Wednesday, April 19, 2023

04/19 Links Pt2: Irwin Cotler: Yom HaShoah: The imperative to remember, the call to act; Islamist antisemitism in the US masked by alliance with far left – study

From Ian:

Irwin Cotler: Yom HaShoah: The imperative to remember, the call to act
This year’s Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day is a particularly poignant historical moment of remembrance and reminder, of bearing witness, of learning and acting upon the universal lessons of history and the Holocaust.

I write in the aftermath of the 90th anniversary of the establishment in 1933 by the Democratic Government of Germany of the infamous Dachau concentration camp – the forerunner of the deportation to Dachau of thousands during Kristallnacht – reminding us that antisemitism is toxic to democracy, an assault on our common humanity, and as we’ve learned only too painfully and too well that while it begins with Jews, it doesn’t end with Jews.

I write also in the aftermath of the oft-ignored (if it is even known at all) 81st anniversary of the Wannsee Conference of January 20, 1942, convened by the Nazi leadership to address “The Final Solution to the Jewish Question.” This blueprint for the annihilation of European Jewry was met with indifference and inaction from the international bystander community.

I write also on the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the most heroic Jewish and civilian uprising during the Holocaust, which followed the deportation of 300,000 Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to the death camp Auschwitz-Treblinka in 1942. There is a straight line between Wannsee and Warsaw; between the indifference of one and the courage of the other.

I write also amidst the international drumbeat of evil, reflected in the unprovoked and criminal Russian invasion and aggression in Ukraine, underpinned by war crimes, crimes against humanity, and incitement to genocide, which is a stand-alone crime under the genocide convention; the increasing assaults by China on the rules-based international order, including mass atrocities targeting the Uighurs, which are constitutive of acts of genocide; the Iranian regime’s brutal and massive repression of the Iranian people’s “Women, Life, Freedom” human rights revolution; the mass atrocities targeting the Rohingya, Afghans and Ethiopians; and the increasing imprisonment of human rights defenders such as Russian patriot and human rights hero Vladimir Kara-Murza – a critic of the invasion of Ukraine who embodies the struggle for freedom and – sentenced Monday to 25 years in prison for telling the truth. A re-enactment of the Stalinist dictum of “give us the person and we will find the crime.”

And I write also amidst an unprecedented global resurgence of antisemitic acts, incitement, and terror – of antisemitism as the oldest, longest, most enduring, and most dangerous of hatreds; a virus that mutates and metastasizes over time, but which is grounded in one foundational, historical, generic, antisemitic, conspiratorial trope: namely, that Jews, the Jewish people, and Israel are the enemy of all that is good and the embodiment of all that is evil, regardless of what moment in time we are experiencing or living in.

And so at this important historical inflection moment, we should ask ourselves, what have we learned in the last 80 years, and more importantly what must we do?
Antisemites are those who hate Israel, not those who love it
Presidential contenders are often tempting targets for extremist protestors. A disruption of a speech or campaign event guarantees media coverage and attention for their causes. So, it was hardly a surprise that an appearance by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in New Hampshire was targeted by a group of left-wing activists.

However, the kerfuffle caused by the storming of the stage at a Republican fundraiser during a DeSantis speech by members of the IfNotNow group was noteworthy for more than just the publicity it generated for them. The group’s targeting of the governor is in line with the desire of most Democrats to discredit him as a more formidable potential opponent in 2024 while, ironically, seeking to bolster the prospects of former President Donald Trump to win the Republican nomination.

Yet more important than the tactical games that partisans are playing in the months prior to the beginning of the presidential campaign season is the way IfNotNow’s stunt also echoes a general trend being employed by far more influential players on the Jewish left. It involves an effort to discredit those conservatives who are actually great friends of the Jewish people with false charges of antisemitism. At the same time, the same forces are attempting to portray those who are actually seeking to do harm to Jews or aiding those who do so, such as billionaire philanthropist George Soros, as victims of antisemitic incitement.

IfNotNow should count the investment it made in purchasing tickets to the Republican dinner as money well spent. The subsequent coverage in various media outlets gave their smears of DeSantis more attention than they deserved and allowed liberal journalists to mischaracterize its purpose.

The organization’s members chanted “Jews against DeSantis” and held up a sign proclaiming that DeSantis “Loves Israel, Hates Jews.” In tweets in which they boasted of the incident, the group spoke of the governor as someone who was a supporter of “apartheid Israel,” as well as an ally of antisemitic Christian nationalists and Nazis. For good measure, it also linked him to the pro-Israel AIPAC lobby, which it considers to be tainted by its willingness to embrace supporters of the Jewish state in both major parties.
Islamist antisemitism in the US masked by alliance with far left – study
As antisemitic attacks continue to rise in the United States, a growing alliance with far-left organizations has shielded US Islamist groups from scrutiny of their antisemitic statements and ideas, a study by an Israeli think tank warned.

“US Islamist groups and leaders have increasingly sought common cause with progressive left-wing groups that promote minority rights and intersectionality among racial, ethnic, and religious minorities in their efforts to build coalitions around common interests,” charged Yehudit Barsky and Ehud Rosen, authors of the Institute for National Security Studies report “Islamist Antisemitism in the United States,” set to be published Tuesday.

The “red-green” coalition is based on a narrative that portrays the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an anticolonial struggle, and US Muslims as victims of racism on par with other marginalized minorities in the US, said the INSS study.

The alliance also seeks to delegitimize Jewish communal organizations, according to Barsky and Rosen, by portraying them as part of a white power structure in the US that is ineligible for inclusion in progressive coalitions.

“Within these coalitions,” charged the study, “US Islamists have sought to boycott and delegitimize progressive Zionists and supporters of Israel, deeming them as oppressors and illegitimate participants.”

Barsky is a research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, and Rosen is a team member of the INSS’s project on Contemporary Antisemitism in the United States.

The study is the latest installment in an ongoing INSS series on antisemitism in the US.

Leading Islamist organizations like American Muslims for Palestine and the Council on American Islamic Relations, the authors argued, seek to challenge the right of mainstream Jewish and pro-Israel organizations to define antisemitism and to call themselves civil rights organizations. A campaign against the Anti-Defamation League, the leading antisemitism watchdog, called it a “silencer of free speech” and promoter of Islamophobia, and pushed for other civil rights organizations to boycott it.

The authors warned that over time, fringe antisemitic beliefs could become increasingly mainstreamed if these organizations are not challenged.


