Saturday, November 30, 2013

France: Court fines boycott-Israel activists for discrimination


A French court imposed a $1,300 fine on members of an anti-Israel group who called on supermarket shoppers to boycott Israeli products.

The Court of Appeals of Colmar near Strasbourg fined each of the group’s 12 members individually on Wednesday for their participation in a pro-boycott activity in 2009-2010, which the court qualified as “provocation to discrimination.” The court also gave the activists a suspended jail sentence, according to a report by the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish communities.

More: Times of Israel

Friday, November 29, 2013

Norway: New blog titled 'Jewish Hands are Drenched in Aryan Blood'


Norway's Center Against Racism has reported a second anti-semitic blog, subtitled 'Jewish Hands are Drenched in Aryan Blood" to the Norwegian police for violating racism laws. 
The site, which received its first posts over the weekend, argues amongst other things that Jews aim to enslave the rest of the world, that they are responsible for atrocities carried out by the Soviet Union, and that the Jewish ritual of circumcision is an "amputation". 

More: The Local

France: Antisemitic graffiti


A synagogue in Woerth (Alsace) was vandalized with antisemitic graffiti, as well as several cars and the surrounding area.  A young man in his 20s admitted to the crime and sentenced to 6 months in jail.

More: CFCA, DNA

Switzerland: 'Israel is on its way to be reduced to ashes'


Following the recent deal of the West with Iran, Denis Menoud, city councilman in Geneva, wrote on his Facebook: 'Israel is on its way to be reduced to ashes'.

When the Jewish group CICAD (Inter-community co-ordination against anti-Semitism and defamation) denounced his statement, Menoud answered that his comment was taken out of context.  He was talking about the agreement, and Israel is the loser in this agreement, strategically and politically.

More: 20min (via Philosémitisme Blog)

Germany: Memorial for Jewish Holocaust victims desecrated


A memorial statue for the Jews of Freiburg on Wiwili Bridge was desecrated with a swastika and anti-Semitic slogans.

More: CFCA

Italy: Lawyer refers to his opponent as "the Jew"


Paolo Polidori, Northern League politician, is on trial for incitement to racism, after he said at a party conference last spring that Prime Minister Mario Monti and his government were expressions of Jewish-Mason power.  In response to criticism from the Jewish community, Polidori repeated that global financial power was in Jewish-Mason hands.

Polidori was charged and is currently on trial.  But the trial has now turned into another complaint of racism, this time against Polidori's lawyer, Giuseppe Turco.  During the trial Turco constantly referred to the Jewish community's lawyer, Alberto Kostoris, as "The Jew".

When asked by the judge to use language better suited to the courtroom, Turco replied that he saw nothing wrong with it.  Kostoris is Jewish, and had said he's proud to be a Jew.  Kostoris complained to the Italian bar.

More: Il Messaggero Veneto (via Focus On Israel)

France: Majority of Jews too afraid to put kids in public school


Most French Jewish parents enroll their children in private schools because of anti-Semitism, a leader of France’s Jewish community said.

Anti-Semitism “affects Jewish families very seriously and is the main reason there are so few Jewish children in public schools,” Roger Cukierman, president of the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish communities, said Tuesday during a symposium on anti-Semitism at the European Parliament. “Most of them go to Jewish or Christian private schools.”

More: JTA

Germany: "Don't buy from Jews" painted on shop window


Around the time of the Kristallnacht anniversary somebody wrote "Don't buy from Jews" on a shop window in Berlin-Rummelsburg.

More: Morgenpost

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Germany: 190 antisemitic crimes over three months


190 antisemitic crimes were registered in Germany from July till September.  Eight people were injured.

Last year there were 1286 antisemitic crimes, an increase of 10.6% compared to 2011.

More: n-tv


Israel: Muslim leader cleared of 'blood libel' charges


Sheikh Raed Salah, leader of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, was convicted of incitement to violence recently.  But the Jerusalem court also acquitted him of incitement to racism for antisemitic remarks he made in which he implicitly accused Jews of killing European children for their blood.  A British tribunal had ruled that same speech antisemitic.

The prosecution said references Salah made to bloodlibel provided the basis for a separate claim against him for racist incitement.

In his speech, Salah said that he and other Muslims never made their Ramadan bread with the blood of children, adding, “Whoever wants a more comprehensive explanation, should ask what happened to some of the European children whose blood was mixed with flour for use in holy bread.”

Salah’s lawyer convinced the court that Salah’s words on the blood-libel issue were open to multiple interpretations, including to the Christian Crusaders killing children in Europe.

As a result, the court convicted him of incitement to violence, but not racist incitement.

More: Jerusalem Post

Hungary: Jewish filmmaker attacked on bus by Jobbik supporters


Jewish filmmaker Ádám Csillag was attacked by supporters of the far-right Jobbik party when he came to film one of the party's events.  He was attacked on the bus as he set up his camera. The camera continued rolling as he was told to 'go home' and threatned he'll be slaughtered because he's Jewish.




More: CFCA, hir24

Italy: Israeli woman targeted with swastikas


Swastikas were painted on a shop owned by an ex-Israeli woman in Benevento.   Other shopkeepers said this isn't the first time the woman had been targeted.

More: CFCA

Jewish group calls for action against neo-Nazi political parties


European officials must act to reverse the momentum of neo-Nazi political parties, the head of the European Jewish Congress said following a victory in Slovakia by a neo-Nazi candidate. 
EJC President  Moshe Kantor issued a statement Sunday in the wake of the victory by Marian Kotleba, the ex-chairman of the banned Togetherness National Party.
More: JTA

France: Jewish student association concerned about National Front appeal


The Union of Jewish Students in France in concerned about the right-wing National Front (FN) party gaining momentum among young people.  According to a survey conducted for the group, 55% of 18-24 year olds and 63% of young men would consider voting for the FN in the upcoming municipal elections.  Among the general population, 42% said they would consider voting for the party.

84% of the young people surveyed said that some FN candidates had expressed racist or antisemitic sentiments.  This figure dropped to 71% among the men surveyed.

69% said such sentiments would affect their vote, compared with just 50% of young men who agreed.

More: Le Monde

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Germany: "Eternal lie" antisemitic sign hung in cemeteries


More from the Kristallnacht antisemitic attacks:

The Jewish cemeteries in Bad Berleburg and Siegen (North Rhine-Westphalia) were desecrated on the night of November 8th. In both places somebody hung a sign saying "The eternal lie lives on" with a star of david.

Netherlands: Youth center vandalized with antisemitic graffiti


A dozen youth of Moroccan origin vandalized the local youth center in the Zuid borough of Amsterdam after they were refused entrance.  The group broke windows and drew antisemitic slogans on the walls.

More: Parool

Geneva: Call to ban Hanukka lighting ceremony


Geneva municipal councillor Pierre Gauthier wants to ban the public Hanukka lighting ceremony at Molard square.  Gauthier said he's not afraid of being called antisemitic, because the state law says that you can't have religious worship on public roads.

More: TDG

Slovkia: Neo-Nazi governor had called to expel Jews from the country


Marian Kotleba, recently elected regional governor of Banska Bystrica in Slovakia, had said in a speech in Modra in 2004 that the best solution to the Jewish question was to expel the Jews from Slovakia.

More: SME



France: Jewish immigration to Israel up by 49 percent


Jewish immigration from France to Israel has increased by 49 percent in the first nine months of 2013 compared to last year.
More: JTA

Italy: "Priebke lives" graffiti in Rome

"Priebke Lives"
Erich Priebke, a German Nazi officer convicted of war crimes in Italy, died last October.

More: Repubblica Roma (+ more photos)

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Poland: 'Jews out!' painted on synagogue


Antisemitic writings were sprayed on the walls of the synagogue in Dzierzoniów.

