Bret Stephens: A Despicable Cartoon in The Times
The paper of record needs to reflect deeply on how it came to publish anti-Semitic propaganda.
On Thursday the opinion pages of the New York Times international edition provided a textbook illustration of anti-Semitism. Except that the Times wasn't explaining anti-Semitism.
It was purveying it in the form of a cartoon in which a guide dog with the face of Benjamin Netanyahu leads a blind, fat Donald Trump wearing dark glasses and a black yarmulke. The dog-man wears a collar from which hangs a Star of David.
Here was an image that, in another age, might have been published in the pages of Der Sturmer. The Jew in the form of a dog. The small but wily Jew leading the dumb and trusting American. The hated Trump being Judaized with a skullcap. What was this cartoon doing in the Times?
For some Times readers - or former readers - the Times has a longstanding Jewish problem, dating back to World War II, when it mostly buried news about the Holocaust, and continuing into the present day in the form of intensely adversarial coverage of Israel. On the editorial pages, its overall approach toward the Jewish state tends to range from tut-tutting disappointment to thunderous condemnation.
The real story is a bit different. The international edition has a much smaller staff, and far less oversight than the regular edition. Incredibly, the cartoon was selected and seen by just one midlevel editor right before the paper went to press.
The cartoon's publication wasn't a willful act of anti-Semitism but was an astonishing act of ignorance of anti-Semitism at a publication that is otherwise hyper-alert to nearly every conceivable expression of prejudice. Imagine if the dog on a leash had been a prominent woman such as Nancy Pelosi, a person of color such as John Lewis, or a Muslim such as Ilhan Omar?
David Collier: Dominique (Dom), British terrorists and the Mike’s Place bombing
The 29th April is always a sombre day for me. Sixteen years ago today (29th April 2003), I was talking to a friend of mine ‘Dom’, about a new business adventure she was starting. I was eating a cake, a sample that she had brought me to taste. Dom came to pay for a flight I had sorted out for her. She had been to France to see her family and when she wanted to return from Paris, she’d call, I’d book the flight, and we’d settle once she had arrived. We chatted, I told her the cake was delicious and then we said our goodbyes. It must have been about 11am. ‘See you later’ I think I said to her. I wouldn’t though, in fact I never saw her alive again.
I had known Dominique (Dom) for about six years. Like many from Western Europe trying to find their way in Tel Aviv, Dom was part of the tourist crowd. A few hostels and pubs littered the Ben Yehuda, Allenby area and were full of working travellers. Thousands of young Europeans gravitated towards Tel Aviv’s Mediterranean shore. The hostels supplied the work, the pubs the recreation. Dom had been part of the scenery for a long time. I had first met her in the late 1990’s and if I remember rightly, at the time she worked in a launderette that doubled as a billiard/pool hall. We had been in touch ever since. Dominique was extremely popular and since I had my own tourism related business, Dominque was always sending me new customers.
Dom, the Buzz Stop and Mike’s Place
Dom worked for a while at a beachfront pub called the ‘Buzz Stop’. Originally sited near the ‘dolphinarium’ on the Southern beaches of Tel Aviv, the owner Eli, eventually moved it to the centre of town, near what was then the American Embassy. In 2001 another pub opened next door -a live blues music bar called Mike’s Place. Dominique switched from working at the Buzz Stop to Mike’s Place. She worked at Mike’s Place from the day that it opened. I frequented both. They were my local hang-outs and I knew most of the regulars.
The 29th April 2003 arrived and the second Intifada was still going strong. In January there had been a massacre in Tel Aviv’s Central Bus Station – a double suicide bombing. March saw a suicide bomb massacre in Haifa and another bombing in Netanya. In April Kfar Saba was the target of a suicide bombing. There were going to be four additional suicide bombings in May.