Moazzam Begg of CAGE found to be sharing Neo-Nazi material
Moazzam Begg of CAGE found to be sharing Neo-Nazi material

Former Guantánamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg is director of outreach for UK-based campaign group CAGE and a public-speaker. He is also promoted as a human rights campaigner and as an advocate for justice and dialogue. This seems odd; a review of Begg’s social media output reveals apparent anti-Jewish narratives, extreme antisemitic content, and a seemingly obsessive hate for the state of Israel:
– In January 2015 Begg made this antisemitic Holocaust analogy:
– In MAY 2021 Begg shared a video from 2018 featuring white supremacist neo-Nazi and Holocaust denier Patrick Little. In that video, Little is seen stomping and spitting on an Israeli flag while saying that the California Republican Party is “nothing but Zionist stooges.” He also pushed several other antisemitic allegations in that video, including:
“We know there are Israeli fingerprints all over the 9/11 attacks.”
“United States servicemen dying in wars to expand Israel.”


Here is a segment from the video in which Little made the antisemitic dual loyalty accusation.

Commenting on the video, Begg said, “what he’s saying seems unprecedented and pretty powerful” and “it’s clear that the tide and narrative against Israel is beginning to turn”, appearing to cheer for and agree with Little’s bigoted antisemitic tropes. We find it odd that a “human rights advocate” would agree with a Neo-Nazi on any level.

– In May 2021 Begg also published the following text, together with this image from 2017 without any context, invoking classic antisemitism: Antisemitism disguised as anti-Zionism

Moazzam Begg asserts that modern Israel is a Muslim land as this live tweet from 2013 shows.

Begg also implicitly denied Jewish indigeneity to Israel and the Jewish people’s basic human right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland:

“Whoever the Tailban [Sic.] are, they’re in their homeland. Zionists in Israel on the other hand…” A claim which he later reiterated: “like said, Israel’s crimes far outweigh Taliban’s who are in their own country. Zionist Israelis aren’t”


The End of Quds Day?
This weekend once again the supporters of the Islamic Regime in Tehran marched through the streets of London but it was a different march than in years gone by.

Once upon a time these supporters of Hezbollah were parading their ideological beliefs through the waving of Hezbollah flags and banners and even wearing Hezbollah merch in the form of T-shirts and caps. No longer.

Whereas once the supporters of the Ayatollahs in Iran would be carrying their placards with Nasrallah’s face on and other assorted pro Hezbollah symbols now the organisers have banned them.

Thanks to you and people like you overt support for Hezbollah in London has become a thing of the past. Furthermore at Quds Day this past Sunday the officers and stewards of the IHRC were seen telling people to lay down their antisemitic signs equating Israelis with Nazis.

The organisers of Quds Day lack the courage of their convictions, they won’t wave the Hezbollah flag and force the police to arrest them. This begs the question what ele can we force them to stop doing?

Harry’s Place first demonstrated against Quds Day 15 years ago and our, your, tenacity has finally borne fruit.


Convicted Palestinian terrorist to hold talks in UK and Ireland
The Palestinian French lawyer and researcher Salah Hamouri, who has been linked to a Palestinian terrorist group, is slated reportedly to go on a lecture tour later this month in Ireland and the United Kingdom.

Israel expelled Hamouri, who was convicted of belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), last December. And in January, Gregory Doucet, the mayor of Lyon, France, canceled a conference that was to include Hamouri, citing the need to “ensure harmony” in the city.

Hamouri spent more than three years in custody, without a trial, after his 2005 arrest for allegedly plotting to kill then-Sephardi Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. He pled guilty but claimed he did so only on the advice of his lawyers seeking a lighter prison sentence. He was released in the prisoner swap for Gilad Shalit in 2011 and his social media profiles indicate he is a lawyer for Addameer, a Palestinian NGO that Israel designated a terrorist group.

Shai Glick, chair of BeTzelmo, a human-rights organization in Israel, publicly petitioned Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen to call on Britain and Ireland to prevent Hamouri from entering the country. “We cannot stand idly by while a convicted terrorist spreads his terrorist ethos across Europe and thus endangers the safety of Israelis and Jews living in the countries he visits,” Glick told Israeli media.

BeTzelmo, the Irish Department for Foreign Affairs, Addameer and Hamori did not respond to requests for comment from JNS. The British Home Office told JNS it does not comment on individual cases and would not confirm whether Hamouri would be permitted to enter the country.
Credit Suisse hindered internal probe into Nazi-linked accounts, US senators say
US lawmakers have accused embattled Swiss bank Credit Suisse of limiting the scope of an internal investigation into Nazi clients and Nazi-linked accounts, including some that were open until just a few years ago.

The Senate Budget Committee says an independent ombudsman initially brought in by the bank to oversee the probe was “inexplicably terminated” as he carried out his work, and it faulted “incomplete” reports that were hindered by restrictions.

Credit Suisse said it was “fully cooperating” with the committee’s inquiry but rejected some claims from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Los Angeles-based Jewish human rights group, that brought to light in 2020 allegations of possible Nazi-linked accounts at Switzerland’s second-largest bank.

Despite the hurdles, the reports from the ombudsman and forensic research team revealed at least 99 accounts for senior Nazi officials in Germany or members of a Nazi-affiliated groups in Argentina, most of which were not previously disclosed, the committee said Tuesday.

The reports “raise new questions about the bank’s potential support for Nazis fleeing justice following World War II via so-called ‘Ratlines,” the committee said, referring to a network of escape routes used by Nazis after the war.

The committee said Credit Suisse “has pledged to continue its own investigation into remaining unanswered questions.”

“When it comes to investigating Nazi matters, righteous justice demands that we must leave no stone unturned. Credit Suisse has thus far failed to meet that standard,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican member of the budget panel.
'Don't Trust Morningstar': Advocacy Group Launches Nationwide Campaign Against Anti-Israel Financial Firm
The financial services giant Morningstar, which has come under fire for punishing companies that do business with Israel, is now facing a boycott movement of its own, with a major advocacy group pushing companies to steer clear of the ratings service.

"Don’t trust Morningstar," states a blaring headline on a website launched Tuesday by Consumers’ Research, a nonprofit advocacy group. Consumers’ Research alleges that Morningstar bolsters the anti-Israel Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions movement by systematically downgrading companies that do business with Israel, driving investors away from the Jewish state. The group’s nationwide boycott campaign seeks to expose the company’s anti-Israel bias and urges people to steer clear of its ratings, according to information obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

Morningstar subsidiary Sustainalytics—which rates companies based on Environmental, Social, and Corporate (ESG) governance guidelines—has been battling accusations it feeds the BDS movement through a biased ratings system that unfairly targets Israel for its efforts to combat Palestinian terrorism. The ratings produced by Morningstar and Sustainalytics serve as a primary guidepost for investors, who tend to shy away from firms that are flagged on the company’s do-not-invest list.