The writings said: 'the Aryan fraternity is back', 'Jews out!' (Jude raus), and 'Crystal night' (KrystallNacht). Swastikas were also painted on the synagogue walls

More: CFCA

Norway: Government official says Jews circumcise out of ignorance


The Norwegian government’s child welfare adviser said Jews and Muslims would stop circumcising children if they learned more about the risks and pain involved in the procedure. 
“With good information about risk, pain and lack of health benefits of the intervention, I think parents from minorities would voluntarily abstain from circumcising children,” Anne Lindboe, Norway’s children’s ombudsman, told the Norwegian Aftenpost daily last week.

More: JTA

The Norway, Israel and the Jews blog reports that the Norwegian  Minister of Foreign Affairs sent a letter to the Simon Wiesenthal Center assuring them the government won't ban ritual circumcision.

Bulgaria: Extremists join to create new Neo-Nazi party


Bulgarian extremists established Saturday a new party with the name "Nationalist Party of Bulgaria." It includes the formations National Resistance, the Bulgarian National-Radical Party, the local branch of neo-Nazi organization "Blood and Honor," and a number of informal groups.
More: novinite

Norway: "The Jews' hands are drenched in blood and the hour of vengeance is near"


Norway's Centre Against Racism has reported a right-wing blog to the police for the first time in five years, citing its fantasies that the Jews, described as "Satan's Children" would be "eradicated from the face of the earth".

(...)

The blogger also claims that "the hour of vengeance is near" for Jewish people.

"The Jews' hands are drenched in blood and the hour of vengeance is near," the blogger writes. "We simply have to keep a cool head and be mentally prepared. It's going to be ugly. Very ugly."

"The Jews cannot exterminate us whites if they do it on their own. The plan is to use the primitive hordes of Africa as a weapon," he adds. 

More: The Local

Belgium: Shipping line museum stirs debate on persecution history

The museum wants to focus on the 'universal human story' of the pursuit of happiness.  But a quarter of its passengers were Jews fleeing antisemitic persecution.

The Jewish dimension is hardly overlooked in the two-story museum. But the exhibition “emphasizes the universal character of migration,” the city wrote in a statement. The official booklet on the museum describes it as “a universal human story about the pursuit of happiness, a story we can all relate to.”

That sort of universalizing of history has prompted protests from Jewish leaders who argue that it degrades the uniquely Jewish character of the Holocaust.

The opening last year of Belgium’s main Holocaust museum at Mechelen was delayed over criticism that its broad mission of defending human rights risked “obfuscation as to the scale of the Shoah and banalization,” according to Eli Ringer of the Flemish Forum of Jewish Organizations.

In neighboring Holland, the remembrance of German soldiers along with their Jewish and non-Jewish victims during memorial ceremonies for World War II victims led to acrimonious debates and legal action. In May 2012, a Dutch court, responding to a petition filed by a Jewish group, issued an injunction against the commemoration of German soldiers in the town of Vorden.

“Commemoration needs to draw lessons or it’s a sterile affair,” said Joel Rubinfeld, co-chair of the Brussels-based European Jewish Parliament and past president of Belgium’s main Jewish umbrella group. “There are lessons to be drawn from Jewish emigration from Europe, and presenting them as part of a larger population shift doesn’t help in a time when anti-Semitism is once more driving some Jews out of Europe.“

More: Heritage

Russia: Fine to man calling to kill Jews


A court in Zavolzhsky sentenced a man to a 100,000 ruble (~$3000) fine for using a social network to call to kill Jews.  The man also shared Nazi material and called to kill policemen and their families.

More: Izrus

Germany: Polish resistance veterans sue TV show for portrayal as antisemites


A lawsuit has been filed against the producers of a controversial German mini-series that 'defames' the official WWII Polish underground force as being anti-semitic.
More: The News

Monday, November 25, 2013

Belgium: Following repeated complaints, newspaper fixes headline blaming a Jew for death of American diplomats


On September 13th, 2012, Belgian newspaper De Standaard published an article claiming that Sam Bacile, an Israeli Jew, made a film mocking Muhammad.  The headline stated that a Jewish Israeli and American pastor knowingly insulted Mohammed, thereby leading to the death of American diplomats in Libya.  This despite the fact that:
1. By that time the world media was already questioning who Bacile really was
2. Such baseless accusations could have led to a serious backlash against Jews and Israelis worldwide

Besides which, the film was not the reason for the murder of the American diplomats.

Original headline: Israeli Jew blamed for the death of
American diplomats in Libya
Following complaints, De Standaard added a note at the bottom explaining that despite the headline, Bacile is not a Jew.  However, the article soon became viewable only for paying subscribers, and the note was thereby not visible.

A couple more complaints on the topic in the past few months led De Standaard to fix the article again.  The site added a note to the headline stating that "after the article had gone to press, the man who identified himself as Sam Bacile and an Israeli Jew turned out to be neither Israeli nor Jewish.  Sam Bacile was a pseudonym".


Correction added

Norway: Labor union joins Israel boycott


Norway's largest labor union, the Norwegian Union of Municipal and General Employees (NUMGE), has decided to boycott trade with Israel, following a vote in the union's national congress.

The reason: The union says Israel bears responsibility for the Israeli-Arab conflict and that the basis of the conflict is the illegal occupation of Palestinian lands.

More: Fagbladet

Netherlands: Jewish organization complains art gallery is selling Mein Kampf


The Jewish Federation of the Netherlands turned to the police against the Totalitarian Art Gallery for selling Mein Kampf.  The book is illegal since 1974.  The Federation also complained regarding Wikipedia, as the book is available for download via a link from the site.

More: NRC

Slovakia: right-wing extremist wins regional vote


In an surprise outcome Saturday, a right-wing extremist was elected president of one of Slovakia‘s self-governing regions, election officials said.

Ukraine: Jew extorted, beaten by police


In the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, a Ukrainian-Jewish man named Dmitry Flekman has reported that two men who identified themselves as police officers assaulted him at a police station while trying to extort money from him.

Flekman, aged 28, posted his story on the Ukrainian Jewish website evreiskiy.kiev.ua. He alleges the officers demanded USD 10,000 from him and threatened to search his apartment where they would “find” cocaine. The assailants reportedly beat him with something resembling a crowbar and when they discovered he was Jewish they made him sit on the floor and urinated on him.
More: JN1 ( + clip)



Poland: Anti-Semitic souvenirs sold in every tourist site


A survey commissioned recently by the leadership of the Jewish community in Warsaw revealed that 54% of Poles believe Jews have "too much influence on the global economy."

Amid this troubling finding, representatives of the World Zionist Organization (WZO) who visited former Nazi concentration camps in Poland were amazed to discover anti-Semitic souvenirs sold on the street in almost every tourist site in the country, including paintings and amulets of Jews waving dollars – for people to hang in their homes as a charm for protecting their money.

More: YNet

Germany: Cemetery desecrated with swastikas


The cemetery in Oldenburg (Lower Saxony) was vandalized Saturday night.  Swastikas were painted on 8 tombstones and on the funeral home.  The police suspect neo-Nazi in his 30s who was caught on CCTV painting swastikas elsewhere that night.

The cemetery was desecrated exactly two years ago with paint.

More: NWZ Online

Latvia: WWI Memorial desecrated with Star of David


The World War I Freedom Fighters memorial in Riga was desecrated with a Star of David on November 9th (Kristallnacht anniversary).  A few days earlier a swastika was painted on a memorial to Janis Cakste, Latvia's first president.

More: NRA, TV-NET

Sunday, November 24, 2013

BDS = annihilation of the Jewish state = antisemitism


Israel: Arab-Israeli on UK flight threatens to harm passengers


An Israeli passenger, 21, started acting out and threatened to hurt fellow passengers on a British Airways flight from London to Israel.