But Mike’s place was a pub on a beach front and full of tourists. It was a world away from the conflict. The evening of the 29th had been busy. It was Tuesday night- ‘Jam night’ for the Blues bar and everyone inside was having fun. Yet just a few hundred yards away in Hayarkon Street, two men were busy getting ready to kill.
Dzanc Drops Novel Criticized for Islamophobic Themes
After a week of controversy over Siege of Tel Aviv by Israeli-American author Hesh Kestin, which was released on April 16, publisher Dzanc Books has reverted the rights to Kestin and will not be printing any more copies of the novel. There are currently 2,000 copies of Siege of Tel Aviv in print.
The release, which was marketed by Dzanc as a “bizarrely funny” satire about Iran leading five Arab armies into Israel, destroying it, and restricting Jews to Tel Aviv with the plan of killing them all, was condemned on social media for what critics called its Islamophobic themes and content. Dzanc is accepting returns of the book, and intends to donate any profits to a Muslim relief organization.
"The author is welcome to publish the novel elsewhere," Dzanc publisher/editor-in-chief Michelle Dotter told PW in a telephone interview on Tuesday afternoon. Dotter disclosed that the decision had been made a few hours earlier after the publisher and author failed to reach a consensus on how to respond to the criticism being leveled at Siege of Tel Aviv.
While the book was endorsed by Stephen King, who called it “scarier than anything Stephen King ever wrote,” other readers have not been so benevolent. Siege of Tel Aviv has been condemned by many on social media—including Dzanc authors—as Islamophobic propaganda. One forthcoming Dzanc author, John Englehardt, tweeted that he was “very disappointed by the publication of Siege of Tel Aviv. I spent some time reading the novel online and believe calling it 'absurdism with satire with social commentary’ is beyond generous.” An Amazon reviewer complained that the novel “is a thinly veiled piece of IDF propaganda, to make Israel's horrifying apartheid practices toward Palestine seem justified. Disappointing that Dzanc Books would publish this bile.”
While explaining the rationale behind the decision to revert the rights, Dotter said that “the important thing about any book that we publish is, does it present a vision and give ideas to the world? Does it do more harm than good?” She added: “When we acquired this book [before the 2016 election] we were reading it from a different point-of-view. We intended to present it as satire. As publisher and editor-in-chief"—a position Dotter has held since August 2017—"my responsibility was to read it with a critical eye. I failed to do that.”
Rabbi Goldstein on Trump calling him following the shooting: "He spoke about his love of peace and Judaism and Israel and he was just so comforting that I’m really grateful to our president for taking the time and making that effort to share with us his comfort and consolation" pic.twitter.com/Bu31UvZomI
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) April 29, 2019
Israeli UN envoy urges NY Times to punish those behind anti-Semitic cartoon
Israel’s UN ambassador on Monday demanded that the New York Times hold accountable those responsible for publishing an anti-Semitic cartoon, despite an apology issued by the newspaper.
The cartoon, which appeared in the international edition on Thursday, depicted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a guide dog wearing a Star of David collar and leading a blind Donald Trump — who was wearing a kippah, or a Jewish skullcap.
Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon said the cartoon “could have been taken from the pages of Der Sturmer, the Nazi propaganda paper, and yet these actions have gone unpunished.”
The newspaper released a statement on Saturday saying that “the image was offensive, and it was an error of judgment to publish it.” The message did not include an explicit apology.
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) April 28, 2019
Trust @Independent to put "antisemitic" in scare quotes in its headline. Because if The Indy acknowledged the obvious antisemitism of the @nytimes cartoon, it would itself have acknowledge the many similarly offensive cartoons it has published itself. https://t.co/JFTGO9YWLE pic.twitter.com/gkVYKGQ6XR
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) April 29, 2019
NYT Ripped For Anti-Semitic Cartoon, Non-Apology. Israeli Cartoonist Destroys Them.
The New York Times came under intense fire over the weekend after the newspaper's international edition published a vile anti-Semitic cartoon that was widely condemned across the political spectrum. The newspaper was ripped again late Saturday for failing to apologize in their initial statement on the anti-Semitic cartoon.
