France: Jewish school bus attacked with stones

This past Friday, the driver of a school bus transporting kids to a Jewish school in Paris reported his bus was attacked with stones and other objects, apparently by kids from a public school on the way.

More: Alyaexpress-news

Hungary: Paramilitary groups target Jews, conduct weapons training

Another concerning issue in the report is the rise of paramilitary and extremist groups, which target not only Roma, but Jews and the LGBT community. And many of these groups conduct weapon trainings for their members. One of the report authors says the frequency and regularity of these instructions is unique to this central European country.

"There are some news in Romania about few trainings organized by some extremist organization, but nothing at the level of Hungary," said Margareta Matache, who has worked on Roma and minority issues in Europe for 15 years. She added, "What is interesting here is that each of these organizations, they organize these sort of training, not only once, they have regular trainings for their members on how to use weapons."

More: WUIS

Netherlands: Italian footballer implies reporter looks Jewish

Graziano Pellè, an Italian footballer playing for Dutch team Feyenoord was involved in an antisemitic incident.

Football-oranje reports (h/t CFCA):

On Sunday the former Parma man brought more negative publicity for the club after elbowing Joel Veltman, and giving a strange interview to Fox Sports presenter Jan Joost van Gangelen after the defeat, telling him he had an “Ajax face”, after he criticised the clubs tactics.

For historical reasons, Ajax is considered a "Jewish" team.  

Vatican: Priest Likens Criticism Over Abuse to Anti-Semitism (update: old news)

Update: This is a story from four years ago.  I did not notice when first posting.

A senior Vatican priest, speaking before Pope Benedict XVI at a Good Friday service, compared the world’s outrage at sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church to the persecution of the Jews, prompting angry responses from victims’ advocates and consternation from Jewish groups.

(...)

Speaking in St. Peter’s Basilica, the priest, the Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa, took note that Easter and Passover fell during the same week this year, and said he was led to think of the Jews.

“They know from experience what it means to be victims of collective violence, and also because of this they are quick to recognize the recurring symptoms,” said Father Cantalamessa, who serves under the title of preacher of the papal household. Then he quoted from what he said was a letter from a Jewish friend he did not identify.

“I am following the violent and concentric attacks against the church, the pope and all the faithful by the whole world,” he said the friend wrote. “The use of stereotypes, the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt, remind me of the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism.”

More: New York Times

France: Synagogue attacked by stone-throwing teens

Via BNVCA:

Friday, March 7, a synagogue in the Paris suburb of Sarcelles was attacked by teens throwing stones and shouting "Death to the Jews!" during Shabbat prayers.

Italy: Sports fans compare Jews to typhoid

Fans for both Juventus and Fiorentina allegedly made anti-Semitic comments during a February 23 match. One compared Jews with "typhoid", triggering complaints by Jewish leaders including Renzo Gattegna, president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities.

More: Gazzetta del Sud, h/t CFCA

UK: Tory MP claims shechita is un-British

A Tory MP has attacked shechita as against everything Britain stands for. 

Romford MP Andrew Rosindell, who is also secretary of the associate parliamentary group for animal welfare, said Jewish and Muslim methods of religious slaughter were imported foreign traditions that were unacceptable in the UK.

More: Jewish Chronicle

Ukraine: "There's suddenly a feeling we are sitting on a keg of gunpowder surrounded by fire"

"I didn't feel any anti-Semitism previously in Crimea," says the young rabbi, ordained by Leo Baeck College in London. "Now I am being attacked on Crimean websites which are pointing out that I'm Jewish. There's suddenly a feeling we are sitting on a keg of gunpowder surrounded by fire."

Not all the local Jews agree with Kapustin. The president of his Simferopol Progressive Jewish Community, Anatoly Gendin, says that he was born in Russia "and I am fine with being part of Russia again. I don't feel any anti-Semitism in Crimea, nothing at all until the vandalism of our synagogue."

"That's because you don't use public transport," responds his friend Boris Berlin. "Take the bus like me and you will hear how people talk about the Jews." Berlin isn't planning to vote in next Sunday's referendum, called to affirm the local parliament's decision to unite with Russia. "I used to work for the election commission here," says Berlin, a computer engineer. "It's a circus, not democracy."

More: Haaretz

Europe: Fact-finding mission to investigate Israeli prison conditions

A European fact-finding mission is scheduled to visit Palestine and Israel in March to investigate the humanitarian conditions of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody, an official said Saturday.

More: Maan News

Ukraine: Jewish monument firebombed

A monument to the Jewish cemetery in Chyhyryn (central Ukraine) was desecrated and firebombed.

More: Remarka

Ukraine: Restaurant patrons dress up as Jews, haggle over prices

Patrons having a time at the restaurant,
At the Golden Rose, in L'viv. (Yurij Nazaruk/Courtesy)

Just 31, Nazaruk, is a marketing savant who came up with the idea of using nationalist mythology to provide themes for a chain of 15 restaurants around the city. 

(...)

Nazaruk has also opened another, more controversial restaurant named At the Golden Rose. It’s adjacent to the site of what had been L'viv's Golden Rose synagogue, a 350-year-old house of worship that was destroyed by the Nazis.

At the restaurant, patrons are given hats with sidecurls intended to mimic those worn by Orthodox Jewish men. There are no prices on the menu. Diners must haggle with the waiter over how much to pay.

Asked if he understands why this is offensive, especially since almost all of L’viv’s Jewish residents were murdered, Nazaruk shrugs.

“More Ukrainians died in the war than Jews,” he said. “Bargaining over prices? It's the truth. But you must make it positive. We're not just dealing in anti-Semitic stereotypes."

He added, "When Ukrainians come to this restaurant, they see pictures drawn by Bruno Schulz and they read about Joseph Roth. [Both Jewish, Schulz was a writer and artist, and Roth a journalist and author]. This is very positive."

”It is an insult for every Jew," said Betty Rechister, the English-speaking member of a leading family in the city's tiny Jewish community. "Jews do not go there."

More: Global Post

UK: Racism against Jews not as bad “because Jews are rich”

"Anti-Semitism isn’t really thought of as racism. People genuinely don’t think of Jews as deserving of the same protections as other ethnic minorities.”

He recalls “a very famous friend” telling him that racism against Jews wasn’t as bad “because Jews are rich”.

Recently, after an appearance on Newsnight , he got into a Twitter row with David Icke, who believes that the world is run by secret lizards. “Somehow or other, everyone he identifies as a lizard happens to be Jewish,” observes Baddiel. 

More: Irish Times

France: Jewish girl beaten up for wearing a Star of David

Via Europe-Israel:

A Jewish girl was attacked in a laundry in Villeurbanne, a suburb of Lyon on February 17.  The attackers were a mother and daughter of North African descent.

The victim, Candice, says the mother held her, while the daughter punched her in the eye.  The daughter had seen Candice's Star of David and told her: "Dirty Jew, go home to your country, Israel".  Candice is an American living in France.

See here for an interview with Candice, in French.

Sweden: Jewish school vandalized with anti-Jewish slogans

Via Calle Nathanson, the Vasa Real school in Stockholm was vandalized with swastikas, Nazi and anti-Jewish slogans.  

NGO Monitor: U.S., U.K., Netherlands fund anti-Israel conference

The U.S., U.K., and Dutch governments are helping to fund an upcoming conference called “Christ at the Checkpoint,” which attempts to sway Evangelical Christian opinion against Israel and whose themes have anti-Semitic undertones, according to a new report issued by the Jerusalem-based watchdog group NGO Monitor.

More: JNS