(...)

A security team boarded the flight and constrained the passenger, who was of Arab descent. Once the possibility that he was armed was ruled out he was handcuffed and escorted off the flight.

According to a passenger on the flight, the passenger yelled "I hate the Jews" and "I hate this place."

More: Haaretz


Belgium: Jewish man attacked on way to synagogue, police deny racial motivation


A Jewish man was attacked while on his way to the synagogue Saturday morning.  The victim managed to find shelter in the synagogue and call the police.  The police say that the suspect, who was undressed, was high on drugs.  The police say that attack was not racially motivated.

Attakcs on Jews in the area are uncommon.  A year and a half ago a drunk driver drove into a group of Jews standing outsde the same synagogue.

The Israeli site Behadrei Hadarim quotes Shmuel Markovitch of the Antwerp city council saying that the attacker was Muslim.  Local police did not confirm or deny this.

More: Joods Actueel, Behadrei Haredim

Germany: Threats, discrimination against Jews



On Wednesday (26.09.2012), the Secretary General of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Stephan Kramer, was threatened with an attack. On the same day, a taxi driver in Berlin refused to drive a family to a synagogue. Both cases have been picked up by the police for investigation.

The two incidents took place only about a month after an attack on a rabbi that made the headlines across Germany - 53-year-old Daniel Alter was beaten up by a group of teenagers and verbally abused for being Jewish. The victim said the attacks were of Arab origin.

But Levi Salomon, anti-Semitism commissioner for the Jewish Community of Berlin organization, does not think that Berlin has become any more anti-Semitic than it was. "This city is a mirror of society in general," he said. "I believe that anti-Semitism is simply deeply rooted in Germany."

More: DW

UK: Times Publishes Op-Ed Saying Israeli Soldiers Kill Palestinian Children With Relative Impunity


A British lawyer named Roy Amlot wrote an op-ed for The Times, ‘West Bank: justice in the military courts‘, November 14, recounting his recent experiences visiting the West Bank “to observe the military courts in action…under the aegis of the Bar Human Rights Committee (BHRC).”

(...)

However, the most egregious smear is found in the last paragraph of Amlot’s piece:

Where sentences are imposed [against Israeli soldiers], they are woefully lenient.Killing a Palestinian child may attract no more than a few months of community service. It is discrimination at its worst.

(...)

Beyond the specifics, however, the smear that Israeli soldiers murder Palestinian children with impunity is part of a larger lethal narrative advanced by anti-Israel activists and some Guardian “journalists” which we’ve addressed previously. Indeed, no matter how absurd the charges that the IDF targets innocent Palestinian kids, such morally reckless memes evoking the specter of unimaginable Jewish malevolence have become so ingrained in the Islamist and extreme-left imagination that the facts regarding such libels become almost irrelevant.

More: Algemeiner

Belgium: Extra security for Jewish institutions due to 'permanent threat of terrorism'


The Antwerp municipal council decided to fund CCTV cameras around Jewish institutions, due to the permanent threat of terrorism against such targets.

More: GvA

Ukraine: Online game has player shoot Jews


Ukrainian programmers have got in touch with their inner radical, releasing an online “nationalist simulation” game where the player shoots “enemies of Ukraine,” including gays, Jews and Russians. 
The brutally primitive gameplay sees a spherical protagonist wield an automatic rifle to demolish oncoming hordes of similarly round enemies. 
(...) 
The game, available free of charge at Five.od.ua, concludes with a never-ending horde of incoming spheres sporting Jewish sidelocks.

More: RIA Novosti

Netherlands: Two men fined for publishing antisemitic book online


Two men (65 and 88 years old) were fined 1000 euro in Amsterdam for publishing an antisemitic book on the internet.  The book was online from March 2012 to February 2013.  Half of the fine is conditional.

More: Reformatorisch Dagblad

France: Left Party joins Israel boycott


A small leftist party in France announced that it is aligning itself with the international campaign to boycott Israel and Israeli products. 
“The national bureau of the Left Party has convened on Nov. 16 and decided to engage the Left Party in support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign,” read a statement placed this week on the party’s website.

More: The Times of Israel

Friday, November 22, 2013

Austria: Nazi memorial stones vandalized again


Stepping Stones once again smeared and tarnished in the city of Salzburg  

More: CFCA

Hungary: Nazi party flyers on public transport


Antisemitic flyers were placed in Budapest on public transport vehicles.

More: CFCA

Italy: Italians downplay the Holocaust


Even outside conservative and ultra-conservative circles, it is common to downplay the role played by Mussolini's regime, and Italians in general, in the extermination of Jews.

The dominant narrative is the one of “Italiani brava gente,” or “Italians are nice people.” Many Italian history book focus on making a distinction between Nazism (bad) and fascism (not-so-bad): “Antisemitism and racist ideology was the main difference between Hitler's regime and that of Mussolini,” wrote Renzo De Felice, a prominent historian who also noted that under Fascism “only 7,000 Jews lost their lives” (emphasis my own).

Moreover, a recent study on the representation of the Holocaust in Italian movies (“La Shoah nel cinema italiano”, edited by Andrea Minuz and Guido Vitiello, both professors at the University of Rome) shows that the majority of them tend to downplay the role of fascism in the persecution of Jews. Moreover, an impressive number of movies about World War II bear no reference of the Holocaust at all.

More: The Daily Beast

Austria: Neo-Nazi group members get up to six years' prison


Seven Austrian neo-Nazis were sentenced to up to six years in prison in a case the judge said should serve as an example to others in the country, which has a Nazi past. 
The members of the so-called Objekt 21, which witnesses linked to an illegal prostitution network, were convicted late on Monday of "re-engagement with National Socialism" - a crime in Austria since 1947.
More: Jerusalem Post

Russia: Voice of Russia pushes American/Zionist plot story


When I came across this, I was sure this is a joke.  But no, Voice of Russia is the Russian government's international radio broadcasting service.  Host John Robles interviewed a couple named Moriarity, who spin a convoluted conspiracy theory blaming the US (and the Jews!) for all of Libya's troubles.

Robles: There was one thing you didn't mention, but I know this was a key moment also in Iraq the day, I think that was 9 hours before Iraq was invaded, Saddam Hussein had decided to change oil trade into the Euro. Now, Muammar Gaddafi, if you recall, he was a friend to the UK and to the United States and then he decided to do the same thing right before they invaded the country. And now the oil trade has now been pegged at the dollar again and all trade has been done in the dollar out of Libya, I don't know if you knew that.. 
JoAnne Moriarity: It's absolutely the truth. I mean, these are the Zionists, these are the bankers that control the world, the paper bankers, and it's really a crime that their attitude is: this is "acceptable collateral damage", because they are not going to have their power and their control changed to the good of any country or any person. 

They're going to kill or destroy anything that get in their way. It's really heinous. And they did it.

Why Jews flee to Europe: Divergence in attitudes towards Jews


 The most comprehensive recent study of cross-European attitudes toward religious minorities was conducted two years ago by Andreas Zick of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Resarch on Conflict and Violence. It found a huge divergence in attitudes.

On the statement “Jews have too much influence in my country,” a staggering 69 per cent of Hungarians and 50 per cent of Poles answered yes, compared to far smaller numbers in Western Europe (14 per cent in France, 20 per cent in Germany and 6 per cent in the Netherlands) Likewise, majorities in Poland, Hungary and Portugal agreed with the statement “Jews in general do not care about anything or anyone but their own kind,” while this was a small minority view in the larger economies.

In Europe’s centre and east, where hardly any Jews remain to be found, public intolerance has risen to dangerous proportions. In the larger economies, Jews are largely seen as fellow citizens with a different religion. Unfortunately, the places where people of any religious minority are free from annoying zealotry are becoming fewer in number.