In an op-ed published in The Times on Sunday, Bret Stephens criticized his own newspaper for promoting anti-Semitism with the publication of the cartoon.
"The Times wasn’t explaining anti-Semitism. It was purveying it," Stephens wrote. "It did so in the form of a cartoon...in which a guide dog with a prideful countenance and the face of Benjamin Netanyahu leads a blind, fat Donald Trump wearing dark glasses and a black yarmulke. Lest there be any doubt as to the identity of the dog-man, it wears a collar from which hangs a Star of David."
"Here was an image that, in another age, might have been published in the pages of Der Stürmer," Stephens added. "The Jew in the form of a dog. The small but wily Jew leading the dumb and trusting American. The hated Trump being Judaized with a skullcap. The nominal servant acting as the true master. The cartoon checked so many anti-Semitic boxes that the only thing missing was a dollar sign."
"The image also had an obvious political message: Namely, that in the current administration, the United States follows wherever Israel wants to go," Stephens added, noting that the message was false.
Making matters even worse for The Times, the leftist newspaper did not apologize for the anti-Semitic cartoon in a statement released on Saturday:
A political cartoon in the international print edition of The New York Times on Thursday included anti-Semitic tropes, depicting the prime minister of Israel as a guide dog with a Star of David collar leading the president of the United States, shown wearing a skullcap. The image was offensive, and it was an error of judgment to publish it. It was provided by The New York Times News Service and Syndicate, which has since deleted it.
We apologize for the anti-Semitic cartoon we published. Here’s our statement. pic.twitter.com/nifZahutpO
— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) April 28, 2019
Anti-Semitic New York Times Runs ANOTHER Cartoon Attacking Netanyahu
The New York Times drips with venomous anti-Semitism, as already noted after the uproar following their monstrous Nazi-like cartoon last Thursday that depicted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a dog on a leash held by a blind President Donald Trump, who was wearing a yarmulke. That incident prompted the Times at first to issue a statement but no apology on Saturday morning, and only after the terrorist shooting at the Poway synagogue in California later on Saturday did the Times issue another statement with an apology on Sunday.
But what almost went unnoticed while the Times was stubbornly refusing to apologize was another anti-Semitic cartoon the Times ran in their weekend edition depicting a sour-faced Netanyahu in sunglasses taking a selfie while holding what looks like a stone tablet with a Star of David on it.
In case you are wondering what the @nytimes (antisemitic) cartoon (which replaced another antisemitic cartoon) is supposed to mean.
— The Reagan Battalion (@ReaganBattalion) April 29, 2019
Here is the original cartoon from the same cartoonist before it was ’sanitised’ for the @nytimes.
Bibi is supposed to be Moses.
HT. @JerylBier pic.twitter.com/sPh6vvORVV
Following Anti-Semitic Cartoon, Hamas Invites New York Times onto Board of Propaganda (satire)
In the wake of the backlash following the publication of an allegedly anti-Semitic cartoon by the New York Times, the avowedly anti-Semitic Islamist terror group, Hamas, has issued an open invitation to the newspaper to sit on their board of propaganda.
“We never thought we’d be awarding the New York Times such a prestigious role in our organization as we’ve always thought of them pretty Jew-friendly”, Hamas said in an official statement. “But then we saw this masterpiece of anti-Semitism the other week. It really hit one of our favorite themes pretty hard, about Jewish and Zionist influence over Western powers. But it was the artful subtlety that really won it for us. You could say that we’ve been a bit blunt over the years with our anti-Semitic propaganda. It hasn’t always been all that subtle, you know, what with our overt commitment and many attempts to kill Jews. It doesn’t really influence people sitting on the fence. But adopting propaganda like this, well that would really up our game.”
MoveOn Makes First 2020 Endorsement And It’s, Uh, Wow.
