Tuesday, October 19, 2021
Cary Nelson: Israel on Campus, Post-Truth
In the post-truth world, Hamas apparently no longer exists. Thousands of rockets and incendiary balloons no longer fall on Israeli towns and cities, killing people in their apartments, obliterating vehicles, and setting fields ablaze.
According to numerous academic departments here and abroad, Israel is no longer under assault. In the post-truth world, Israel and its military have instead become irrational opponents of all that is just and good, carrying out raids on Hamas strongholds in Gaza without cause or justification.
No wonder those academic departments have substituted self-congratulatory virtue signaling for academic freedom and open debate.
In May of this year, immediately after the most recent war between Hamas and Israel ended, over 100 academic departments representing their colleges and universities, for the first time in history broke with the established academic principle of departmental and university political neutrality, issued statements condemning Israel, and, in effect, joined the BDS movement.
Many women’s studies programs started the campaign, but some ethnic studies, history, and other departments joined it. Even during the Vietnam War, when by the 1970s most professors opposed the war, their departments stayed out of politics. By the mid-1970s, some voluntary professional associations took an anti-war stand — but not, as far as I can determine, university departments. Most departmental and academic statements this spring did not even mention Hamas.
The most influential guiding principle is clear: individual faculty, students, and staff are free to express and promote their political views. They can create voluntary groups to do so collectively. But official university units must not do so. Otherwise, all those affiliated with a department would suffer the coercive effect of anti-Zionist or other political groupthink.
Bari Weiss: NYT Passed on Column About 2019 Antisemitic Killings Because Attackers ‘Weren’t White Supremacists Carrying Tiki Torches’
In an interview Sunday, journalist and former New York Times opinion editor Bari Weiss charged the paper with having once turned down a column about a series of antisemitic attacks because the perpetrators “weren’t white supremacists.”The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special: Bari Weiss
Weiss, who resigned from the Times in July 2020, told conservative commentator Ben Shapiro that she had drafted a column in the wake of two deadly attacks on Jews in late 2019, including a mass shooting at a Jersey City, NJ kosher grocery store and a stabbing at the home of a Monsey, NY rabbi during Hanukkah.
“I wrote a piece at the time … called ‘America’s Bloody Hanukkah,’ or ‘America’s Bloody Pogrom,'” she told Shapiro. “I thought it was really good column, it was really my subject. I’d written a book called “How to Fight Antisemitism;” I was Bat Mitzvah’d at the synagogue in Pittsburgh, Tree of Life, where the most lethal attack against American Jews in all of American history was carried out. I have some skin in the game, and I know a lot about this subject.”
“And I was basically called into my editor’s office and was told, ‘we can’t really run this.’ And the reason, at the end of the day why we couldn’t really run it, is that the people that were carrying out the attacks weren’t white supremacists carrying tiki torches,” Weiss continued, referring to the notorious 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville.
The former opinion section editor, who now runs a newsletter on the Substack platform, resigned from the Times in July 2020, publishing an open letter critical of the paper.
After working years in the legacy media, Bari Weiss is now stepping away from the biggest news outlets in the country, and is in the midst of crafting her own media property. She is producing with the freedom to investigate and pursue stories she simply didn’t have before and features unique conversations and stories that reflect the most fundamental issues in the country.
Bari wrote about and popularized the Intellectual Dark Web at the New York Times back in 2018 and finally joins us in this episode to discuss why she’s been avoiding joining my show these past 3 years. Plus, we will talk about her experience being attacked across the internet and media, as well as some ideas that may help preserve the country’s political middle.
1) NHJ fell for a completely fake quote. @bariweiss said no such thing. Not that NHJ is known for caring about facts or the truth.