The pressure campaign is the most public challenge to Morningstar since the company became embroiled in anti-Israel controversy last year following its acquisition of Sustainalytics. Morningstar denies that it supports the BDS movement but blacklists companies that work with Israel’s security sector, the Free Beacon reported in February. Advocacy groups like Consumers’ Research say that Morningstar is letting woke ideology—which portrays Israel as a pariah state—guide its ratings system.

Consumers’ Research says its campaign seeks to boycott the boycotters by raising awareness about Morningstar’s alleged anti-Israel bias. In addition to the website, DontTrustMorningStar.com, the group is sending out mailers across the country that accuse Morningstar of blacklisting "Israel-based companies using antisemitic criteria."
Barcelona mayor sued after proposing Tel Aviv boycott
Barcelona’s mayor is being sued over her decision in February to sever the Spanish city’s official relations with Israel, including its twinning agreement with Tel Aviv.

The Lawfare Project announced on Tuesday the filing of the lawsuit against the Catalan capital’s leftist mayor, Ada Colau, on behalf of the local charity Barcelona Institute for Dialogue with Israel.

“It asserts that Ms. Colau acted beyond the scope of her authority by infringing on the Spanish government’s power to conduct foreign policy and violated applicable legal procedures,” the U.S.-based legal fund said in a statement.

Colau cited “repeated violations of human rights of the Palestinian population and non-compliance with United Nations resolutions” in justifying the decision to boycott the Jewish state, which ended a 24-year formal friendship between Barcelona and Tel Aviv.

This decision drew immediate condemnation from the Israeli government, pro-Israel groups and local Jewish organizations, with Brooke Goldstein, executive director of the Lawfare Project, saying that the suspension “represents a total misuse of the legal process to engage in a bigoted and partisan campaign, rather than a legal decision within the scope of the Mayor of Barcelona’s power.”

Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, the president of the Conference of European Rabbis, blamed Colau’s decision for antisemitic and anti-Israel graffiti scrawled on the city’s largest synagogue on Monday, the eve of Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day.

“The irresponsible decision of the mayor of Barcelona to unilaterally sever relations with the State of Israel has put the Jewish community in the city in real danger,” said Goldschmidt.

“Every additional case of vandalism and bloodshed as a result of this unfortunate choice will be on her hands,” the rabbi added.
Ivy League Exodus
For Jews, an Ivy League degree was both a status symbol and a crucial element in a functioning and merit-based system of social mobility. An Ivy education was proof of a durable theory that Jews—like other immigrant communities—could become normalized in American society through sheer ability, which could be recognized, nurtured, and rewarded through institutions that everyone still trusted and even admired. Like other elite realms, the Ivies became places where Jews were numerous and comfortable. Some 25% of the Harvard student body was Jewish from the 1960s onward. Yale was perhaps as much as one-third Jewish in the ’70s and ’80s. The University of Pennsylvania was always mythologized as being 40% or even a half Jewish, though the best numbers indicate the high-water mark was more in the 35% range. In a 1979 address at the dedication of Harvard’s new Hillel, Henry Rosovsky, dean of the faculty of arts and sciences and one of the architects of the college’s core curriculum, noted that “Harvard has made us feel entirely at home,” but also wondered: “Will our community remain strong or will it disappear? This is not a fanciful question.”

Today, it has become a perceivable reality that Jews are no longer being admitted to Ivy League schools in their former numbers. In 2017, Brandeis demographer Leonard Saxe found that Harvard was at most 14% Jewish, determining that the undergraduate student body was 10% “Jewish by religion,” while another 4% were people of Jewish ethnicity who did not identify as belonging to any religion. At Harvard the drop has been noted since at least the late 2000s, when the university’s Jewish studies department began cutting its offerings. Princeton, believed to be 15% Jewish in the ’80s and ’90s, now only infrequently has classes on modern Jewish philosophy and usually has only one class per semester on modern Jewish history. Students interested in Hebrew language instruction must often take more advanced classes at the nearby Princeton Theological Seminary, which runs on a different academic calendar. “I think there are a number of reasons why JDS is not flourishing at Princeton,” emeritus professor Froma Zeitlin wrote by email, referring to the school’s Judaic studies program, “one of which is the lack of a coherent vision as to what JDS ought to be promoting.”

The University of Pennsylvania was believed to be over one-third Jewish for much of the ’80s and ’90s. In 2016, Saxe put the number at closer to 16%. The drop at Penn was “dramatic and rapid” in the 2010s, as one person active in the university’s Jewish life recalled—there was an apparent 40% plunge in the school’s Jewish population between 2010 and the study’s completion in 2016, with a 50% drop from the beginning of the 21st century until now. The Yale Chaplain’s Office surveys incoming freshmen on their religious identity. The office’s methods are notably unsystematic, but it nevertheless recorded a drop in Jewish-identifying respondents, from 19.8% in the 2000s to 16.4% in the 2010s. Yale is now “probably less than 10% Jewish,” one leader of the university’s Jewish community estimated. At Princeton, members of the Orthodox community—the group most responsible for making Jewish practice and communal life both visible and tangible, often to the benefit of less religious Jews—aren’t sure how much longer their daily minyan can hang on. “Jews are being squeezed out of the admission priorities,” Princeton senior Adam Hoffman claimed.

Of course, there is little about American Jewish life that depends on there being high percentages of Jews at the eight Ivy League schools. Jews being rejected from Penn and Yale are now flocking to Washington University in St Louis or Tulane instead. Perhaps steering clear of the establishment conformity factories that most Ivy League universities seem bent on becoming might actually turn into an advantage for American Jews within a burnt-over educational landscape where “excellence” is thought of as a retrograde or even racist concept. The faster Jews can run away from the declining strongholds of rigidly enforced right-think, one might argue, the better off they and their children will be.

At every point in their history the Ivies have revealed what the existing elite values and whom it is willing to welcome into its ranks.

Whether or not it’s ultimately positive for the community, the drop in Jewish Ivy League enrollment reflects consequential shifts within institutions that continue to sit atop American society, retaining the privileges and broader infrastructure of the prior meritocracy. These universities, which continue to subsist on large contributions from mainly Jewish donors, still behave as if they control a narrow pathway into the upper rungs of American life.