MoveOn exists to troll conservatives and I guess also to get progressives elected, so it’s no surprise that their very first endorsement in 2020 would go to an unapologetic anti-Semite.Change.Org Is Allegedly Censoring A Petition From An Anti-Semitism Watchdog Group
Not just any Democrat who has used anti-Semitic tropes again and again, but one that doesn’t even need the endorsement because she’s in a reliably blue district and will likely sail to victory once again.
Nevertheless, MoveOn has shown its stripes by endorsing Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) in 2020. The organization made the announcement on Twitter.
“NEWS: As our first endorsement for 2020, we're proud to announce that MoveOn Political Action members in #MN05 have voted overwhelmingly to back Rep. @IlhanMN for re-election to Congress,” the organization wrote.
The watchdog group StopAntiSemitism.org — which describes itself as a group that "exposes anti-Semitism in all facets of American society through social media platforms and mobilizes Americans through petitions that call to action" — currently has nearly 34,000 signatures for a Change.org petition entitled, "Call on US AG & Antisemitism Envoy Carr to Probe Hamas Affiliated CAIR Ties in Congress."Rashida Tlaib’s brother praises terrorists
The petition makes claims about the Council on American-Islamic Relations' (CAIR) alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, and mentions that CAIR was an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation case, which was the biggest terror financing case in the history of the U.S. Department of Justice. The petition then ends with a call for U.S. Attorney General William Barr and U.S. Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism Elan Carr to "investigate" any ties between freshman congresswomen Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and CAIR.
The investigation that the petition calls for may or may not be legitimate. After all, Omar and Tlaib do not in any way hide their affiliations with CAIR.
Regardless, according to StopAntiSemitism.org, the petition is being censored by Change.org.
A press release obtained by The Daily Wire from StopAntiSemitism.org claims the following:
Change.org is aggressively censoring a petition that calls for action against anti-Semitism, which was posted by the watchdog group StopAntisemitism.org. Over the past year, Stop Antisemitism has frequently used the Change.org platform to issue public petitions calling out anti-Semites who threaten and undermine the security of Jewish people and the broader values of the United States. Stop Antisemitism’s past and current petitions are endorsed by nearly 100,000 individuals. ...
While Change.org admitted by email on April 3, 2019, that user searches and comments on the petition were disabled, the company has not corrected these issues nor addressed the other allegations. Zachor Legal Institute received a response from Change.org that ignored all substantive questions and concerns raised by its letter.
We expose Rashida Tlaib's family praising terrorists and peddling antisemitic lies. This video follows our last exposé which uncovered her inner circle praising terrorists.
Ian Austin MP: Jeremy Corbyn is a hypocrite for refusing to attend Trump state banquet
Jeremy Corbyn has refused to attend a dinner with President Trump.
You don’t have to be a fan of the American President to think the Labour leader is a dishonest, sanctimonious hypocrite.
Donald Trump has said some terrible things about Muslims and women and defended racist extremists in Charlottesville, but Jeremy Corbyn is in no position to complain after spending 40 years supporting all sorts of extremists and in some cases terrorists and racists.
It's a shame he's not always been so choosy. He’s refusing to attend a dinner for the leader of our closest ally when he attended one for China’s President Xi - who leads a brutal dictatorship with no elections, human rights or free speech.
He took thousands of pounds for presenting shows on the Iranian state TV channel, a country which executes people who disagree with the government regime, hangs gay men from cranes and imprisons British citizens.
He travelled to Syria to speak to the brutal Syrian dictator Assad. According to Corbyn, the avowedly anti-semitic terrorist organisations Hamas and Hezbollah are “friends” who should be invited to Parliament.
He even laid a wreath at the graveside of the people who planned the butchery of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics.
He calls Trump a racist but under Corbyn’s leadership, the Labour Party has become mired in anti-semitism. Let’s not mince words: this is racism against Jewish people. Racism, pure and simple.