More: Globe and Mail

Netherlands: Jewish schools are the only ones needing extra security measures


In a discussion in the Dutch parliament about paying for security for Jewish schools, MP Gert-Jan Segers of the Christian Union party said that parents now pay 700-1000 euro for every kid in Jewish elementary school, to cover security expenses.  "That is not the case by any other type of school".

Last year the Amsterdam municipality paid half of the 800,000 euro needed.

More: Parool

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Croatia: Joe Simunic defends ‘pro-Nazi celebrations’ after World Cup play


Croatia’s Joe Simunic has defended his use of ‘pro-Nazi’ celebrations in the aftermath of his country’s World Cup 2014 qualification.

(...)

Video footage shows Australian-born Simunic taking a microphone to the field after the match and shouting to the fans: ‘For the homeland!’ The fans respond: ‘Ready!’

That was the war call used by Ustashas, the Croatian pro-Nazi puppet regime that ruled the state during World War II when tens of thousands Jews, Serbs and others perished in concentration camps.

More: Metro

Sweden: Jews are safe 'only so long as we agree to become invisible as Jews'

Annika Hernroth-Rothstein writes in Mosaic Magazine:
True: we are not being murdered, and we are not being physically driven out. But our religious observances are being interdicted, our persons are being threatened, our safety is being endangered, and—in short—our human rights are being violated. Why do we put up with it? And why do pundits and politicians assure me that Jews in Sweden are perfectly safe when what they really mean is that we will be safe only so long as we agree to become invisible as Jews and cease to practice Judaism?

(...)

A month ago, I sought out the parliamentarian responsible for the latest anti-kosher bill and others like it. Feeling at once sad, lonely, and furious, I told him that instead of churning out all these different measures, each one aimed at outlawing yet another aspect of Jewish life, it would be much easier to write a single bill outlawing Jews. At least that would be honest. When he protested, I ended up arguing with him over the kashrut bill for almost twenty minutes, giving him the facts until, unable to refute me, he turned bright red in the face, leaned in, and said: “Well, you know us. This thing you call multiculturalism. All of that. We don’t want it. Not here. Not in our country.”

I was startled, but also relieved. Finally, some truth.

More: Mosaic Magazine

Norway: Professor says Israel is responsible for antisemitism


The Norway, Israel and the Jews blog reports that Trond Andresen, a professor at NTNU (Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim) wrote on his Facebook page that he's boycotting the Kristallnacht ceremony.  His reasons:
1. Jews suffer far less than anybody else, and shouldn't get any special attention because of it
2. Israel is responsible for whatever they do suffer
3. Israel supporters profit from the ceremony

More: Norway, Israel and the Jews, see also Dusken and JTA




Germany: Far-right party blames Jews for genetically engineered plants


The German far-right party NPD has expressed support for green issues.  Among other things, they claim genetically engineered plants from American seed companies are financed by 'Jewish capital'.

More: TAZ

Ban Ki-moon: Anti-Semitism retains its hold in too many places


In an address made at the camp, Ban expressed concern that many nations are still plagued by ethnic and religious persecution. "Even today, the fire smolders. Anti-Semitism retains its hold in too many places. In Europe and elsewhere, migrants, Muslims, Roma and other minorities face rising discrimination - and find too few defenders," he said. "We will continue to shine a light on these unspeakable crimes so that they [may] never be repeated."
More: Haaretz

Sweden: Students interrupt Holocaust show with 'Heil Hitler'


High-school students in Kiruna, in northern Sweden, came to see a show about the Holocaust as part of an anti-xenophobia campaign .  In the show, Bianca Meyer tells of her grandmother, an Auschwitz survivor.  Meyer reports that some students laughed when she showed pictures from the Holocaust, one shouted 'Heil Hitler' and somebody else shouted out that she should be raped.

None of the teachers present responded.

More: SR

Germany: Merkel - "No Jewish institution can be left without police protection"


Chancellor Angela Merkel lamented that 75 years after Kristallnacht, the anti-Jewish pogroms in Germany, Jewish institutions in the country still need police protection. 
(...) 
"It is almost inexplicable but also the reality that no Jewish institution can be left without police protection," she said. 
"This is a situation beyond explanation, yet it is also the reality on the ground… at the gates of kindergartens, schools and Jewish institutions German policemen must stand guard to protect them."

More: EJP

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Germany: Jewish cemetery desecrated


Vandals desecrated the Jewish cemetery in Gröbzig - (Anhalt-Bitterfeld).
More: CFCA

Hungary: Books of Jewish poet, 'Zionist publications' burned

A group calling itself the 'Hungarian National Front' burned books of Jewish poet Miklos Radnoti and what they called other 'Zionist publications' in Miskolc, in northern Hungary.

More: Nepszabadsag, Forward

France: New pro-Dieudonné and anti-Israel Facebook page

French blogger philosemitisme reports of a new pro-Dieudonné and anti-Israel Facebook page.


An image posted on the Fecebook site

Dieudonné, a French comedian, is known for his antisemitic views.  The page says it aims to expose the new world order, media manipulations and "IsraelHell Apartheid" and most of all, to inform its readers.

Poland: Forbes apologizes for accusing Jewish leaders of taking Holocaust restitution monies


The Polish edition of Forbes magazine apologized for three articles about the restitution of prewar property of Jewish communities that targeted the leaders of Poland’s organized Jewish community and several Jewish organizations. 
The apology for the articles published in September was published Monday on the magazine’s website. The original articles were titled “Who are our leaders?”, “Jewish accusation,” and “Kaddish for a million bucks.”

More: Jewish Daily Forward.    See also JTA

The apology states:
We regret that the above mentioned articles contained invalid claims regarding the activities of institutions and individuals described therein, claims which were detrimental to the property and heritage of Poland’s Jewish community. In particular apologize for the publication of information suggesting the following activities: that the individuals named in the articles reaped personal benefit from the activities of Jewish organizations in Poland; that the restituted Jewish cemeteries in Torun, Gliwice and Lublin were sold contrary to the principles of Jewish tradition and that there was no settling of accounts of the funds allocated for preservation of Jewish heritage. 
Once more, we apologize to the entire Jewish community in Poland for the published insinuations distinguishing “true” Jews and “fake” ones, as well as for the assertion that “there are scarcely any true Jews” amongst the leaders of Jewish organizations. It was neither the editorial staff’s nor the author’s intention to assign values to members of the Jewish community.

More: Polish Jewish Community response site

Sweden: Roma compensation for police log compared to Jewish Holocaust


The Swedish Commission on Security and Integrity Protection recently ruled that the state should pay damages to Roma listed on a register kept by the Skåne police.

The Jewish connection?

Fatima Bergendahl, of Roma background, was interviewed on the topic and said as follows: "If you think back on history, how important it was for the Jews to get compensation for what they have been through.  Compensation is acknowledgement."

I assume this wasn't what she was trying to do, but comparing being listed in a register to genocide is Holocaust minimization.  Particularly given the fact that Swedish Jews did not receive compensation for anything.

UK: Candles (and Jews) blown out in Wales


A group of Aberystwyth residents are up in arms over the exclusion of Orthodox Jews from their holiday homes. 
Aberystwyth University has historically rented 150 student houses to members of Manchester’s Charedi community every August, for the past 20 years. This saw an influx of around a thousand Orthodox Jews to the area. 
Last May, the university banned the use of candles in the residences, citing health and safety issues after a “minor incident” with a lighted candle. 
The Orthodox visitors were thereby effectively banned from staying in the houses. 
(...) 
Diane Richards, a specialist cancer nurse who was an instigator in writing the letter, called the university’s reasoning “spurious — I don’t know if it was antisemitism, I’m not sure if it was ignorance… but it is suspicious.”