At every point in their history the Ivies have revealed what the existing elite values and whom it is willing to welcome into its ranks. Jews benefited from the meritocratic system of elite production that the Ivies administered in the postwar years and are at an apparent disadvantage now that the old system is considered exclusionary, unrepresentative, and otherwise ill-suited to the current needs and values of the people oveerseeing it. The Ivy League now presents conflicting answers as to whether Jews have a place within whatever post-meritocratic national elite the schools understand themselves to be building.
The Latest Work of Academic Anti-Zionism Argues That Jews Are Wrong to Seek Security
In his recent book The No-State Solution: A Jewish Manifesto, Daniel Boyarin—a distinguished professor of ancient Judaism at the University of California, Berkeley—takes old arguments against Zionism and dresses them up in the trendiest of academic clothing. The Jews, he contends, should celebrate their religious and national heritage, but realize that they are a thoroughly diasporic people who should embrace “not the promise of security, but rather the highly contingent possibility of an ethical collective existence.” Cole Aronson writes in his review:

One might propose that Jewish Zionists didn’t like life in Europe because Gentile mobs—often with the acquiescence or support of Gentile overlords—had abused, expelled, and killed Jews over and over again for centuries. Occasionally, Boyarin concedes that Jewish life before Israel was not all peaches and cream. But according to The No-State Solution, the thing most urgently to be remedied is not the misery or precariousness of Jewish life in the Diaspora, but that Jews came to associate misery and precariousness with life in the Diaspora. Western Gentiles not only made the Jews suffer; they also—the devils—confused the Jews into thinking that their suffering was due to their lack of a state with which to defend themselves against their enemies. If only Herzl, Weizmann, and Jabotinsky had realized the European imperialist source of their opposition to Jewish statelessness!

Early on, Boyarin asks: “What kind of social identity do we want for the Jews?” Good question. But without an analysis of the current Israeli answer and some thoughts on the likely consequences of other answers, Boyarin should not expect a serious hearing for his own. What Boyarin calls a “question of values” is not analyzed with respect to his progressive values or any other values. He doesn’t assess the costs and benefits of his proposed binational state in Palestine for the “Jews who live and breathe” there. He doesn’t do it for Palestinians, either.

In Boyarin’s view, for Jews to keep others safe is the ethical thing, whereas for Jews to do the one thing proven to keep themselves safe is at best the “secure” thing, at worst the “racist” or “fascist” thing.


The Washington Post’s World View Infantilizes Palestinians, Again
The Washington Post’s World Views columnist, Ishaan Tharoor, is known for two things: an obsessive fixation with the Jewish state, and depriving Palestinians of independent agency. An April 11, 2023 article, “Good Friday Agreement is a rare success story of 1990s U.S. diplomacy,” showcases both talents, along with Tharoor’s penchant for misleading language and chronic omissions.

Tharoor highlights a trip by President Joe Biden to Belfast to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, which ended most of the sectarian violence in Northern Ireland. That agreement, Tharoor observes, “represents a sadly unique success story from an era in which other grand U.S.-brokered initiatives have faltered.” But it is the World Views columnist who falters when he later compares the Good Friday Agreement to the 1990s Oslo Peace Process.

“Oslo,” Tharoor writes, “set in motion the theoretical creation of a independent Palestinian state, to exist side by side with Israel.” He then adds:

“Analysts have for years pronounced the Oslo framework dead: The peace process is in deep freeze, with successive Israeli governments spending the past two decades steadily expanding settlements in land designated for a Palestinian state. The prevailing conditions have moved both Israeli and international human rights groups to determine that a form of apartheid exists in the country.

The ‘two-state solution’ promised by the Oslo accords is no longer supported by a considerable portion of the Israeli body politic, nor even much of a concern for Palestinians who chafe under military occupation, shorn of equal rights with Israelis, let alone a pathway to a viable state of their own. In 1995, an Israeli ultranationalist assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who signed the deal and famously appeared at the White House alongside Clinton and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat; the extremists who cheered his murder now find themselves represented in Israel’s halls of power. The Palestinian Authority, a political institution that emerged after Oslo and was only meant to be a transitional entity, is deeply unpopular, increasingly autocratic and lurching toward obsolescence.
BBC international editor touts simplistic ‘hopes for peace’ narrative
The Palestinians have of course been “deeply divided” for many years and there is nothing novel about the fact that they are incapable of “making or delivering any sort of deal”. Not only can the Palestinians not present a united leadership to negotiate an agreement with Israel, but the more popular faction is a widely-designated terrorist organisation that opposes existing agreements, dismisses the idea of a two-state solution and rejects Israel’s very right to exist.

Remarkably, Bowen has nothing to say about Hamas’ efforts to undermine the Palestinian Authority in locations ostensibly under its control. Readers hence learn nothing about the smuggling of weapons into those areas or about Hamas’ practical and financial roles in the establishment, arming and direction of new and existing terror groups.

Bowen refrains from any serious discussion of relevant topics such as the Palestinian Authority’s loss of control in some areas, its failure to meet its Oslo Accords obligations to combat terrorism, internal political turmoil and the growing involvement of members of the PA security forces in terrorism and armed attacks.

He likewise completely avoids the wider issue of the collaboration between Hamas, Hizballah and Iran which is destabilising the region as a whole and feeding the “tensions” his article purports to discuss.

In short, all BBC audiences got from Jeremy Bowen’s latest trip to Israel was a superficial, predictable and uninformative article which employs the jaded tactic of blaming Israel – and especially Israeli ‘settlements’ – for the absence of any light at the end of the ‘peace process’ tunnel while erasing from the story Hamas’ ongoing efforts to destabilise the Palestinian Authority and thus put an end to any chance of negotiations with Israel.
Guardian refuses to amend article legitimising the blood libel
A month has passed since CAMERA UK, Campaign Against Antisemitism and other concerned organisations complained to the Guardian about their legitimisation of Mohammed el-Kurd’s blood libel, and the outlet still refuses to amend the article to make it clear they reject his antisemitic accusation.

The Guardian piece in question, written by Sian Cain (“Adelaide Writers’ Week: rare moments of empathy and nuance found amid a storm of controversy”, March 12) noted the following about a row at a Writers Week in Australia involving el-Kurd – the extremist Palestinian activist.

A storm brewed. Attention turned to the other Palestinian writers on the bill, including Mohammed El-Kurd, a Palestinian poet whose debut collection Rifqa narrates his experience of dispossession in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of East Jerusalem. [ADL] has criticised some of his social media comments as antisemitic, as well as a line in one of his poems: “They harvest organs of the martyred, feed their warriors our own.”

Kurd’s accusation of Israel “harvest[ing] the organs of…martyred” Palestinians and “feeding” those organs to their own soldiers is a monstrous version of the medieval antisemitic blood libel – variations of which incited the murder of Jews going back to the Middle Ages. Though the libel began in Norwich in 1144 with the accusation that Jews murder non-Jews and then use the victim’s blood for Jewish rituals, it lives on today in similar language about Israelis.
New York Times Marks Holocaust Remembrance Day With Piece Warning of Israeli Fascism
The New York Times is marking Holocaust Remembrance Day by publishing an article claiming that fascism is on the rise in Israel.