— AG (@AGHamilton29) October 19, 2021
2) Incredible projection. pic.twitter.com/StEwr2gbHJ
Israel Advocacy Movement: The truth about 'No Tech For Apartheid' - #NoTechForApartheid
How Jewish Voice for Peace and MPower Change tried to convince Amazon and Google to boycott Israel with the #NoTechForApartheid campaign
Here’s the timeline of events for the pre-meditated “No Tech For Apartheid” campaign against Project Nimbus organized by BDS groups Jewish Voice for Peace and MPower, who tried to portray it as “concerned employees” of Google and Amazon. pic.twitter.com/NxSJcFzofV
— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? (@emilykschrader) October 18, 2021
Antisemitism Isn't Just About Jews
The last few weeks have brought with them several teachable moments, not just about Jews and antisemitism, but also ones relevant to our society as a whole. In her book, “How to Fight Antisemitism,” journalist and author Bari Weiss claims that the rise of antisemitism is a clear indicator of societal rot. “When a society begins to become unhealthy and tearing itself apart, as we see here and throughout Europe, antisemitism begins to show its face,” Weiss argued, appearing on “Real Time with Bill Maher” in 2019.Jonathan Tobin: Ideas must be debated, but not historical facts
Signs of the rot have been all too visible recently, and they carry with them a great warning. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris addressed students at George Mason University to mark National Voter Registration Day at the end of September. Following her talk, the Vice President called on students for questions. One of those students accused Israel, and America, of committing “ethnic genocide.” Instead of using this as a teachable moment and focusing on the importance of truth in dealing with crucial issues within our society, Harris chose to avoid the mendacious claim and stated, “Your truth should not be suppressed.” Truth became a matter of perception. A few days later, in the pages of this esteemed publication, Gil Troy responded: “Genocide is the mass murder of a people, yet the Palestinian population has quintupled since 1967 … Millennia of Jew-hatred have provided the road map for such perversions. Decades of anti-Zionism paved the way.” When we don’t defend the truth and instead allow moral relativism on what is a clear-cut matter of fact, we open the door for antisemitism and ignorance to creep in, eat away at the foundations of our society and pave the way for nefarious outcomes to come.
At the beginning of 2021, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s 2018 Facebook post came to light. In it, she claimed the California wildfires were started by PG&E, with the help of a “space laser” belonging to the Jewish Rothschild family, the focal point of many antisemitic tropes. This abominable accusation became the subject of much ridicule, exposing Greene’s antisemitism and ignorance, both of which are all too common, but not limited to, the far right.
The Holocaust is a historical fact. Denying that it happened is not a legitimate point of view or scholarly school of thought. Those who claim that the truth about the murder of 6 million Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators is a matter of debate are anti-Semitic liars whose only motive is a desire to erase the record of Jewish suffering so as to justify or rationalize contemporary hatred of the Jews.'Apartheid' and 'genocide' are used as verbal bombs against Israel
Similarly, slavery and the facts about the role that despicable practice and its defenders played in American history, in addition to the way Jim Crow laws perpetuated its legacy after the Civil War, is not up for debate.
Unfortunately, modern American primary and secondary education have to some extent discarded the traditional teaching of history. In its place, we now have educational experiences that talk more about concepts and ways of thinking about the past while downplaying supposedly unimportant facts and dates.
Learning to think critically about history or any field of study is vital, but that can only succeed if it is based on a solid factual foundation—something that is often left out of contemporary schooling. That’s the only reasonable explanation for the fact that surveys consistently show that most Americans, especially those under 45, have an abysmal lack of knowledge about the history of their own country.
Nor is the teaching of the Holocaust exempt from this problem. Some 38 states, including Texas, have passed laws mandating some form of Holocaust education. But many of the courses designed to comply with those mandates tend to emphasize concepts that seek to universalize the lessons of the events in question instead of sticking to the facts about the attempt to exterminate the Jews of Europe.
This has helped create a general belief in American society that the Holocaust is more a metaphor for anything or anyone that people think is awful than a reference to a particular set of events. In this way, inappropriate Holocaust analogies have proliferated, as, for example, right-wingers demonizing vaccine mandates and left-wingers comparing former President Donald Trump to the Nazis. Both sides of the political spectrum condemn their opponents’ misuse of the past while remaining blind to their own mistakes.
To elide this truth, some anti-Israel circles, for example the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, have taken to redefining genocide in a manner that lends credence to its very partisan view of the condition of the Palestinians. According to the leftist think tank: “The term [genocide] does not necessarily signify mass killings. More often [genocide] refers to a coordinated plan aimed at destruction of the essential foundations of the life of national groups.” And even this revised definition is not applicable to the State of Israel’s true relationship with Palestinians.A crucial step to fighting anti-Semitism
No less absurd is the charge of apartheid. Unfortunately, Israel’s Arab population, as is true for ethnic minorities in every Western democracy, are often the victims of social prejudice and discrimination.
But this behavior does not reflect the ethos of the state. Under Israeli law all the country’s citizens are equal. As pointed out time and again, many of Israel’s Arab citizens have achieved remarkable success in government, law, business, hi-tech, culture and the professions. Outside pre-1967 Israel, in Judea and Samaria, security restrictions imposed by the IDF upon the Arab population represent defensive policies that were established in response to years of Palestinian terrorism, both there and that crossed the border into the state. Israel’s detractors see racially motivated bigotry and apartheid instead of legitimate security concerns.