More: The JC

Germany: Politician gets hate mail after calling for struggle against antisemitism


The leader of the Leftist party, Gregor Gysi, has been receiving many mails with antisemitic contents, since he called for a struggle against antisemitism on the 9th of November in his Facebook page. “I know there exists in Germany deep-rooted antisemitism among some of the citizens, but they dare not take it out” said Gysi to the daily newspaper “Die Welt”.

More: CFCA

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

France: Hollande in Israel vows to fight anti-Semitism


France’s President François Hollande addressed Israeli lawmakers at the Knesset on Monday, saying his country will continue its fight against anti-Semitism and vowing to ensure the security of all Jews living in France.

The French leader told the Israeli parliament that  his country is using "all its might against anti-Semitism in all its forms."

"I confirm in this house the French Republic's commitment to watch over, at all times, the security and safety of the Jews of France," he said.

More: France24

UK: Ballet teacher cleared over ‘anti-Jewish remark’


A BALLET teacher charged with causing distress to a student by making an anti-Jewish remark walked free yesterday when a sheriff ruled he had no case to answer. 
Jonathan Barton, an award-winning dancer and vice principal of the Ballet West School in Taynuilt, had pleaded not guilty to acting in a racially aggravated manner towards a former student, Genevieve Huss. 
Miss Huss told Oban Sheriff Court that she was shocked and later depressed and anxious after a comment Mr Barton made to a class of dancers on 1 December, 2010. 
She said: “The remark was: ‘You all look like a bunch of Jews waiting to be shot in the rain’.”

More: Scotsman

Portugal´s President: 'The resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe is a fact'

Jorge Sampaio, president of Portugal, was interviewed about his Jewish heritage and antisemitism:
I have constantly denounced all forms of discrimination and xenophobia, be it of religious, ethnic, cultural, sexual, or any other nature. I obviously condemn any form of anti-Semitism…. The resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe is a fact – although it is not a pattern – and must also be seen in the framework of the resurgence of other forms of xenophobia and racial hatred. These manifestations do exist and we must fight all of them with the same energy, attacking their causes, and prosecuting those that sow hatred and violence. 
Anti-Israel and anti-Zionist sentiments in Europe often seem to be a cover for expressing anti-Semitic feelings under the guise of political opposition to Israeli policies. Why is Europe so critical of Israel? Is anti-Semitism a factor? 
I believe that we must be careful with our assertions. I am ready to admit that some criticism of Israel might have some anti-Semitic motivations. But I absolutely reject that all criticism of Israeli policies has such motivations. In fact, many people who criticize such policies have the security of Israel and the well-being of the Israeli people at the core of their motivations, I for one. I do believe that Europe’s position has strived to be fair and balanced, even if, sometimes, we have not managed to make our position sufficiently clear.
More: Shavei Israel

Hungary: Bishop Alarmed by Nazi Ally’s Monument


Hungary’s Reformed Church said it will look into the conduct of one of its clergymen after he unveiled a bust of Miklos Horthy, the country’s leader who in the 1920s and 1930s presided over the adoption of anti-Jewish laws and was a close ally of Nazi Germany. 
The unveiling of the bust Sunday marked the 75th anniversary of a wartime accord with Nazi Germany which allowed Hungary to get back part of the territory it lost under the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, a peace agreement signed after World War I.

More: Wall Street Journal

Poland: Kid vandalizes tombstones at Jewish cemetery


A 12-year-old is accused of vandalizing 9 tombstones at a Jewish cemetery in Katowice on the night of October 14th.  The boy had come to the cemetery with friends.  The parents will have to pay damages.

More: tv224 (link includes news clip)

UK: Campaigner against antisemitism admits false expenses claims


Former Labour MP and campaigner against antisemitism Denis MacShane faces a possible jail sentence after admitting making false expenses claims. 
Dr MacShane, who chaired the All Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Anti-Semitism, faked receipts for £12,900 of research and translation services. 
He used the money to fund trips to Europe which were connected with his work on antisemitism.

More: The JC

Monday, November 18, 2013

Poland: Actor threatened for appearing in film about Polish antisemitism



Major news outlets have dismissed it as anti-Polish propaganda, its non-Jewish star Maciej Stuhr has been the target of vicious anti-Semitic attacks, and its producer says he has been blacklisted by the country's national film council. 
(...) 
While he never seriously feared for his safety, Stuhr says the nationwide controversy that swirled around the film's premiere was a trying time for him. "They were calling for me to get a one-way ticket out of Poland immediately," Stuhr recalls. "The right-wing journalists were ruthless about me." Jablonski read the climate as far more threatening: "I realized then that he was in physical danger. So many web pages with our pictures, saying, 'These people need to be hanged.' " He says he was particularly disturbed by an issue of Wprost, a mainstream news magazine, which provocatively splayed Stuhr's photo on its cover along with anti-Semitic graffiti and the headline, "Lynched at his own request."  Inside, an editorial entitled, "Stuhr, You Jew!" detailed the wave of racist backlash that the actor had faced. While it didn't endorse the anti-Semitic sentiments, the piece ultimately sided against the star: "He has become a symbol of simplicity and manipulating history for commercial gain," wrote its author, Magdalena Rigamonti.

More: Hollywood Reporter

Denmark: Jewish groups angered at absence of Israeli flag at diversity festival


A city hall request that the Israeli flag not be displayed at a street festival intended to promote diversity has Jewish community leaders wondering what “diversity” really means to some city leaders.

More: Copenhagen Post

UK: Hitler remarks teacher fired


A religious education teacher has been struck off after telling pupils: "Hitler wasn't all bad - he killed the Jews, the gays and the disabled". 
David McNally also told pupils at Kilwinning Academy that he would rather have been a child abuser and liked to watch porn on his mobile phone.
More: BBC

Austria: Swastika painted on Jewish memorial


found antisemitic statements on the Evangelical Church in Leopoldstadt, Vienna: a swastika along with the words "Hitler" and “Heil" engraved on the memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. The church filed a complaint.

More: CFCA

Russia: Orthodox Priest Suspended for 'Yid' Jibe


Russian Church officials suspended a priest for using an anti-Semitic pejorative while baptizing a girl. 
The two-month ban on Andrey Evstigneeva was announced earlier this month on the website of the Diocese of Saratov, a city situated 450 miles southeast of Moscow. 
It followed complaints by the family and by the Russian Jewish Congress, the Interfax news agency reported Wednesday.

More: Jewish Daily Forward

Germany: Antisemitism documentary

A recent documentary on antisemitism in Germany.  Antisemitismus heute - wie judenfeindlich ist Deutschland?  (Antisemitism today - how anti-Jewish is Germany?)



"The Devil That Never Dies" book review

David Nirenberg reviews Daniel Jonah Goldhagen’s book, "The Devil That Never Dies" in the Washington Post.  In which he claims that either Israel is really the world's biggest threat to peace and the Jewish lobby rules the world, or we have a serious problem of antisemitism on our hands.  Both options are possible.
To hold on to fantastic beliefs about Jews despite the best evidence of reality: This is more or less Goldhagen’s definition of anti-Semitism. If we accept that definition and his view of reality, then there is certainly a great deal of anti-Semitism to be found in the world. But what if we have a different view of reality? Many people obviously do. For example, in numerous recent surveys Europeans have ranked Israel as the world’s biggest threat to peace. In their work on the power of the Jewish lobby in the United States, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt (two of Goldhagen’s villains) invoke these surveys to argue that Europeans — free of the distorting influence that the Jewish lobby wields here — have a more accurate sense of reality than Americans do. Goldhagen sees exactly the opposite in the same data: evidence of an anti-Semitic worldview resistant to reality checks.