Private Labour Facebook Group Defends Suspended Activist, Member Calls for March on Synagogue
Labour members have been have been hitting out at people who are reporting instances of anti-Semitism in a private Facebook group. Dozens of members of Brighton Labour have been rushing to the defence of Alex Braithwaite, who was suspended earlier this month for sharing “abhorrent” posts on social media, claiming Israel is “whipping up Labour’s anti-Semitism crisis to smear Jeremy Corbyn” and that the BBC was controlled by Jews.
In one thread, Labour members call the suspension “disgusting”, offer Braithwaite “solidarity” and say “we are all with you.” One member calls for the people calling out anti-Semitism to face disciplinary action. Another demanded that all members “march about this to the Synagogue in Hove.” Marching on Synagogues? Really?
This comes just weeks after a local Labour chair launched a defence of another recently suspended candidate who tweeted “I love gang rape”. The state of Brighton and Hove Labour Party…
More dangerous than Corbyn John McDonnell in 2006, saying he has put his name forward for Labour Party leader, and that if he wins would support the Palestinians . pic.twitter.com/DgRo6qYvNh
— Eye On Antisemitism (@AntisemitismEye) April 29, 2019
This is where your union money goes ! Gaza - hamas - killing Jews - Solidarity has no borders. Our movement must stand up for Palestine - LabourList @Campaign4T https://t.co/vG7RvqcrWd
— Eye On Antisemitism (@AntisemitismEye) April 29, 2019
UN Watch: Amnesty staffers accuse group of ‘shameful’ suppression of protesters
Campaigners with Amnesty International, including the global charity group’s senior researcher on Iran, have accused the organization of “shameful” actions after it allegedly called in British police to evict peaceful Kurdish protesters from the organization’s London headquarters this weekend—one day after Amnesty hadcomplained about “police powers” that “interfere with the right to protest.”
“I am outraged that our management called the police to forcibly remove peaceful Kurdish protesters from the premises of the organization. The management does not represent Amnesty International staff and must be held accountable for this outrage,” tweeted Raha Bahreinin, a human rights lawyer who serves as Amnesty International’s Researcher on Iran.
“Many of us would have stood up against this shameful act had the management proceeded with it over the week when the office was open. Shame on them for acting like abusive governments and ruining public trust in Amnesty International,” said Bahreini.
Laith Abu Zayed, who works as a campaigner at Amnesty International, called out the hypocrisy of human rights organizations which “pretend to defend the right to protest” yet call in the police for a “shameful” and “violent attack” to “suppress protesters.”
Amnesty International, after their massive year-long campaign backing Hamas-led riots on Gaza border in name of "right to protest", calls in police to forcibly remove political refugees & hunger strikers protesting at their London HQ, activists allege. https://t.co/GcEn44ws8B
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) April 28, 2019
What do you think? https://t.co/0LZNxz18QA
— Ozraeli Dave (((דיויד לנג))) (@Israellycool) April 29, 2019
DePaul University Adjunct Professor Glorifies Terrorism And Promotes Anti-Semitism
Last month, the Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary (G-ETS) appointed Taurean J. Webb as its Director of the Center for the Church and the Black Experience. The prominent Methodist seminary also announced that Webb would be joining its faculty as an assistant professor of religion and race upon completion of his dissertation.Guardian’s Jerusalem reporter wants critics of his coverage to stop their kvetching
“We are delighted that Mr. Webb has accepted our invitation to join the Garrett-Evangelical faculty,” said G-ETS President Lallene J. Rector. “His work in black theology, commitment to interfaith dialogue and activism, and expertise in critical race theory are gifts that will enhance and strengthen the seminary’s commitment to preparing spiritual leaders for today’s church and world.”
If G-ETS considers what Webb has to offer as “gifts,” then hopefully they kept the receipts. Using his position as Adjunct Professor of Black History at DePaul University, Webb was a featured speaker at the 2018 convention of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP).