Within the “woke” ideological value system that has invaded and taken command of so much of liberal and progressive thinking, empirical truths and verifiable facts are irrelevant. What matters to Israel’s adversaries is branding the Jewish state with false accusations of genocide and apartheid, the two most emotionally charged weapons in the arsenal of political propaganda.
There is no quick or easy way for Israel to counter this deeply emotional conundrum. The response requires rigorous and ongoing exposure of foreigners to on-site experiences that contradict false Palestinian claims and that bear witness to the many unsung positive interactions between Israelis and Palestinians. How should this be done?
If anything, by clarifying where discussions around Israel can bleed into anti-Semitism, the definition will hopefully aid in creating spaces for vigorous – but more importantly, respectful – debate on what is an immensely polarising issue.
For those outside the Jewish community who oppose the definition, the question must also be asked as to why they feel better equipped than Jews to determine what constitutes anti-Semitism. The IHRA is, after all, overwhelmingly supported by mainstream Jewry – not just in Australia but worldwide.
Few, if any, non-Muslims would dare lecture Muslims about Islamophobia. Nor would it be considered acceptable for Australians of European descent to dismiss Indigenous Australians’ concerns of discrimination against their communities. The Jewish community should not be treated any differently.
This definition shouldn’t be necessary. But the tragic reality is that despite turning the Jewish people into history’s most persecuted minority, the West has consistently demonstrated woeful incompetence when it comes to recognising anti-Semitism.
Bigotry is a vile scourge on society. And in a world that is increasingly sensitive to the myriad forms of discrimination, all the Australian Jewish community asks is that its concerns are listened to. If we let it, the IHRA definition can help achieve that. At a period in history where the forces of extremism are on the rise, it’s needed now more than ever.
The video at the link shows the rabbi being asked if it's a teachable moment for the students of a Yeshiva that just had an arson attack on it. How about the arsonist get a teachable moment instead? Who else gets this kind of question? https://t.co/zpimujCN7X pic.twitter.com/6V0yrh5yIB
— Karol Markowicz (@karol) October 18, 2021
Cobb County, Georgia Passes Resolution Denouncing Antisemitism After Swastika Incidents, Faces Call for ‘Specific Actions’
The Cobb County School Board in Marietta, Georgia adopted a resolution denouncing antisemitism and racism, following two incidents in which swastikas and other offensive messages were daubed in school bathrooms, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) reported on Thursday.Cllr Tasleem Fazal reportedly readmitted to Labour group at Blackburn with Darwen Council despite suggesting that ISIS is a Jewish plot
“The Board wishes to reaffirm its continued commitment to take proactive steps to address antisemitism, racism and all other forms of hate in Cobb County School District,” said the resolution, passed at the board’s monthly meeting with all but two of its members voting for it.
Hershel Greenblat, a Holocaust survivor and Cobb County resident, addressed the board, urging it not to “sweep these recent acts of graffiti and vandalism under the rug.”
“As a survivor, [I was there] to bear witness to a time in history which began with so many small acts of biased attitudes: fear, stereotyping and misinformation,” he said. “Left unchecked, there was discrimination, violence, assaults, and eventually genocide.”
“I hope this board will go beyond words and take action. Please, do something about this antisemitism and anti-human beings. This is all I ask.”
Responding to the news hours later on Twitter, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)’ Southeast office called the resolution a “good first step” — but added, “unless followed by specific actions, it’s an empty gesture.”
There are reports that Cllr Tasleem Fazal has been readmitted to the Labour Party group at Blackburn with Darwen Council despite previously suggesting that ISIS is a Jewish plot. According the Council’s website, Cllr Fazal continues to sit as an independent.LA Times, Washington Post Cite American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee as ‘Civil Rights Group’ While Omitting its Support for Racist BDS Movement Against Israel
Cllr Fazal was suspended from Labour after it was revealed that he had made a video during an anti-Israel protest in 2014 when he called peace protestors “murderers” and during which he was asked by a demonstrator wearing a skullcap: “ISIS – is ISIS Jewish?” From behind the camera, he responded: “Who’s created it? Who’s created it? Do your homework.” The notion that Jews or Israel created the ISIS terrorist organisation is a popular antisemitic trope.