Italy: Publishing house drops Israel from children's book map

This story made headlines when the US based Scholastic republished the book in English.  In the book the entire area of Israel is labeled "Jordan".  Scholastic immediately stopped shipping the book and republished a correction.  But according to Scholastic, the error appeared in the original Italian book, and that did not lead to any headlines whatsoever.

Tablet Magazine reports:
As you have probably heard, Thea Stilton and the Blue Scarab Hunt, a title in the Geronimo Stilton series, published by Scholastic, includes a map that inadvertently omits Israel. Scholastic is immediately stopping shipment on this title, revising the map, and going back to reprint. We regret the omission which was in the original version of the book published in Italy and was translated by our company for English language distribution.


Sunday, November 17, 2013

Germany: Attack on community center in Hamburg suburb


A Jewish community center in Pinneberg, next to Hamburg, was attacked late Nov. 9th, and a glass window broken.  On Friday, 500 people came to show support for the Jewish community.

More: neues deutschland

Czech Republic: Antisemitic graffiti on Jewish home


Antisemitic grafitti sprayed on one of the Jewish Community member´s house in Prague.
More: CFCA

Poland: Jewish Revival Marred by Anti-Semitism of All Stripes


The JCC’s festive opening occurs against the backdrop of a stubborn persistence in Poland of latent — and sometimes not-so-latent — anti-Semitism, calling into question just how secure a Jewish revival can be. 
In the past year alone, the Jewish cemeteries in Warsaw and Myslenice have been vandalized; gravestones in Blonie, Kalisz and Otmuchowie have been defiled and destroyed, and anti-Semitic graffiti has been scrawled at the monument to resistance hero Mordechai Anielewicz in the Warsaw ghetto and on the synagogues in Gdansk and Zamoc. 
There are routine incidents of anti-Semitism, too, at soccer matches in Lodz and Krakow, and statements from public figures such as prominent historian Krzysztof Jasiewicz, who argued in April that the Holocaust “was only possible because the Jews themselves participated in the murder of their own people.”

More: Jewish Forward

90% of American Jews worried about European anti-Semitism


The most recent annual AJC survey of American Jews found that they are almost as worried about anti-Semitism in the United States as they are about anti-Semitism in Europe. Eighty-one percent consider anti-Semitism a problem in the US, compared with 90% who think it is a problem in Europe.
More: Jerusalem Post

Italy: Rome's Jewish leader threatened by Catholics, neo-Nazis, anti-Israelis


Video report by JN1:


UK: Manchester University Jewish Society defeats Israel boycott motion


Manchester University Jewish Society defeated a motion at the students’ union last week, which called on the university to end its partnership plans with Israel’s Technion Institute.
More: The JC

Hungary: Officials question anti-Semitism survey, Jews say survey matches reality


Hungarian officials questioned the methodology of a survey that showed greater fear of anti-Semitism among Jews in Hungary than in other European countries. 
(...)
But Jewish community leaders said the elevated fear reflected in the report matched what they knew about the community. 
“Members of our community already for a long time are aware of the existence and of the increase of anti-Semitism in Hungary,” Gyorgy Gador, the head of the Pava synagogue community, told the Nepszabadsag daily last week. “Many [Jews] left in recent years abroad, not only for existential-economic reason, but because of their uncomfortable political feeling here, at home,” he added.

Read more: JTA

Finland: Department Store Owner Kärkkäinen Convicted for Publishing Anti-Semitic Articles in Free Paper


A Finnish court convicted the high-profile owner of Helsinki’s Kärkkäinen department stores for publishing anti-Semitic articles in free paper Magneetti Media, which he also owns.
More: Algemeiner

Italy: Police launch crackdown on neo-Nazi Internet group Stormfront


Italian police launched a widespread operation against the neo-Nazi Internet hate organization Stormfront. 
On Thursday, police searched the homes of 35 people aged 17-51 in more than 20 towns and cities up and down the Italian peninsula on suspicion of spreading ideas on the Internet “based on racial and ethnic hatred and incitement to commit acts of discrimination and violence for racist and ethnic reasons.” 
Police also uncovered weapons and a swastika flag in the home of a man in Mantova, and they confiscated at least one anti-Semitic video, according to reports.

More: JTA

Saturday, November 16, 2013

UK: Non-Jews must lead fight against antisemitism, says Douglas Alexander


Non-Jewish people must take the lead in defeating antisemitism across Europe, the shadow foreign secretary, Douglas Alexander, has said, as he expressed fears about the "deeply troubling" prospect of successes for the far right in next year's European parliamentary elections. 
Speaking after he toured the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz, Alexander said all of humanity had a responsibility to tackle antisemitism, and silence was the "co-conspirator of evil". 
Alexander, a member of the Church of Scotland, said: "The task of confronting and defeating antisemitism is not the responsibility of the Jewish community. It is the responsibility of every one of us. To deny that is to deny our common humanity."

More: The Guardian

Sweden: Fear and giggles: A day as a Jew in Malmö


Patrick Reilly, a journalist for the Swedish news-site The Local, spent a day walking around Malmö with a kippah.
Well, it didn't take long before I got the feeling that I was on display as I walked towards Möllevången. Möllan, as it is referred to by locals, is the bohemian quarter of Malmö with a bustling fruit and veg market manned largely by immigrants by day and pubs serving cheap beer by night. 
I've walked down this street countless times in my normal garb, without causing as much as a backwards glance. Now, it was as if I had two heads judging by the number of stares arrowed in my direction. 
As I passed a well-known bar I spotted some lunchtime coffee drinkers looking open mouthed in my direction. Navigating the fruit and vegetable stalls it was obvious that I was being stared at by shoppers and stall workers.

More: The Local, interview by Tablet Magazine

Germany: Antisemitism becoming mainstream


According to the German Interior Ministry, the number of antisemitic crimes has increased by 10.9% from 2011 to 2012.  Antisemitic acts of violence increased by 41.3%.  However, violent crimes make up only a fraction of the antisemitic crimes and of crimes in general.  In 2012, there were 41 cases of antisemitic violence out of 2,464 violent politically motivated crimes.

Jan Riebe of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation says that these statistics are problematic, as there is a high number of unreported cases and classification depends on the police.  Antisemitism is not only violence but a world outlook.

According to a recent study, about 20% of the German population are latent antisemitic.  In comparison to other European countries, this means Germany is less antisemitic than Italy, the UK, the Netherlands or France.

According to a 2012 study by the Ebert Foundation, 24% of Germans are 'secondary' antisemitic - described as relativizing the Holocaust and as antisemitic responses to the Holocaust.  A new antisemitic accusation is that Jews want to benefit from the Holocaust or use the Holocaust for their own interests at the expense of German interests.

"Erinnerung, Verantwortung, Zukunft" (The Remembrance, Responsibility, Future Foundation), says that anti-Jewish stereotypes are now becoming acceptable among all population groups.

Ralf Melzer of the Ebert Foundation says that antisemitic stereotypes are often used in debates on the Middle East conflict.  Riebe also says that in recent years there's been an increase in antisemitic sentiments in discourse about Israel.  Riebe adds that the circumcision debate was a turning point, since, unlike in the past, Israel is now not the only socially acceptable way to mask antisemitism.  Riebe says that many think antisemitism is somebody else's problem, even as they themselves use antisemitic stereotypes.

More: Zeit Online

Lecture: The Resurgence of Anti-Semitism in Europe

Bernard-Henri Lévy, one of the most highly acclaimed philosophers, journalists, activists and best-selling authors in Europe today, gives a fascinating public lecture at UC Santa Barbara on the increasing manifestations of anti- Semitism.  (April, 2006)


Friday, November 15, 2013

France: Man makes antisemitic gesture on TV




A man in the audience of the Le Petit Journal show was caught on camera making an antisemitic gesture.  The 'quenelle', a downwards Nazi salute, is the brainchild of the anti-Semitic comedian Dieudonne.

