Hamburg to support further initiatives to strengthen German-Israel bilateral relations. According to the resolution, “In previous months, many different countries have shown a clear resistance against the BDS movement. National and local parliaments and administrations – for example, in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Paris – decided to reject these boycott activities.”

The northern port city of Hamburg is both a city and a federal German state.

The resolution stated: “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 to not buy from Jews. That is nothing other than coarse antisemitism.

The CDU compared BDS to the National Socialists who boycotted Jews in the 1930s. BDS dresses up antisemitism in the “new clothes of the 21st century” as anti-Zionism, the party said.

The anti-BDS resolution was in response to the University of Hamburg’s appointment of Farid Esack, a pro-BDS Islamic theologian from South Africa. The advisory board of the Academy of World Religions at Hamburg University, where Esack served as a guest professor from October to mid-February, distanced itself from Esack.

In a statement to Die Welt reporter Jakob Koch, the academy said it is “totally unacceptable from the view of the advisory council when a comprehensive boycott of Israel is called for and thereby a break in every form of cooperation with Israeli universities, cultural institutions and other institutions.”

Europe: ‘Holocaust tourism’ laid bare in eye-opening documentary by Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa

Via JTA:

How do people behave when they visit a concentration camp or a Holocaust memorial?

Do they act as if there are in place of reverence or mourning? Or do they behave as crowds do at any tourist attraction — taking selfies, goofing around, snacking and drinking as they amble along?

Just what constitutes appropriate behavior at a Holocaust memorial site has been a hot topic recently. Last month, the Israeli-German writer and satirist Shahak Shapira reignited the public debate about “Holocaust tourism” with a website “shaming” tourists who appear in flippant selfies taken at the Holocaust memorial in Berlin. Shapira’s site, titled Yolocaust, superimposed smiling tourists with gruesome images from the Holocaust, such as piles of corpses.

“I find it dangerous that this is becoming normal,” Shapira told a German news program shortly before shutting down the project, saying it had served its purpose. “It kind of suggests that people are not dealing with the real purpose of this memorial.” (...)

And now the behavior of tourists at Holocaust memorial sites — and the tough questions surrounding it — is explored in a probing documentary film, “Austerlitz,” by Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa. The film will have its U.S. premiere at the Museum of Modern Art’s Doc Fortnight festival on Sunday and Monday in New York City, but it has already garnered praise after showings last year at major international film festivals in Toronto and Venice.

Presented without commentary, the 90-minute black-and-white film is a series of long, lingering shots of tourists walking around Dachau and Sachsenhausen, a former concentration camp near Berlin. Loznitsa placed stationary cameras around the camps, capturing thousands of visitors sauntering in and out of the frame. It is unclear whether Loznitsa hid his cameras, although the tourists seem oblivious to them.

Most of the visitors seem as if they are walking in a shopping mall or perhaps an art museum. They mostly look aimless, restless, tired and bored. Some laugh and smile as they file into a room, like they are headed to a party. Some stand out due to their unfortunate sartorial choices — one wears a T-shirt with an image of a skull, another with the phrase “Cool story, bro.” Some take smiling selfies or lighthearted group photos in front of Sachsenhausen’s “Arbeit Macht Frei” gate.

The Israelization of antisemitism

Monika Schwarz-Friesel & Jehuda Reinharz @ Jerusalem Post:

Between 2002 and 2012, the Israeli Embassy in Berlin and the Central Council of Jews in Germany received over 14,000 emails, letters, postcards and faxes from all regions of Germany. Figuring that this material could provide us a window into the contemporary German mind vis-à-vis Israel, we conducted a study of these messages and found that the vast majority began with criticisms of Israel’s policies but immediately deteriorated into antisemitic assaults. We call this phenomenon the “Israelization of antisemitism.”

We found a similar pattern in a smaller study of over 2,000 emails sent by citizens of eight European countries to the Israeli embassies in those countries. We believe that the results are representative of similar antisemitic discourse worldwide, including in the United States, as a recent ADL investigation showed that 2.6 million antisemitic messages were posted on Twitter between August 2015 and July 2016.

To be certain that we did not conflate anti-Jewish and anti-Israel sentiments, we defined in advance the definitions of criticism of Israeli policies and anti-Jewish hatred.

Another startling conclusion of our study was that, contrary to popular assumptions, it is not exclusively alt-right, neo-Nazis and/or extreme left-wingers who think this way. On the contrary, the language of contemporary antisemitism, as in the past, is anchored in and spread by the educated mainstream as much as by fringe groups. Rather than physical attacks on Jews – with some exceptions – today’s assaults are verbal, ideological and cloaked in the guise of a critique of policies of the State of Israel.