After being suspended, Cllr Fazal sat as an independent, but he also continued to sit on the Council’s select Licencing Committee. Cllr Andy Kay was also suspended from Labour but retained his committee portfolios as an independent.
Blackburn with Darwen Council had as many councillors suspended from the Labour Party over antisemitism claims on its committees as Liberal Democrats.
A recent piece in The Los Angeles Times refers to the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) as a “civil rights organization formed in 1980 to combat anti-Arab stereotypes in US media while promoting balanced reporting on Middle Eastern affairs.”Guardian buries inconvenient fact about British antisemitism rise
What The Los Angeles Times and other media outlets have failed to report is that the ADC consistently demonizes Israel and is a proponent of and active participant in the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, whose explicit goal is to eliminate to the world’s one and only Jewish state.
As noted by news organizations such as CNN, for example, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee has been a vocal advocate for worthy causes such as women’s empowerment, dispelling stereotypes, promoting racial equality and encouraging Arab-Americans to exercise their constitutional right to vote.
However, these same outlets have omitted the fact that “the largest Arab American grassroots civil rights organization in the United States” spreads baseless accusations that Israel is maintaining a system of “apartheid” and carrying out “ethnic cleansing.”
The ADC has also tried to revive the thoroughly debunked claim that “Zionism is racism.”
As the Israeli military in May shielded its citizens from rockets launched by Gaza Strip-based Palestinian terrorist groups, the United States urged a “de-escalation on all sides.”
However, Washington singled out Hamas for condemnation and supported Israel’s right to defend itself.
Yet, Jinan Deena, a national organizer for the ADC, was on May 11 quoted in The Washington Post (WaPo) as saying: “There is no both sides here…. Palestinians are under occupation, and the United States has systematically supported this — whether through funding Israel’s military with our tax dollars or narratives such as this where blame is placed on both sides.”
Essentially, one of the organization’s leaders justified the indiscriminate launching of some 4,500 projectiles towards Israel by a US-designated terrorist group.
Yet, WaPo has still referred to the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee rather innocuously as a “civil rights group.”
A month later, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the Biden Administration’s ambassador to the United Nations, called the Human Rights Council’s frequent criticism of Israel “appalling,” adding that “antisemitic” countries from the Middle East sit on the body.
In response, Abed Ayoub, the legal director of the ADC, said:
That’s a failure of leadership coming from the Biden Administration…. It ignores the bigger problem in the region, and that’s the Israeli war crimes, the apartheid and the lack of accountability towards Israel.”
A Guardian article by Ben Quinn (“Social media ‘bringing antisemitic ideas to new generation’”, Oct. 13) cites a joint study by several anti-racist groups reporting that a new generation of users of social media platforms are being introduced to antisemitic conspiracy theories.Just HOW Unsafe is it to be a Jew in America?
The report included the following:
The findings on online antisemitism comes against the backdrop of continued heightened concern about its impact on the streets and a number of prosecutions of far-right supporters on terror-related charges.
Britain’s Community Security Trust, which assists with the security of the Jewish community, said last month it had recorded 1,308 anti-Jewish hate incidents nationwide in the first half of this year, the highest total in the first half of any year.
The reporter’s suggestion that the record number of antisemitic incidents are connected to the “far-right” is extremely misleading. As the Guardian itself reported at the time of the CST’s publication, the spike was driven by a huge surge in antisemitic incidents in May during the war between Hamas and Israel.
The actual CST report was clear that the huge increase in expressions of anti-Jewish racism was driven by hatred of Israel. CST Antisemitic Incidents Report, Jan-June 2021
Such incidents include a pro-Palestinian convoy which drove through a Jewish neighborhood in London shouting antisemitic abuse and threats:
During the COVID pandemic, we have heard a lot about following the science, and it made me think about how much Jews follow the “science” when it comes to anti-Semitism. There is no shortage of data, and yet Jews are still apt to respond more to what their kishkes tell them. This is not to suggest that the current perception of anti-Semitism is exaggerated. My point is only that we should take a closer look at the data, and we might learn that reality is different from conventional wisdom and make decisions accordingly.Mireille Knoll, Holocaust Survivor Murdered in Brutal Antisemitic Attack, Honored in Paris Street-Naming Ceremony
The most fundamental question is whether it is unsafe to be a Jew in America. What does the data tell us?