The article is by Tom Hurwitz, identified by the Times as “an award-winning documentary cinematographer and director.” Hurwitz recounts being 14 years old and sitting with his director father, Leo Hurwitz, in the television control room during the trial in Jerusalem of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann.

Hurwitz writes, “The question of how fascism gains power is no less urgent today. As nationalisms multiply around the globe, lies gain supremacy as political weapons and scapegoating minorities proves itself a powerful mobilizing force, danger is burgeoning, here and in Israel itself.” He goes on, “What I witnessed as a 14-year-old in that control room, I am witnessing again. The fascination with individual people’s guilt or innocence is obscuring the society-wide re-emergence of fascism.”

If it strikes you as tasteless verging on grotesque to use Holocaust Remembrance Day as an event to portray Israelis as incipient fascists, you aren’t alone. Doing so essentially equates Zionism to Nazism in violation of the International Holocaust Remembrance Association’s working definition of antisemitism, which offers as an example of antisemitism, “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.”

The Hurwitz piece generated strong pushback from Times readers, including from those at rival publications.

“Offensive piece. Especially on day we mourn the loss of 6 million,” tweeted Gregory Zuckerman, a special writer at the Wall Street Journal.

Hurwitz’s website describes him as “a verger at New York’s Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, helping to oversee weekly services and the great holiday liturgies of the world’s largest gothic church.”
Ben Gvir, ADL trade barbs over ‘Jewish racism’ section in latest antisemitism report
A report on antisemitism coauthored by the Anti-Defamation League and Tel Aviv University has triggered an acrimonious exchange of allegations between the ADL and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.

The minister, a right-wing extremist, accused the ADL of politicizing the fight against antisemitism and the Holocaust after the ADL implicitly compared Ben Gvir to European fascists in the new report.

Ben Gvir’s advisor told The Times of Israel that the ADL was abusing the “sacrosanct” memory of the Holocaust and the fight against antisemitism for partisan score-settling.

The Antisemitism Worldwide Report for 2022 provides an overview of antisemitic trends last year. It is the first time that the ADL, a New York-based anti-racism watchdog that focuses on antisemitism in the United States and internationally, has cooperated in writing the annual report with Tel Aviv University’s Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry.

Published Monday ahead of Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, the report documented a sharp rise in 2022 in the number of antisemitic incidents in the United States and other Western countries, alongside a decline in several other countries, including France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. It also found that Haredi Jews are the main victims of antisemitic assaults in the West.

The exchange of allegations around the report is occurring amid a dramatic rift between left and right-leaning Jews in Israel and beyond over key issues relating to the future of the Jewish state, including its judiciary’s independence. The acrimony underlines the narrowing of common ground even on issues that have been widely seen as transcending politics, such as the fight against antisemitism and the memory of the victims of the Holocaust.

Unusually, the report’s foreword features a thinly veiled comparison between Ben Gvir, leader of the ultranationalist Otzma Yehudit party, and European “fascists.”

“This year saw the former disciples of the late racist Rabbi Meir Kahane, who introduced Nazi-like legislation to the Knesset, enter government,” reads the report.
‘Frightening:’ New Report Reveals Entrenched Antisemitic Attitudes in Austria
A new report on antisemitic attitudes in Austria commissioned by that country’s parliament has revealed what the head of the Jewish community called “frightening” levels of anti-Jewish hostility within the general population, particularly among immigrant communities from a Middle Eastern background.

Announcing the report’s publication on Tuesday morning, Wolfgang Sobotka — the president of the lower house of the Austrian parliament from the conservative ÖVP Party — remarked that its findings proved that “antisemitism is not a phenomenon of the political fringe, it comes from the middle of society.”

The report was based on a survey of 2,000 Austrian citizens over the age of 16 at the end of 2022. A further survey of 1,000 individuals from Turkish and Arabic-speaking backgrounds was also conducted, revealing that antisemitism in this sector of the population is even more pronounced.

The report found that 15 percent of respondents manifested “severe” antisemitic attitudes, endorsing classic antisemitic stereotypes, denying the truth of the Holocaust or blaming Jews for their own persecution. A further 32 percent expressed “latent” attitudes, for example the belief that Israel’s elimination would result in peace in the Middle East.

Asked whether they believed that accounts of the Holocaust had been “exaggerated,” 11 percent of respondents answered affirmatively — a figure that rocketed to 40 percent when the same question was posed to those from a Middle Eastern background.

The report also revealed that more than a third of respondents — 36 percent — believed that Jews exploited the memory of the Holocaust for their own advantage, while 19 percent agreed with the statement, “It is not just coincidence that the Jews have been persecuted so often in their history; they are at least partly to blame for it.” Among the immigrant communities, the latter view was endorsed by 40 percent of those surveyed.
Poles, Jews, and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Eighty years ago today, the half-starved Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto rose up against their German tormentors, holding out for 27 days before the SS destroyed the entire area. In this 2017 essay, Jared Sorhaindo reflects on his visit to the part of Warsaw where the ghetto once stood, the ghetto’s history, and how Warsaw’s non-Jewish residents related to both the ghetto’s inhabitants and the uprising.

The Polish underground did report about what the Nazis were doing to the Jews, in detail—the ghettoization, the shootings, the deportations, the exterminations. The Polish government-in-exile in London was updated regularly. . . . Generally speaking, the Polish government-in-exile did not want to highlight Jewish suffering too much, because it would, in their estimation, minimize the agonies of the Polish nation, which were shattering and enormous.

It seems unlikely that the Poles could not have blown up railway tracks or even attacked the death camps themselves if they had so chosen. The constant excuse was that the Polish underground had to husband its resources for a final confrontation with the Germans and could not spare them to save the Jews. The Polish underground and government were fearful that the Germans would move on to the non-Jewish Poles once they had finished with the Jews, so they had to prepare for this eventuality with all the force they could muster. The unspoken assumption, of course, was that the Jews, although Polish citizens, were not really Poles, and therefore were not worth full-throated, or any-throated, Polish resistance.

The Polish underground largely held the Jews in contempt, seeing them as going to their deaths like sheep to the slaughter. They did not, they said, want to waste arms on such people. So despite the repeated calls for help by Warsaw’s Jewish underground, the [Polish Home Army] only provided a handful of revolvers, some of which were defective.

Many Poles, however, were profoundly distressed by what was happening to their Jewish neighbors. [In 1942], the Polish government-in-exile set up the Council to Aid Jews (Polish: Rada Pomocy Żydom, code name Żegota), which helped thousands of Jews to survive through providing false documentation, food, medicine, and shelter.
Polish museum scraps Christian children’s show featuring threats to beat Jews
This city’s foremost historical museum is facing calls for an external review after it showcased a play that contained references to beating up Jews.