The show's host, Yann Barthès, apologized the next day.

The perpetrator explained that his intention was to challenge the f*cking system.

MORE: DH.be

Kristallnacht memorials hijacked by left-wing agenda downplaying Antisemitism


A few years ago, the Dutch Jewish community started to organize its own Kristallnacht memorial meetings in Amsterdam. The other, leftwing dominated commemoration, downplays contemporary anti-Semitism and focuses on general racism. 
(...) 
In Helsingborg, Sweden, the Jewish community refused to participate in the 2012 Kristallnacht memorial meeting. Local paper Helsingborgs Dagblad noted that the community’s leader, Jussi Tyger, said that the memorial meeting was organized by left-wing parties and Muslims, who are known to be the most racist against Jews. 
In the Norwegian town of Bergen, the November memorial day is not centered on Kristallnacht, but on the 26th of the month when cargo ship Donau left Oslo with 552 Jews 
(...) 
The local Jews decided not to participate.

More: The Jerusalem Post

Netherlands: Catholic broadcaster teaches kids Jews plotted against Jesus

Ruben Vis, secretary of the Dutch-Jewish Community (NIK) complained about a children's program broadcast by the Catholic RKK broadcaster.  The program, about the life of Jesus, included a song relating how Jewish leaders conspired against Jesus.  Vis said that the Church has depicted Jews negatively for 2000 years, and by repeating such stories they encourage children to continue to see Jews negatively.

Ron Eisenmann, the former head of the Jewish Community in Amsterdam, also complained about the show on Twitter. Translation: "RKK is broadcasting antisemitic stories about Jews, and on the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht.  #Kristallnacht #TimingIsEvertthing #fail"

More: KatholiekNieuwsblad

Op-Ed: "Unlike classic anti-Semitism ... demonizing Israel is mainstream"


Daniel Schwammenthal, director of the AJC Transatlantic Institute in Brussels, writes in the Wall Street Journal:
This past weekend was the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the 1938 Nazi pogrom against German Jews, and European commentary focused predictably on the traditional anti-Semitic threats from the far right. The recent rise of openly anti-Jewish parties in Greece and Hungary shows that this remains a problem that authorities and civil society must confront without equivocation. 
But in many parts of the Continent, things are more complex. As German author Henryk Broder quipped, if after 1945 Europe experienced anti-Semitism without Jews, we are now experiencing anti-Semitism without anti-Semites. As a 2011 study in eight European countries by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation concluded: "Data show anti-Semitism often appearing in the guise of criticism of Israel." Unlike classic anti-Semitism, which is now largely taboo in polite company, demonizing Israel is mainstream.

More: WSJ

Germany: Vandals broke windows with stumbling blocks


Weiterstadt– Unknown persons, probably affiliated with the Extreme Right, broke windows of the town hall building in Seeheim-Jugenheim in South Hesse using stepping stones. According to the police, the incident occurred on the night between Thursday and Friday. The brass stones that commemorate the home addresses of Nazi victims were stolen about a year ago in the city of Griesheim, which is only 20 kilometers away. 
More: CFCA

Simon Wiesenthal Center : Kristallnacht Commemorations in Europe Hide Modern Day Anti-Semitism


But according to Dr. Shimon Samuels, director for international relations at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Kristallnacht has been made into “an icon by left-wing anti-racist movements in Europe.” While those movements commemorate the atrocities of the Holocaust, their definition of racism also includes the state of Israel and its grievances against the Palestinians. 
(...) 
In many cases, the “anthropoligization” of the Holocaust in Europe has made it into “a camouflage for hate itself,” Samuels told JNS.org. 
For instance, Samuels noted, the Berlin Jewish Museum organized an international conference titled “Anti-Semitism in Europe Today: the Phenomena, the Conflicts” to mark Kristallnacht’s anniversary, featuring anti-Zionist keynote speaker Brian Klug.

More: Algemeiner

Germany: Antisemitic posters during Kristallnacht ceremony


Steglitz-Berlin - During the Mayor’s speech in the Hermann Ehler Square, around 16:00, two men waved posters with antisemitic expressions.
More: CFCA

UK: Douglas Alexander attacks critics who compare Israel to Nazis


Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander has attacked critics who compare Israel’s actions to those of the Nazis. 
Following a tour of Auschwitz, the Labour frontbencher said people who liken Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to the suffering of Jews in concentration camps are “as offensive as they are ignorant”. 
He added it was essential to be “constantly on guard against the virus that is antisemitism”.

More: The JC

France: Antisemitic books banned or censored

A French court banned a book edited by Alain Soral and decided to censor four others.

The court said the books insulted people for being of a certain religion, denied crimes against humanity and incited to racial hatred.

The book "L'anthologie des propos contre les juifs, le judaïsme et le sionisme" ("Anthology of remarks against Jews, Judaism and Zionism") was banned.  Four other books by Édouard Drumont, Léon Bloy, Henry Ford and Douglas Reed are to be censored.

More: L'Express

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Germany: Anti-Netanyahu cartoon sparks anti-Semitism row



A regional German newspaper published an anti-Israel cartoon on Kristallnacht, depicting Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as killing the Iran nuclear talks with poison. 
The illustration triggered allegations that the paper Badische Zeitung, which is based in the southwestern German city of Freiburg, sought to stoke anti-Semitism among its readers.

More: The Jerusalem Post

Germany: Neo-Nazi politician in court over 'racist' CDs


A top neo-Nazi politician appeared in a Berlin court on Wednesday facing incitement charges after police found CDs with racist music on, in his military shop. He claimed he never knew they were there. 
(...) 
The CDs include lyrics directed against Jews, homosexuals, asylum seekers and foreigners.

More: The Local

Denmark: Jews upset at tattoo shop offering free swastika tattoos


Still, the Meatshop’s swastika stunt drew emotional reactions from Danish Jews. “I believe that a symbol that was once something else, but which the Nazis took hostage, cannot just be washed clean,” Finn Schwarz, president of the Jewish Congregation of Copenhagen, told the news site mx.dk. The Meatshop’s attempt to do just that was  “cheap,” he added. 
“It’s incredibly disappointing. Our country has one of the world’s highest levels of education, yet some think it could be cool to get a swastika. It’s enough to make one worry about the future,” he also said. Bent Lexner, Denmark’s chief rabbi, was similarly unimpressed, saying the idea was in “bad taste.”

More: JTA

Op-Ed: Accidentally anti-Semitic

Ido Daniel writes:
Nothing is accidental about the timing of these events, nor their content. It is no accident that BDS activists chose yellow as the color for stickers, no accident that it happened on a pre-owned Jewish supermarket. 

More: Times of Israel

Germany: 'New Anti-Semitism is not against Jews, but against the State of Israel and KKL-JNF'


"The New Anti-Semitism is not against Jews, but against the State of Israel and Keren Kayemet Leisrael–Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF)," said KKL-JNF World Chairman Efi Stenzler after dozens of pro-Palestinian activists demonstrated Sunday against the Jewish environnmental organization and Israel in Berlin at the doorway of the meeting of the Israel Congress, a forum aimed at strenghtening relations between Israel and Germany in various fields. 

More: EJP

Austria: Nazi victim memorial, synagogue vandalized

Several recent incidents in Austria:

In Salzburg the intercom of a synagogue was vandalized with paint and glue on November 9th, the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht..  There have been several similar incidents recently, though not only to Jewish institutions.

Also in Salzburg, nine pavement stones commemorating Nazi victims were vandalized in mid-October.  A suspect was arrested and admitted he did it because he hates Jews.

More: Die Presse, see also CFCA report

Update: Original report mistakenly located the synagogue in Vienna.