Consider the blaring headlines when the FBI hate-crimes report came out that said 59 percent of all victims of religious hate crimes in 2020 were Jewish. This is a misleading and, in some ways irrelevant figure because most victims (60 percent) are targeted because of race/ethnicity/ancestry bias, not religion. More than one-third of hate crimes are anti-black. The more salient finding was that Jews are 8 percent of all victims of hate crimes, which is still more than three times their share of the U.S. population. (Keep in mind the caveat that not all hate crimes are reported).
A total of 824 Jews were victims. That means 1 out of 7,000 Jews was a victim. The corresponding figure for blacks is roughly 1 out of 8,336 (there were more black victims than Jews but the black population is also much larger).
What also went largely unreported is that the number of Jewish victims was the fewest since 2015 and declined 18 percent from 2019.
The data on religious hate crimes is useful for distinguishing between the threats to Jews and Muslims. While we hear a lot of talk about “Islamophobia,” 124 Muslims (9 percent) were victims of religious hate crimes, which was 1 percent of all hate crimes. While the number of Muslims who were victims spiked to 554 in 2001 (compared to 1,196 Jews), the figure has not even been close to that since then and the 2020 figure was the lowest since 2014, having declined for the sixth straight year.
According to the FBI, one Jew was murdered, 93 were assaulted, and 207 were intimidated. Less than 12 percent were physically attacked; 58 percent of the offenses were vandalism. Attacks on Orthodox Jews in New York, for example, may get a lot of publicity, but those incidents, serious as they are, constitute the exception rather than the typical hate crime.
Mireille Knoll, the 85-year-old Holocaust survivor murdered in her Paris apartment in a horrific antisemitic attack in 2018, has been commemorated in the French capital with a street named in her honor.Top Canadian Jewish Org Demands Investigation Into Neo-Nazi Ukrainian Soldiers Who Allegedly Trained With Canada’s Military
In a ceremony on Tuesday, the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, inaugurated the “Allée Mireille Knoll” in the city’s 11th arrondissement, where Knoll resided, accompanied by local dignitaries and Jewish leaders.
Knoll was murdered in her apartment on the Avenue Philippe-Auguste on March 23, 2018. Firefighters who arrived at Knoll’s building later that night to answer an emergency call discovered her partially-burned body with 11 stab wounds.
Two men, Yacine Mihoub, 31, and his associate Alex Carrimbacus, 26, have been charged with the killing. The pair were understood to have targeted Knoll after Mihoub, a neighbor of Knoll’s since the age of eight, told Carrimbacus that she would have plenty of money as she was Jewish. Mihoub and Carrimbacus, who met each other in prison, have lengthy criminal records for offenses including theft, possession of narcotics and violence. Mihoub additionally has a conviction for sexual assault.
A police investigation following Knoll’s death established that Mihoub was attracted to Islamist ideas and slogans, and was already known to the authorities for having praised the Kouachi brothers, who carried out the deadly Islamist terror attack against the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in January 2015.
According to the newspaper Le Figaro, Mihoub was also “compulsively addicted to antisemitic websites and a staunch defender of Hamas.”
A top Canadian Jewish group is asking Canada’s Department of National Defense to investigate its training of Ukrainian soldiers after revelations that a neo-Nazi group had infiltrated Ukraine’s military.German Nazi War Crimes Suspect, 96, Who Went on the Run Goes on Trial
A study by the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies at George Washington University revealed that members of the Ukrainian military were involved with a far-right group called Centuria.
They were documented giving Nazi salutes, praising members of the SS, and pushing white nationalist ideas.
Some members of Centuria apparently claimed to have been trained by the Canadian military and participated in exercises with them.
The Canadian Armed Forces states that it does not investigate members of foreign militaries involved in joint training.
The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center has sent a letter to Minister of National Defence Harjit Sajjan and Acting Chief of the Defense Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre, calling for an investigation.
“It is unacceptable for our armed forces to be emboldening neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine, or any other country, through the provision of CAF training,” Monday’s letter said.
A 96-year-old German woman who was caught shortly after going on the run ahead of a court hearing last month on charges of committing war crimes during World War Two appeared before a judge on Tuesday in the northern town of Itzehoe.Movement to dedicate unmarked Jewish graves expands through Poland
Irmgard Furchner, accused of having contributed as an 18-year-old to the murder of 11,412 people when she was a typist at the Stutthof concentration camp between 1943 and 1945, was taken into the sparse courtroom in a wheelchair.
Her face was barely visible behind a white mask and scarf pulled low over her eyes. Security was heavy as the judge and legal staff made their way into the court.
Between 1939 and 1945 some 65,000 people died of starvation and disease or in the gas chamber at the concentration camp near Gdansk, in today’s Poland. They included prisoners of war and Jews caught up in the Nazis’ extermination campaign.