The appeal to Mayor Jacek Majchrowski to scrutinize the Museum of Krakow came on Tuesday, Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, from FestivALT, a Krakow-based organization that produces Jewish arts and activism events, and 11 other Jewish groups along with two prominent rabbis.

Earlier this year, the museum posted on its YouTube channel and included in an exhibition intended for children a recording of a play by the Malik family, which is well-known in Krakow for its nativity scene productions. The museum removed the video, which it had featured to celebrate the local nativity scene heritage, this month following an internal review.

The video, which FestivALT’s founder said had been viewed by thousands of people, shows the actors singing about Jews at least 30 times. Some of the mentions are in a violent or negative context. The show is centered around a puppet theater in which one figure appears to be an Orthodox Jew with sidelocks. Another, holding a stick, wears what resembles traditional Polish garb.

As a puppeteer animates the figures, actors from the Malik family troupe sing a duet by the two puppets. The voice of the character holding a stick sings: “Jews! Jews! I will teach you, I will teach you. How I will thrash you from behind, how I will thrash you in front with this stick.”

Earlier, the stick-wielding puppet berates the Jewish one for failing to recognize Jesus Christ as the Messiah. “Jews! Jews! Well, you see clearly, you see clearly. And why, and why are you ashamed of the Messiah?” sings the actor.
Florida’s ongoing battle with Jew hatred - opinion
HB 269 was introduced by Florida Representatives Randy Fine and Mike Caruso and is currently under review by the House Judiciary Committee. “I will not be complacent, and I will not sit around,” said Caruso at a news conference announcing the bill. “With that attitude, are we just going to wait for these haters to start breaking the glass windows and storefronts of the Jewish store owners again, like they did in the past, before we wake up?”

Fine said, “I guarantee the bill will pass. And I never do that.”

Some local governments aren’t waiting. The Jacksonville City Council held an emergency session in late January after a string of antisemitic projections, eventually passing an ordinance making it illegal to project messages on private structures without the owner’s consent.

Palm Beach County has also acted, passing a similar ordinance earlier this year after a cluster of antisemitic incidents.

This kind of legislation does more than impose much-needed accountability and deter future antisemitic incidents; it’s a powerful signal to Florida’s Jews that their state government takes their well-founded concerns seriously. That means a lot to a community that makes up less than four percent of the state, though Florida has the third-largest Jewish population in the country.

HB 269 should become a model for other states and the federal government, assuming it passes. Antisemitism is spreading like cancer nationwide and needs to be stopped, particularly at the government level, and this legislation gives law enforcement the prosecutorial tools they’ve been asking for.

At a time when more than half of America’s religiously motivated hate crimes target Jews, bills like HB 269 have never been more necessary. We’re tired of being targeted through a legal loophole.

To protect one of the country’s most vulnerable minorities, America should follow Florida’s lead.


Israeli Eurovision Winner Neta Barzilai Will Return to Song Contest in UK For Guest Performance During Grand Finals
Israeli singer Netta Barzilai, who won the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest with her song Toy, will take the stage at the upcoming Eurovision competition in May in the United Kingdom to perform as a guest artist during the grand finals, she revealed on Monday.

“Eurovision called again, and I couldn’t say no,” the Bassa Sababa singer wrote in an Instagram post announcing her return to the singing contest, held this year in Liverpool. She added, “I missed you guys. See you in Liverpool ! Are you ready?”

Barzilai will perform in the grand finals on May 13 alongside six representatives from other countries as well as Eurovision’s 2022 winners, Ukraine’s Kalosh Orchestra, who will perform Stefania along with their new song Voices of a New Generation, according to Ynet. The Israeli publication noted that others who will perform in the grand final include British TikTok singer Sam Ryder, Swedish artist Cornelia Jacobs, and Italian singer-songwriter Mahmoud, who finished sixth in the 2022 competition with his duet Brividi and won second place in the 2019 contest held in Israel with his song Soldi.

Barzilai’s Eurovision victory in 2018 marked Israel’s fourth win in the international competition. Israel first competed in the contest in 1971 and had previously won in 1978, 1979 and 1998. Barzilai was also the opening act for the competition when it was held in Israel in 2019.

Israel’s representative in the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest is Israeli pop singer Noa Kirel, who will perform the English-language song Unicorn in the semi-finals. The song was co-written by Kirel, Yinon Yahel, May Sfadia and Doron Medalie — who co-wrote Barzilai’s Eurovision-winning song Toy.


The Lost Library of the Jews of Singapore
While living in Singapore, an Israeli student named Mordy Miller made a surprising discovery perusing the shelves of the synagogue library. Shalem College reports:

The book he had picked up, he realized, was more than a hundred years old: printed in Baghdad—to which most Singaporean Jews, who arrived from their then-home in Calcutta in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, trace their lineage—it told the history of Singapore’s Jewish community, but from a religious standpoint.

“There’s lots of research about this community, but almost exclusively from an economic, political, or sociological point of view,” explains Miller, who is pursuing his doctoral thesis on Kabbalah and Israeli politics . . . at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. “This book, though, described the community’s unique religious traditions; so far as I knew, there was nothing else like it. I asked the synagogue’s rabbi if there might be any more, and when he said yes—I couldn’t resist.”

What happened next was a months-long “real” treasure hunt, Miller says, to boxes underneath stairwells and in the synagogue’s basement. The search—since titled the Singapore Genizah Project—eventually extended to the city’s other synagogue, too. In the end, Mordy and a team of community volunteers managed to unearth nearly 700 volumes—the world’s most authoritative collection on the city’s Jewish history.

Many of the oldest volumes are in Arabic written with Hebrew letters, or—more unusually—in Hebrew written with Arabic letters. One of the most popular books seems to have been the Zohar, reflecting the mystical text’s importance to Iraqi Jewry.
The Ancient Jewish Rebels Who Inspired Modern Zionists
From 66 to 74 CE, and again from 132 to 136, Jews revolted against Roman rule. In both uprisings, surprising initial success gave way to catastrophic defeat. Robert Silverman explains how the leaders of these rebellions created what he dubs an “information campaign,” preserved most notably in the coins minted by the revolutionary governments, and how these campaigns shaped the Zionist movement:
The coins were minted by a central authority—probably the Temple staff in the First Revolt and [the rebel leader] Shimon ben Kosiba’s headquarters in the Second Revolt—who kept the quality control and die engraving at a high level throughout the revolts. These were organized governments that devised “hearts and minds” information campaigns using the best mass media of the time—coins.