While AMP claims to stand “against all forms of bigotry and racism,” the annual event boasted a star-studded cast of anti-Jewish bigots and terrorist sympathizers. Sharing the platform with Webb were Imam Omar Suleiman, who has called homosexuality a “repugnant shameless sin” and justified sex slavery, and Nihad Awad, Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), who is on record as lending support to genocidal terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.
Tellingly, Holmes’ article cites only examples of Israelis attempting to influence his coverage, not Palestinians. He ignores the fact that top Palestinian official Saeb Erekat issued a document to foreign journalists telling them how to cover the region, and that Hamas threatens and intimidates journalists who don’t follow their script.Once again, BBC history begins in June 1967
Though he may truly believe he’s reporting “fairly” on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, our analysis to date shows that Holmes has drawn from the standard Guardian playbook – which includes obsessive criticism of every Israeli sin, real and imagined, accompanied by a near total failure to treat Palestinians as moral actors whose decisions impact their political and economic outcomes. We’ve demonstrated, for instance, that Holmes has adhered to Palestinian talking points on the Great March of Return in portraying the violent rioters entirely as victims, and has amplified and promoted the narrative of BDS activists and other marginal anti-Israel voices.
Further, whilst it’s unclear what he means when he complains of “online attacks”, if he’s referring to us, it would have been more accurate to describe them as ‘tweets respectfully pointing out his factual errors and omissions’.
In other words, such a proposal would first have to pass a vote in the cabinet and then – assuming the community was indeed a new one – go through years of planning permission before a new town or village bearing the name of the (by then most likely former) US president could come into being.Wiesenthal Center urges antisemitic Finnish MP to resign
Seeing as there was obviously not much meat to a story based on two similar videos in Hebrew and English together totaling less than one and a half minutes, over 60% of the BBC’s report was given over to background information and as usual the BBC’s portrayal of history began in June 1967.
“Israel seized the Golan from Syria in 1967 and annexed the territory in 1981. The move has not been recognised internationally. […]
Israel seized most of the Golan Heights from Syria in the closing stages of the 1967 Middle East war, and thwarted a Syrian attempt to retake the region during the 1973 war.”
Obviously that framing tells BBC audiences nothing at all about what happened before “Israel seized the Golan” or why it did so.
After the pro-Iranian regime Finnish MP Hussein al-Taee admitted on Monday to writing antisemitic, racist and anti-gay Facebook posts, Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the head of the Jerusalem office of the Simon Wiesenthal center, called on al-Taee to resign.Theresienstadt Ghetto currency donated to National Library of Israel
Zuroff told The Jerusalem Post if al-Taee is sincere about his apology he “should take responsibility and resign.”
According to a screenshot viewed by the Post, al-Taee wrote about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in 2012: “Jew doing what a Jew does best. F***s up everybody to gain everything.
Al-Taee also compared Israel to the Islamic State and denigrated Sunni Muslims, gays, Somalis and other groups.
Writing on his blog on Monday, al-Taee said he felt “shame” about his attacks on minority groups and issued a lengthy apologize.
The Finnish-Kurdish blogger and civil rights activist Anter Yasa, who first exposed al-Taee’s Facebook posts, told the Post he agrees with Zuroff that al-Taee should resign from parliament.
Currency used in the Theresienstadt Ghetto was donated to the National Library of Israel.
The six bills featuring a Star of David and a sketch of Moses holding the Ten Commandments were received by the National Library days before Israel’s Yom Hashoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day. They are worth a total of 263 Kronen, the currency of the ghetto, which was located in northwestern Czechoslovakia.
All ghetto residents were forced to convert their money and some property into the currency of the camp or ghetto in which they were imprisoned. If someone managed to escape, that person then had no way to purchase food or clothes.
The bills were donated by Ruth Brass of Britain, in honor of her father, the late Lionel Schalit, a prominent Zionist and community activist, and a leader in the European Maccabi Movement.
