Via
Independent:
A carnival parade which featured Jewish caricatures standing amid piles of money has been compared to Nazi antisemitic propaganda and provoked fierce criticism in Belgium.
One float in the city of Aalst’s annual feast on Sunday was decorated with two huge figures of men with large sideburns, crooked noses and wearing shtreimels, a fur hat worn by some Orthodox Jews. One had a rat on his shoulder.
It was followed by several trucks on which dozens of dancing people wore similar outfits.
“The caricatures, like those of Der Stürmer, of Jews with a crooked nose and suitcases, are typical of the Nazism of 1939,” a spokesperson for Belgium’s Forum of Jewish Organisations said. ”This has no place in 2019, carnival or not. The Jewish community naturally accepts humour is very important in a society, but there are limits that cannot be exceeded.”
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Via
Times of Israel:
Lawmakers in Britain’s Labour opposition party have reportedly flagged social media posts from members accusing Jews of murdering children and questioning whether Jewish parliamentarians have “human blood.”
MP Tom Watson, the deputy chief of Labour, said he received 50 complaints of anti-Semitism last week from Labour colleagues, and called on leader Jeremy Corbyn to personally take them before the party’s top governing body.
According to a Sunday report in the Guardian, the complaints received by Watson included a number of anti-Semitic posts on Twitter by Labour members, such as one alleging “Jews murder people and children.”
“Wonder why Jewish people are hated wherever they’ve settled over last 2000 years. Their double dealing, back stabbing, cheating chilling coldness has always only one outcome. I wonder what the average period of time is before people fed up with the anti-social Jews kick em out,” read one of the tweets, according to the report.
Another tweet said Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler was an “illegitimate Rothschild,” the Jewish banking family at the center of numerous anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, while another questioned whether Jewish officials in Labour have “human blood.”
“Their hearts and brains totally devoid of humanity,” the Twitter post reportedly said.
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Via
CFCA:
At the beginning of the week, huge signs were hung on the walls of several residential buildings in Warsaw with the inscription “These buildings will soon be returned to the Jews to meet their demands.”
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Via
Jerusalem Post:
Only a few days after the Macron said he would adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, also stating that anti-Zionism is a form of antisemitism, the country saw a rise in antisemitic incidents lately.
It seems that Macron's words created the opposite effect in France, and the Bureau for the War on Antisemitism called the rise in incidents as "frightening." Among other incidents, graffiti were found condemning Jews in various parts of the country.
(...)
A 17-year-old riding a bicycle in a suburb north of Paris, was attacked by three unknown assailants who called him "dirty Jew", broke his wrist and robbed his cell phone, all for wearing a kippah.
A 51-year-old woman was attacked near her home in Garez-les-Gons by two men with knives. The two called out to her, "Jewish whore, we'll burn all of you."
In another incident, people inscribed "dirty Jew" on the nameplate of a Jewish doctor on the facade of a dental clinic in Paris whereas they did not touch the label of his colleague a non-Jewish doctor.
There were also reports of Jews in the country receiving death threats by phone and mail, sometimes accompanied by swastikas.
Jerome Rodriguez, one of the prominent leaders of the yellow vests movement in France, who lost his eye from a rubber bullet fired by the police, told Maariv that his movement was not antisemitic. (...) According to Rodriguez, he did not take part in a demonstration against antisemitism because he was "busy visiting his movement's checkpoints in various parts of the country." However, he added that if he had time, he would prefer to participate in a demonstration organized by an anti-Zionist organization that supports boycotting Israel".
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Via
Jewish News:
There has been a spate of alleged antisemitic attacks in Stamford Hill in the past week, with reports of bricks thrown in the windows of Jewish homes and a family subjected to abuse on Shabbat.
The Met Police received reports a man was allegedly punched by one of four women who apprehended him and shouted antisemitic abuse at around 11.40am last Saturday.
According to the neighbourhood watch group Stamford Hill Shomrim, the man was leaving Shul with his family when he was allegedly punched and called a “germ on society”.
However, the Met Police said they closed the case after the victim failed to attend an appointment.
The victim, who did not wish to be named, told Jewish News: “My family witnessed it, and they are still in shock.