Manchester: Police pledge to crack down on antisemitic graffiti

Police are investigating an increase in anti semitic graffiti in Manchester. 
Since October there have been five incidents in Prestwich and Whitefield , areas in the north of the city that are home to large numbers of Jews.

More: Jewish Chronicle

Germany: Jewish tombstone vandalized

Unknown persons caused damages to a tombstone in the Jewish cemetery in Oschersleben in the Börde district.

More: CFCA

France: "Most racist attacks in France are against Jews"


French lawmaker Meyer Habib, a close friend of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, spoke about the rise in anti-Semitic attacks in his country, even though the government tries to fight it.  
“Most racist attacks in France are against Jews, even though we are only one percent of the population,” Habib explained. “ ...Muslim extremism is an international problem. The world’s eyes aren’t open enough.”

More: Jerusalem Post

Norway: Call to ban circumcision is "anti-Semitism disguised as protection of human rights"


Norway's Children Ombudswoman Anne Lindboe's call to ban non-medical circumcision of minors in her country, as it is a violation of human rights, ‘’is charlatan and is not supported by any scientific facts,’’ said Rabbi Menachem Margolin, Director General of the European Jewish Association (EJA).  
(...) 
The rabbi said that only 7 circumcisions are performed in Norway each year. ‘’The fact that Ombudswoman Lindboe chooses to occupy herself so eagerly in the matter, raises the fear that we are yet again witnessing anti-Semitism disguised as protection of human rights,’’ he said.

More: EJP

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

France: Mayor stabbed by man believing in "Jewish plot"


The Mayor and two other elected officials in the small town of Châteaurenard, near Marseille were stabbed during the World War commemorations yesterday.

The perpetrator is a man in his 30s named Julien.  According to a police source, the attacker believed local and national personalities and media people were involved in a Jewish plot and gang fraud.  (in the original: Des plaintes «contre des personnalités locales et nationales, des acteurs, des chaînes de télévisions, des radios, évoquant un complot juif et des escroqueries en bande organisée» )

More: Le Figaro

Belgium: Knife-wielding man arrested at Israeli embassy

Belgian police have arrested a man whom they suspect of planning an attack against Israeli diplomats in Brussels. 
The police department of Uccle, the Brussels suburb where the Israeli embassy is located, on Tuesday confirmed the Oct. 17 arrest of one man who is thought to have tried to enter the embassy while carrying a concealed knife, RTL reported.

More: JTA

Update: The incident occurred about a month ago.  According to the Jerusalem Post, the man is a Belgian convert to Islam.  An Iranian national was detained by the police outside the embassy, and later released.  According to 7sur7, the Israelis strongly suspect a connection between the two incidents.  Belgian authorities deny any such link.

Norway: Kristallnacht speaker receives death threats

One of the leading figures in Norwegian campaign group Youth Against Racism was forced to pull out of an event commemorating Kristallnacht on Sunday night, after receiving a death threat over the phone. 
(...)

Aryanik, who has been attacked by Muslim conservatives in the past for her decision to wear western dress, said she did not know who the threats had come from.

"It could be Islamists and it could be neo-Nazis. It's impossible to say as they did not say anything about why I should stay away from the commemoration," she said. 

More: The Local

Jewish life in Europe: Impending catastrophe or imminent renaissance?

There are three major hypotheses about the future of Jewish life in Europe. The first argues that rising levels of antisemitism, increased criticism of Israel and changing demographics all point in the same direction: that Europe is rapidly becoming an unsafe place for Jews.  
The second argues that greater levels of diversity and heterogeneity in European societies is creating a more open environment for Jewish life to thrive, and the result can be seen in innovative and creative Jewish initiatives taking off all over the continent.  
The third argues that the demography of Jews in Europe, with higher death rates than birth rates the norm, spells to a slow but inevitable decline of Jewish life.  
Which one of these hypotheses is right? This paper examines each of them in turn, but ultimately concludes that there is insufficient evidence to make a fully accurate assessment. All have an evidence base to support them, but none is robust enough to completely outweigh the others.

More: Institute for Jewish Policy Research

UK: Ballet girl says race case left her feeling ‘violated’

The granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor said she was left “haunted” after her ballet teacher made an antisemitic remark during a class. 
Genevieve Huss was studying at a prestigious Scottish ballet school when Jonathan Barton told her and fellow dancers: “You look like a bunch of Jews lining up waiting to be shot in the rain.”

More: TheJC

Op-Ed: Is There Room For Jews in the New Europe?

Recent European attacks on circumcision mark a new expression of anti-Semitism that threatens communal Jewish life.
More: Mati Wagner in the Jerusalem Post, Article available as image here.



World Jewish Congress President: The West is still failing Hitler's test

Ronald S. Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress:
Today, Germany and Europe are a much better place than they were in 1938. Yet, we again see worrying signs. While Israel's neighbors slaughter hundreds of thousands of their own, we see the growing, visceral hatred of the Jewish state throughout Europe. 
We see a United Nations that appears incapable of stopping any form of genocide and instead, focuses its attention and condemnation on the only democracy in the Middle East, Israel.

Deputy Israeli FM: Anti-Israelism is PC cover for antisemitism

Zeev Elkin, Deputy Israeli Foreign Minister, as reported by NRG News:

Nowadays we see a widespread phenomenon in Europe of using anti-Israelism as a 'politically correct' cover for the new type of antisemitism.  Europe's attitude towards Israel has become the attitude towards the collective Jew.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Italy: 'Hitler prize' offered by trade union sparks fury among Jewish groups



An Italian Trade union has been slammed by Jewish groups for offering a spoof 'Hitler Prize' to people who work with animals, who have been targeted by extremists. 
(...) 
Italy's only female Rabbi Barbara Aeillo told the Local that the prize 'exemplifies a disturbing trend of intolerance and hate that is on the rise not only in Italy but throughout Europe. 
'Creeping Nazism is a slow but steady trend that minimizes the Holocaust, demeans the memory of those murdered and diminishes the suffering of the survivors. 
'The fact that a competition like the Hitler Award is even conceivable, let alone celebrated, is more than troubling and indicates a significant change in the Italian public’s general tolerance for anti-semitic remarks and activity.'

More: Daily Mail

Op-Ed: The truth about anti-Semitism in Germany

Two weeks ago German public television broadcast a film titled Anti-Semitism today – how hostile is Germany? 1.6 million people watched the 50-minute-documentary – not very many in a country of 82 million. 
A few newspapers wrote about it, and not a single political leader commented on it.
Public outrage? Not at all. 
And yet the film revealed some shocking details about German society that should indeed have raised a discussion. Anti-Semitism, it showed, is by no means only a problem among poorly educated, socially disadvantaged right-wing extremists in East Germany.

More: Jerusalem Post

UK: Jack Straw - ‘I am not remotely anti-Semitic’


Straw’s comments at a panel hosted at the House of Commons last week were originally reported by former MK Einat Wilf, another panelist. She announced in a Facebook post and in subsequent interviews that Straw had said that AIPAC’s political clout and “unlimited” funding were prime obstructions to the peace process. She also said Straw claimed that Germany has an “obsession” with defending Israel. 
In his statement to the Post on Monday, Straw did not deny making those comments.
But he strongly pushed back against claims that his criticism was anti-Semitic. 
“I am not remotely anti-Semitic,” he said.

More: Jerusalem Post

Update: Fix link.

UK: BBC changes fraud show trailer amid antisemitism concern


BBC producers have changed a trailer for a series about tax and benefit fraudsters following complaints that it could be seen as antisemitic. 
The original trailer for Britain on the Fiddle featured the song “If I Were a Rich Man”, from Fiddler on the Roof, the 1960s film about Jews in a Russian shtetl.

More: Jewish Chronicle