“It seems that the bank, the bills and the ‘wages’ received by many prisoners during imprisonment in the ghetto had an additional role: they gave the impression of ‘normalcy;’ of an orderly and routine everyday life that the Nazis indeed tried to present to the official representatives of the Red Cross who visited the Terezin Ghetto. The bills present documentation of the chilling reality in the days of the Holocaust: imaginary symbols of a ‘normalcy’ that never existed, under the shadow of persecution and eradication,” according to National Library of Israel expert Dr. Stefan Litt
Eurovision winner: Calls to boycott song contest are ‘spreading darkness’
Israeli singer Netta Barzilai, who won last year’s Eurovision song contest, said Monday that calls to boycott this year’s event in Tel Aviv amount to “spreading darkness.”The Jewish Trumpeter Who Survived the Holocaust by Playing Jazz for the Nazis
Due to Barzilai’s victory last year in Portugal with her #MeToo-inspired song “Toy,” a performance that included clucking sounds and chicken-like dance moves, Israel hosts this year’s competition on May 14-18.
There have been calls from artists such as Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters and British singer Peter Gabriel to move the competition to another country over Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.
Waters has also called on Madonna to abandon plans to perform at Eurovision.
While carefully avoiding delving into politics, Barzilai, 26, argued that calls for a boycott went against the purpose of the competition.
“Being on the same stage no matter what your religion is — your ethnicity, your color — from all these countries, all these cultures combined together, this is a festival of light,” she told foreign journalists in Jerusalem.
“For people to boycott light is spreading darkness, is doing the exact opposite thing, and that’s why I think they might be going against their own beliefs.”
Born in the Czech city of Brno in 1918, where he lived until the beginning of World War II, Eric Vogel was a jazz enthusiast and accomplished amateur trumpet player. Although official Nazi propaganda denounced jazz as a degenerate art form associated with Jews and blacks, a number of SS officers nonetheless were avid listeners. One such officer had encountered Vogel at a jazz club and, after the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia, took him under his protection. Amanda Petrusich describes what followed:Israeli leaders mourn death of Holocaust survivor rabbi
While Vogel was imprisoned by the Nazis—first in the so-called model camp, Theresienstadt, [designed entirely for foreign consumption], and then later at the Auschwitz death camp—he and a dozen or so others played in a jazz band called the Ghetto Swingers. There were similar groups at many camps throughout Nazi-controlled Europe: musicians who were forced to perform, on command and under inconceivable duress, for the SS. . . . .
The Ghetto Swingers were being compelled to participate in what was, by all accounts, a hideous charade, but the music that they played was real—which means that, for the players, it still offered a brief, guilty kind of solace, a bit of “joy and pleasure,” as Vogel wrote. . . . Vogel was able to recruit some of the best European players of the interwar era, including the clarinetist Fritz Weiss, and he soon found himself a little out of his league, musically. . . .
On June 23, 1944, delegates from the International Committee of the Red Cross arrived to inspect Theresienstadt in person. The Ghetto Swingers set up and played in the band shell. . . . The Red Cross accepted the display, and, three months after its representatives left, on September 28th, the Nazis began emptying the camp.
Israeli leaders were mourning the death of a prominent hassidic rebbe who survived Auschwitz and championed Holocaust remembrance among ultra-Orthodox Jews.
Thousands attended the Jerusalem funeral of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Taub, scion of the Hungarian Kaliver rabbinic dynasty, who died Sunday aged 96. Taub helped produce a two-volume encyclopedia documenting Jewish religious martyrs killed in the Holocaust. His death comes days before Israel marks Holocaust Remembrance Day, honoring 6 million Jews killed by Nazi Germany.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Taub “survived the horrors of the Holocaust and dedicated himself to rebuilding the world of Torah in the State of Israel and among the Jewish Diaspora.”
President Reuven Rivlin said on Twitter that Taub’s work “has particular resonance at present as we redouble our commitment to remember and never forget.”