“My son woke up last night crying about it and was all traumatised.
“I was trying to calm him down as best as possible and trying my best to speak to him about it. It’s not an easy thing to explain.”
The father said he did not attend the meeting because of a lack of faith in the system. “The punishment is always minor when it comes to antisemitism,” he added.
On Wednesday, a man walked into a clothing shop in Clapton Common at around 1.30pm and shouted antisemitic abuse at a shop assistant.
The Met Police said the incident took place after the man asked whether the shop assistant wanted the windows cleaned and disputed the price they had agreed on.
Shomrim added the suspect had allegedly shouted: “Hitler should have called [ed. killed] all the Jews”.
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Via
Independent:
Emmanuel Macron has declared anti-Zionism a form of antisemitism as he ramps up France’s crackdown on racism against Jewish people.
Speaking at the 34th annual dinner of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France, Mr Macron said a surge in antisemitic attacks in his country had not been seen since World War Two.
He promised a new law to tackle hate speech on the internet and said France would adopt the definition of antisemitism set by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).
The IHRA definition does not use the phrase "anti-Zionism" but does say denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination "e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour," is antisemitic.
(...)
Mr Macron's words were well received from the World Jewish Congress which said: "This is just the beginning of a long road ahead. Adopting this definition of anti-Semitism must be followed by concrete steps to encode into law and ensure that this is enforced."
The IHRA definition is not legally binding but does serve as an international guideline.
Germany and Britain adopted the definition in texts in 2016, though the European Union adopted a softer tone, calling the IHRA definition a "guidance tool" amid concern from some member states that it could make criticism of Israeli policy, particularly with regards to Palestinians, difficult.
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Via
Jerusalem Post:
The Central Council of Jews in Germany and American Jewish organizations blasted the Roland Röhl Foundation for its decision to award in March a peace prize to a BDS group which is widely considered to be antisemitic.
(...)
The group is called Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East and is an energetic supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement that targets the Jewish state.
The nearly 100,000 member Central Council of Jews in Germany classified Jewish Voice as an “antisemitic association,” according to a German DPA wire service report.
Dr. Josef Schuster, the president of the council, wrote a letter last week the city of Göttingen’s Mayor Rolf-Georg Köhler urging him to take a stand against the antisemitism prevalent in the group.
“The association is an active supporter of events of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel,” wrote Schuster, adding “I certainly do not have to explain which historical precursors have had boycotts against Jewish institutions or Jews in Germany, and what associations are created with such actions.”
Schuster was referring to Hitler movement to boycott Jewish businesses – a nascent phase in the Holocaust. Köhler, who is a member of the foundation’s board, announced on Wednesday that the city will not participate in the award ceremony this year, according to a report in the daily paper Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten by the journalists Thoralf Cleven and Ansgar Nehls.
In response to Schuster’s criticism, the mayor called for the slated March 9 event to be suspended until the antisemitic allegation could be clarified.
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Via
Jerusalem Post:
A student association at Oxford University passed a non-binding motion to effectively ban all kosher meat.
The Junior Common Room, a student government association at Oxford’s Somerville College, called on the college to only serve meat that has been stunned before being killed, according to the BBC. That requirement would exclude kosher meat, which cannot be stunned before slaughter.
A spokesman for the college said the college is looking into the request, but will also be expanding its kosher and halal meat offerings.
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Via
Times of Israel:
Thousands of far-right activists held a torch-lit march through Bulgarian capital Sofia Saturday to honor a World War II general known for his anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi activities.
The annual Lukov March, staged by the far-right Bulgarian National Union, attracted some 2,000 dark-clad supporters who walked through downtown Sofia holding torches and Bulgarian flags and chanting nationalist slogans. A number of far-right activists from other countries also took part in the march.
It came despite strong condemnation by human rights groups, political parties and foreign embassies. The city mayor had banned the rally but organizers won a court order overturning the ban.
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Via
euronews:
A French TV channel said on Wednesday it had been forced to cut short a live Facebook broadcast from a desecrated Jewish cemetery in eastern France because of an onslaught of anti-Semitic commentary.
Separately, two swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans were found painted in red on a monument at a different cemetery near Lyon.