The legends on the coins are inscribed in a script, paleo-Hebrew, that was no longer in daily use at the time of the revolts. Using this antique script was part of the information campaign to identify the revolts with earlier periods of Jewish sovereignty. Even if only scribes could read them, the coins bear compact powerful messages that could be orally transmitted. The rebels lived in a linguistically diverse part of the Roman empire where Aramaic and Greek predominated. But they insisted on Hebrew as the language of their state. Their coin inscriptions are only in Hebrew.

The coins from both revolts proclaim the name of the newly independent Jewish state—Israel. But at the time of the revolts, there had been no political entity of this name for over 600 years. . . . By invoking Israel in their information campaign, the rebels sought to turn a local rebellion in one Roman province into an international war by recruiting all of the Jews, especially those in the Parthian empire, Rome’s chief enemy. Perhaps they realized that this was the only way to secure independence.

In the second part of his analysis, Silverman looks at the rebels’ use of the term ?erut, which originally meant freedom from slavery:
The rebels enlarged the concept of ?erut to mean the collective political independence of the nation. Bronze coins of the First Revolt proclaim “Year 2 of the independence of Zion” while those of the Second Revolt say “Year 2 of the independence of Israel.” These are the most common revolt coins. . . . For the rebels, the concepts of the personal freedom of individual Jews and the political independence of the nation were intertwined, as they would later be in the minds of modern Zionists.


US could mint a Golda Meir coin in honor of Israel's 75th Independence Day
In celebration of seventy-five years of Israel-American relations, a bi-partisan coalition has introduced the Prime Minister Golda Meir Commemorative Coin Act which will have the United States treasury mint a coin bearing the image of Israel’s first and only female prime minister, Golda Meir.

This mammoth task will require a two-thirds majority in both houses. Championed by Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) and Andrew Garbarino (R-NY) in Congress alongside Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) in the Senate. “The initiative will offer all Washington lawmakers, especially the seven new senators and seventy-four new house representatives the opportunity to reaffirm their support for Israel,” Bobby Rechnitz, the initiative chair, as well as Los-Angeles based real-estate developer and philanthropist, told The Jerusalem Post while visiting in Bahrain in order to further promote the Abraham Accords. Rechnitz, a confidant and supporter of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, sees it as an opportunity to position Israel above politics. “Golda Meir was the personification of the Israel-America relationship, raised in Milwaukee she paved her way to the Holy Land and became one of the founding mothers of Israel,” Rechnitz articulated.

Why pick Golda Meir for the article?
Rechnitz, chairman of the Golda Meir Commemorative Coin Committee, continued saying that “Golda smashed every single glass ceiling to become a role model for young women everywhere. She was a trailblazer for Zionism, equality, feminism and Tikkun Olam. At a time when we see so much political polarization in both countries, we should all be able to rally behind the legacy of Golda Meir as a symbol of unity and progress.”

Lawmakers from both houses will converge on Capitol Hill next week to support and celebrate the initiative at a special Yom Ha’atzmaut event in the halls of power.

Rechnitz is the founder of Bomel Companies, which deals with real estate development in America and Israel. He led a coalition of lobbyists that were instrumental in the passage of the US Iron Dome Legislation. He also co-chaired the committee which secured a Congressional Medal of Honor for former Israeli President Shimon Peres.
House Democrats Introduce Bill to Award Congressional Gold Medal to American Holocaust Rescuers
Five House Democrats on Tuesday introduced legislation to posthumously award the Congressional Gold Medal to Americans who aided or rescued Jews during the Holocaust.

Led by Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA), the bill’s honorees would include Eleanor Roosevelt; Henry Morgenthau, Jr., former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury; Harold Ickes, former U.S. Secretary of the Interior; and Congressman Thomas D’Alesandro, Jr., the father of Rep. Nancy Pelosi.

“Amid rising antisemitism, it’s critically important that we never forget the victims of the Holocaust killed by the Nazis, and that we honor the American heroes who put so much at risk to aid and rescue Jews and many other refugees,” said Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), one of the cosponsors of the bill. “These incredible individuals leave behind legacies that continue to teach us of our responsibility to confront bigotry, hatred, and intolerance wherever it rears its ugly head. On Yom HaShoah, I’m proud to help lead legislation to award Congressional Gold Medals to these American heroes who saved thousands of lives during the Holocaust.”

The text of the bill, formally titled the “US Rescue and Aid Individuals of World War II Congressional Gold Medal Act of 2023,” notes that these American rescuers often faced physical danger in Nazi-occupied Europe, and worked in the face of domestic opposition to refugee resettlement, citing the example of the SS St. Louis, 254 of whose passengers were ultimately murdered when they were refused asylum in the United States.

Despite that opposition, organizations like the US War Refugee Board ultimately saved tens of thousands of Jews.
Arab influencers visit Auschwitz to promote tolerance through Holocaust education
Twenty-two Arab participants joined the International March of the Living in Poland Tuesday as part of a first-of-its-kind year-long program that promotes tolerance through Holocaust education.

Organized by Sharaka, a non-governmental initiative that grows the impact of the Abraham Accords by transforming the vision of people-to-people peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors into a reality, the delegation consisted of influencers, journalists, academics, and NGO activists from Morocco, Bahrain, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and Algeria.

Together with Israeli Arabs, they walked the 3-kilometer (mile) march from the Auschwitz concentration camp to the Birkenau extermination camp on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Sharaka's Holocaust education initiative in the Arab world was inspired by the historic delegation that the non-profit brought to March of the Living last year, which marked the first time that a pan-Arab delegation publicly partook in such a solidarity march.

"Sharaka's effort to bring an Arab delegation to March of the Living for the second time, within the context of our yearlong tolerance program, is firmly rooted in our belief that the best way to prevent hatred and atrocities is by learning from the past," Amit Deri, founder of Sharaka, said. "The Holocaust must be viewed as the ultimate warning against where intolerance can lead if left unchecked."
Hannah Szenes a story of integrity and valor
October 1944 was full of hope for the Jewish paratroopers from Palestine, who were imprisoned in Budapest. The Hungarian capital was under bombardment in an unprecedented amount of air strikes, as American B-17s and British Lancastrians dropped tons of bombs on the city, one of the most beautiful in Europe.

Sirens blared and Hungarian anti-aircraft guns fired into the air. The paratroopers saw this as a sign of the coming victory of the Allied forces and the Russian Red Army, who were closing in on the city. On October 15, 1944, their hope turned into reality. A prison guard at the facility where Yoel Palgi and Peretz Goldstein were held exclaimed, "Brothers' Freedom!" and Hungary's leader, Miklos Horthy, had declared a truce.