The trial was postponed after Furchner left her home early on Sept. 30 and went on the run for several hours before being detained later that day.
The Polish witnesses of the German crime in Wojslawice lived for decades with the memories of their Jewish neighbors executed in 1942. They remembered a meadow that flowed with blood, a child who cried out for water from underneath a pile of bodies, arms, and legs that still moved days after the execution.
In the years that followed, those who had seen the crime shared their knowledge with their children, warning them to stay away from the spot behind the Orthodox church where some 60 Jews, among them 20 children, were murdered on that October day.
"When I was a young boy I was running around these meadows but the elders were saying: 'please do not run there because there are buried people, buried Jews,'" Marian Lackowski, a retired police officer whose late mother witnessed the execution in the small town in eastern Poland, said.
Born after the war, Lackowski has devoted years to ensuring that the victims receive a dignified burial, a mission he finally fulfilled Thursday as he gathered with Jewish and Christian clergy, the mayor, schoolchildren, and other members of the town.
Beginning at the town hall, the group walked solemnly down a hill to the execution site, their silence broken only by roosters and barking dogs. After they arrived at the spot, church bells rang out from the town's Catholic church and a trumpet called at noon. Jewish and Christian prayers were recited and mourners lit candles and placed stones in the Jewish tradition at a new memorial erected over the bones. "May their souls have a share in eternal life," it reads.
The mass grave site in Wojslawice is tragically not unique. During the German occupation of Poland during World War II, the Germans imprisoned Jews in ghettoes and murdered them in death camps including Treblinka, Belzec, and Sobibor. But they also shot them in fields and forests near their homes, leaving behind mass graves across Poland, many of which have only come to light in recent years.
Dr. Nahartabi, a Jewish professor of Semitic languages, taught both Hebrew and Arabic in Terezin ghetto, highlighting words in the 2 languages which described the harsh reality of ghetto life.#OTD 19 October 1944, Dr. Nahartabi was deported to Auschwitz. https://t.co/RfAzx629dm pic.twitter.com/or3Z9O83Pp
— Yad Vashem (@yadvashem) October 19, 2021
Portugal honors envoy who saved thousands from Nazis with National Pantheon tomb
Portugal paid official homage Tuesday to Aristides de Sousa Mendes, a Portuguese diplomat who during World War II helped save thousands of people from Nazi persecution, by placing a tomb with his name in the country’s National Pantheon.At 95, Mel Brooks will finally deliver ‘History of the World: Part II’
Leading Portuguese politicians and public figures attended the formal televised ceremony as the tomb was placed alongside other celebrated figures from Portuguese history at the landmark Lisbon building.
The speaker of the Portuguese Parliament, Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues, said Sousa Mendes’ conduct lent prestige to Portugal.
“People who at the decisive moment put their and their family’s safety at risk for the greater good are rare. Sousa Mendes was one of those people,” Ferro Rodrigues said in a speech.
The ceremony marked the completion of Sousa Mendes’ 80-year journey from ostracized Portuguese civil servant to honored international personage.
Perhaps Portugal’s most famous 20th-century diplomat, Sousa Mendes defied his superiors, including dictator António Salazar, when as consul in Bordeaux, France, in 1940 he handed out visas to many people who feared being hunted down by the Nazis.
You couldn’t Torquemada it: Mel Brooks is making a sequel to “History of the World: Part I,” the 1981 revue that delighted and/or appalled Jews with, among other segments, a cheery musical take on the Spanish Inquisition.
The original was a feature film; the sequel on Hulu will be a variety series, Variety reported on Monday. Brooks, who is 95, will executive-produce and write; joining him will be professional funny people Nick Kroll, Wanda Sykes, Ike Barinholtz, David Stassen and Kevin Salter. Production is set to begin in 2022.
Most of the original film’s cast, including Madeline Kahn, Dom DeLuise, Gregory Hines, Cloris Leachman and Sid Caesar, have died in the 40 years since it was released.
“I can’t wait to once more tell the real truth about all the phony baloney stories the world has been conned into believing are History!” Brooks told Variety.
Brooks played a number of roles in the original “History,” including the Spanish inquisitor Torquemada in the Inquisition skit — a tough competition for the most joyfully tasteless segment. “We have a mission to convert the Jews,” Brooks sings as Torquemada, after sliding down a bannister, Broadway-style, to greet his prisoners in the torture chamber.
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