Antisemitic attacks throughout the centuries have been grounded in demonizing Jews as the ultimate evil. This concept was found repeatedly in the messages we studied. For example, in one 2007 letter to an Israeli embassy, the writer states: “The Israelis are and remain, no matter what a show they put on, the greatest racists, war criminals, warmongers, murderers, child-murderers, violators of international law, torturers, robbers and thieves, Nazis, liars, [and] terrorists....” Another message sent to the embassy in 2008 announces plainly: “Here’s one in the kisser for you, you filthy Jew. You’re to blame for the misery in the world!”

In addition to demonization, a second millennia-long antisemitic idea delegitimizes the very existence of Jews, paving the way first for segregation and then elimination or genocide. Just as Jews have no right to exist, it is claimed, a state so abysmally evil and destructive has no right to exist. In the minds of these antisemites, Israel has become the collective Jew and should be destroyed.

Greece: Footage shows Golden Dawn leadership at Nazi concert

Via Against Antisemitism:

A video footage from 2005 has emerged showing nearly the entire Golden Dawn leadership (Michaloliakos, Kassidiaris, Panagiotaros, Germenis, Matthaiopoulos and others) participating in a concert featuring Nazi salutes, the Nazi German war flag & the singing of the first verse of “Deutschland über alles.”

The slogans chanted from the crowd are the classic hate cries of the Hitler movement and are shouted in German: “Sieg Heil!” and “Juden raus!” (Jews out). They are raised in honour of two German Nazi performers, Michael Müller and Annett Müller. As the crowd shouts “Juden raus” Michael Müller interrupts them to say, in English: “Not only out. But exterminated.”

UK: Student union clears president despite confirming she made anti-Semitic remarks

Via Jewish News:

The National Union of Students president will not be punished by the organisation, despite being found to have made comments capable of being seen as anti-Semitic.

A two-month NUS inquiry launched to ascertain whether Bouattia is an anti-Semite found that Bouattia made comments that “could be reasonably capable of being interpreted as anti-Semitic”.

Yet the report, leaked to The Daily Telegraph, recommended that no disciplinary action be taken.

Instead, Professor Carol Baxter, the NHS’s former equality chief who authored the report, proposed that Bouattia should apologise to escape any further action.

Baxter wrote that Bouattia had been “genuine in expressing her regret”, had “considered the impact of what she says” and had denounced anti-Semitism.

She ruled: “in light of the above mitigating circumstances no further action should be taken within the NUS disciplinary process.”

Bouattia called Birmingham University a “Zionist outpost in higher education” because it has “the largest Jsoc [Jewish student society] in the country and railed against “Zionist-led media outlets”.

She defended Palestinian terrorism as “resistance” and voted against condemning ISIS.

Russia: Moscow’s Chief Rabbi Saddened by "Total Silence" From MPs in Anti-Semitism Row

Via Newsweek:

Moscow’s top rabbi has condemned the “total silence” from Russia’s parliament after its deputy speaker made comments which appeared to blame Jews for destroying cathedrals.

Pinchas Goldschmidt was referring to remarks made by Pyotr Tolstoy, the deputy speaker of Russia’s lower house from the ruling United Russia party and the great-grandson of Russian writer Leo Tolstoy.

Tolstoy had been asked to comment on protests against the planned transfer of state ownership of Russia’s St Isaac’s Cathedral to the Orthodox Church.

The demonstrations were featured in many liberal media outlets. The protesters, Tolstoy argued, were "working in various very respectable places—on radio stations, in legislative assemblies [and] continuing the work" of their ancestors, who had “destroyed our cathedrals after jumping over from the Pale of Settlement with revolvers in 1917."

(...)

Speaking to state news agency RIA Novosti, Goldschmidt said he was disappointed that lawmakers had not distanced themselves from Tolstoy’s words.

The rabbi stated that the deputy speaker’s words were not simply ignorance. “Germany has the highest level of culture in Europe but it spawned Nazism,” he said.

“What bothers me is something else—the reaction to this statement,” Goldschmidt said. “Instead of having Pyotr Tolstoy meet with the head of the Jewish Communities Federations of Russia, Alexandr Boroda, it would have been much more effective and pleasing if the head of [his] party in the lower house, speakers and other politicians distanced themselves from the aforementioned statement and made it known that they do not agree with this opinion. But from them, all that came was total silence.”

If there had been a similar situation in another country, the rabbi said, “we would have immediately seen how other non-Jewish politicians would distance themselves from such a statement. I am very saddened this did not occur here.”

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