Rumors spread among the prisoners that day that, except for convicted criminals, prison doors would open wide, and everyone would be released. It's likely that the same news also reached Hannah Szenes' prison as well.

In Yoel's cell, there a festive atmosphere prevailed and plans were being made to spend the evening at a fancy Budapest restaurant. Peretz told Yoel that people in their kibbutz would have a hard time recognizing them and that surely much has changed there. Excitedly, Yoel told his friends that before any celebrations, they must go to Hannah's cell and release her. She must also enjoy the victory over the Nazis, and if possible, they should settle the score with the Hungarian secret police and their commander, Roza, whom they despised.

Hungarian prisoners had already been released, but despite their cries to the guards, their cell doors remained closed. The guards said that the order to release them had not yet been given.

The latest rumor that circulated in the prison that evening was that a well-known fascist prisoner, who was serving a sentence, had been released. This news caused concern over the priority given to him. The next morning, on October 16, 1944, all hopes for their release faded. According to the guards, street battles raged in Budapest overnight between supporters of Miklós Horthy, who sought to end the war and had been declared a traitor by the Nazi regime, and the Austrians, their Nazi allies.

The prisoners were unaware of this, but Horthy was arrested and sent to Berlin. As a means of pressuring him, his son was kidnapped in Budapest by a Nazi commando unit under the command of Otto Skorzeny. Members of the "Arrow Cross Party," an antisemitic fascist movement, seized power and appointed one of their leaders, General Ferenc Szálasi, as the new Hungarian Prime Minister.
Netflix Unveils Teaser for New Limited Series ‘All The Light We Cannot See’ Set in Nazi-Occupied France
Netflix released a trailer for its new four-part limited series titled All the Light We Cannot See, which intertwines the life of a blind French girl living with her uncle during World War II and her secret connection to a German teenager working for the Nazis.

Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, the drama stars newcomers Aria Mia Loberti and Nell Sutton as well as Louis Hofmann, Lars Eidinger, Marion Bailey, Hugh Laurie and Mark Ruffalo. It is directed and executive produced by Shawn Levy.

Loberti and Sutton play older and younger and versions of Marie-Laure, a blind French girl who flees Nazi-occupied Paris with her father Daniel LeBlanc, played by Ruffalo. They take with them a legendary diamond they hope to keep away from the Nazis but the father and daughter are chased by a cruel Gestapo officer, who wants the diamond for his own selfish gain. Marie-Laure and Daniel soon find refuge in the seaside city of St. Malo, where they move in with a reclusive uncle who transmits secret radio broadcasts as part of the Nazi resistance.

Marie-Laure then meets Werner, a brilliant German teenager enlisted by Hitler’s regime to track down illegal broadcasts, who “instead shares a secret connection to Marie-Laure as well as her faith in humanity and the possibility of hope,” Netflix explained in its synopsis of the limited series. “Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner over the course of a decade, All The Light We Cannot See tells a story of the extraordinary power of human connection — a beacon of light that can lead us through even the darkest of times,” Netflix added.

The limited series was filmed in Budapest, Hungary and Saint Malo, France. It will be released on Netflix on Nov. 2.




Herzog marks 80th anniversary of Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in Poland: Watch
There is “nothing postmodern or relativistic about Holocaust remembrance,” Israeli President Isaac Herzog said on Wednesday during a speech at a ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

“Absolute evil existed, in the form of the Nazis and their accomplices. And absolute good existed, in the form of the victims and the rebels, from every nation. And in passing this heritage down to posterity, it must reflect this indisputable axiom,” Herzog affirmed at the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes in the Polish capital.

The president arrived in Poland in the morning for the one-day visit.

During the Holocaust, Jews imprisoned in the ghetto rebelled against their persecutors. A small group of starving men and women, armed with meager weapons, staved off the Germans for almost a month—from April 19 until May 16, 1943.

Herzog held meetings with his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

The Israeli president was then joined at the commemorative ceremony at the POLIN Museum by Duda and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, as well as Holocaust survivors and descendants of the ghetto fighters. Herzog was also scheduled to visit the bunker used by Mordechai Anielewicz and fellow Warsaw Ghetto fighters.

In the evening, Herzog will attend an event at the Nożyk Synagogue alongside the presidents of Poland and Germany, and then hold a meeting with Steinmeier before returning to Israel.


80 Years Since The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising This year marks 80 years since the young Jewish men and women of the Warsaw Ghetto stood up to Nazi SS Officers.



Gal Gadot Hosts Gathering for Yom HaShoah With Youngest Holocaust Survivor Saved by Oskar Schindler
Israeli actress Gal Gadot hosted at her California home a small gathering with a local Holocaust survivor who shared her life story and experiences during World War II with Gadot’s friends and family to coincide with Holocaust Remembrance Day on Tuesday.

“Hearing her testimony about the horrors she and her family went through and seeing the strong inspiring woman she became, left no dry eye in the room,” Gadot wrote in the caption of a photo slide she posted on Instagram from the event featuring Celina Biniaz. “At the end of her testimony Celina looked to me and said – ‘life is just like what you said in your Wonder Woman movie – only love can save the world’ and this moment will stay with me forever,” added the actress, whose grandfather also survived the Holocaust.

Oskar Schindler was a German factory owner whose saved thousands of Jews from being murdered in the Holocaust by employing them at his factories during World War II. Biniaz was the youngest female that Schindler rescued, also known as those on Schindler’s List, according to the USC Shoah Foundation, which has also recorded her life testimony for its visual history archive.

Biniaz was born in Krakow, Poland, on May 28, 1931. She previously said she was 8 years old when the Nazis invaded Poland. Biniaz and her mother were part of the transport of women who were accidentally sent to the Plaszow concentration camp instead of Schindler’s factory. She was also transferred to Auschwitz concentration camp and when Schindler discovered the mistake, he personally made sure the two women went to the factory with him.

Biniaz and her parents survived the Holocaust because of Schindler’s efforts and the family later immigrated to the United States, where Biniaz became a teacher. She did not speak out about the ordeal she faced during the Holocaust for 45 years, opening up only after seeing Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-winning film Schindler’s List, she told the USC Shoah Foundation.

Biniaz’s testimony in front of Gadot’s friends and family was followed by a performance by Israeli musician Tomer Adaddi. The gathering was organized by Zikaron BaSalon, an Israeli organization that works around the world to help facilitate intimate events where Holocaust survivors can share their testimonies with small groups.

“There are fewer and fewer survivors each memorial day and by the year 2035 there will no longer be any survivors left to tell their stories,” Gadot concluded her Instagram post by saying. “It is our responsibility to keep sharing these stories, for ourselves and for the world – to hear, to know, to learn. To never forget.”




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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 19 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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