(...)
France 3 television said it went live from the first cemetery in the village of Quatzenheim on Tuesday as President Emmanuel Macron was visiting to pay his respects after more than 90 graves were vandalised with swastikas and anti-Semitic abuse.
But as it broadcast footage online to its more than 1.3 million Facebook followers, the feed was inundated with anti-Semitic commentary and abuse.
"We are talking about explicit death threats, comments that were openly anti-Semitic and racist, including "Heil Hitler", "dirty Jew" or "dirty Jews", comments that were addressed at Emmanuel Macron and representatives of the Jewish community," the channel said in a statement explaining its decision.
"Within minutes, the number of vile and illegal comments had gone well beyond our capacity to moderate them," it explained, adding that it would have taken 10 or 20 staff to handle the onslaught. "We refuse to traffic in hatred."
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Via
JTA:
Unidentified individuals painted anti-Semitic cartoons on a memorial wall in Ukraine that was made of ancient Jewish headstones destroyed by Soviet authorities.
The graffiti found this week in the western city of Kolomyya show a man tossing a Star of David in the trash. The memorial wall commemorates one of three Jewish cemeteries that existed there before they were razed and plundered.
Eduard Dolinsky, the director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, on Tuesday wrote on Facebook that the act was typical of a recent spate of anti-Semitic vandalism in Ukraine.
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Via
JTA
Two Jewish cemeteries have been vandalized in Poland amid a fresh diplomatic crisis between that country and Israel over complicity in the Holocaust.
In the city of Świdnica, a suburb of Wroclaw in southwestern Poland, at least 15 headstones were smashed last week at the local Jewish cemetery. Other headstones were painted with black graffiti, including one of a pentagram – a symbol associated with Satanism.
Local police are investigating possible anti-Semitic motives, the website Wmeritum reported.
The cemetery had seen previous incidents, Monika Krawczyk, chairwoman-elect of the Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“The evil comes back,” she added.
Separately, in Wroclaw the words “Jesus is King” were written on the fence of another Jewish cemetery on Feb. 13. Several locals showed up earlier this week to paint over the slogan, Gazeta Wroclawska reported Sunday.
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From
Jerusalem Post:
The Great Prayer Hall of the Central Synagogue in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia, was subjected to an attack in which stones were thrown through the temple windows by "unidentified assailants" on Saturday witnesses said, according to The Algemeiner.
Bulgaria and the its capital are no strangers to antisemitism and have even been subjected to other attacks over recent weeks, including graffiti depicting swastikas and an antisemitic slogan covering a monument meant to memorialize those who fell victim to the ruling Communist regime in Bulgaria during World War II.
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Via
Jerusalem Post:
Two teenagers fired shots from an air rifle at a synagogue in Paris on Friday night, lightly injuring a Jewish man in the leg, French media reported on Tuesday.
According to the Le Parisien newspaper, the attack was staged against a synagogue in the Sarcelles suburb of Paris from an apartment facing the building.
Police searched the apartment and confiscated a 4.5mm calibre rifle, while the teenagers themselves were arrested on Saturday. The state prosecutor believes that the attack was carried out for antisemitic motives.
The president of the Jewish community of Sarcelles was quoted as saying, however, that he believed the attack was not antisemitic, adding that it was carried out due to “stupidity” and that the teenagers would have shot anyone. But he said he was still concerned about antisemitism in the suburb.
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Via
Jerusalem Post:
A shopping mall in Ukraine that is located on a street named for a collaborator with the Nazis decorated a staircase with a large swastika.
Images and footage from inside the Horodok shopping mall on Kiev’s Bandera Avenue surfaced Monday on Facebook.
They show shoppers climbing up and down the staircase, whose middle-section stairs feature a large swastika locked in a white rhombus encircled by red, similar to Nazi Germany’s flag. The street where the shopping mall is located is named for Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian nationalist who briefly collaborated with Nazi Germany in its fight against Russia.
His troops are believed to have killed thousands of Jews.
The street used to be Called Moscow Avenue. It was named for Bandera in 2016 despite protests by some Jewish community leaders and Ukrainian Poles, whose community also suffered war crimes by Bandera’s troops.
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