Tuesday, August 29, 2023

08/29 Links Pt2: Guess Human Rights Watch's new director's first target. Yup Israel; Helen Mirren Explains Why She Ignores BDS Pressure, Praises Israel

From Ian:

American Academics Take a Page Out of the Soviet Anti-Zionist Playbook
It seems like each day brings a new wrinkle in the oldest hatred. The antisemites are innovating, finding novel ways to fuel enmity against Israel and the Jewish people. The latest is a rehabilitation of the Soviet anti-Zionist playbook in the form of “Critical Zionist Studies.”

The newly created Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism “aims to support the delinking of the study of Zionism from Jewish Studies, and to reclaim academia and public discourse for the study of Zionism as a political, ideological, and racial and gendered knowledge project, intersecting with Palestine and decolonial studies, critical terrorism studies, settler colonial studies, and related scholarship and activism.”

The Institute is holding two events this coming October, one at the Resource Center for Nonviolence/UC Santa Cruz Center for Racial Justice and the other at New York University Law School. These events are a brazen effort to create and legitimize a new field called “Critical Zionist Studies” in universities across the country. Left unchecked, Critical Zionist Studies could be coming to a campus near you.

It would be difficult to imagine another area of study dedicated specifically to deconstructing a national liberation movement. Critical Kurdish Nationalism Studies? Critical Palestinian Nationalism Study? You get the point. Only Zionism is on the scholarly chopping block.

At root is an American academy in the throes of an illiberal ideology, with the backing of Middle Eastern money, that treats America, Israel and the West as colonialists and oppressors. And if we can’t stop the problem at its root we can expect more and more of these assaults on the Jewish people in the years ahead.

This is not the first time that Critical Zionist Studies has reared its ugly head. Wilson Center scholar and emigre from the FSU, Izabella Tabarovsky, describes the emergence of a field called “Zionology” in the late 1960s in the USSR. In the wake of the 1967 Six Day war, the Soviets were distressed that Israel handily defeated their Arab allies, and that Soviet Jews, inspired by Israel’s victory, were increasingly identifying with the Jewish state.
Guess Human Rights Watch's new director's first target. Yup_ Israel
One area where Human Rights Watch has been active regarding Israel is its campaign to protect critics of the Jewish state from accusations of anti-Semitism.

Last week, HRW co-signed an open letter to the Secretary General of the United Nations, calling on him to reject the working definition of anti-Semitism by the International Holocaust Remembrance Association (IHRA), which has won the support of 39 countries including the United States and most of Europe.

In particular, the open letter objected to the IHRA contention that one form of anti-Semitism is “applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.”

One can see why Human Rights Watch perceived this benchmark as one that may put it on the wrong side of the anti-Semitism debate.

The letter suggested to the secretary general that he consider an alternate definition, according to which “paying disproportionate attention to Israel and treating Israel differently than other countries is not prima facie proof of anti-Semitism.”

(Try substituting “Jews” for “Israel” and “people” for “countries” and see how that sounds.)

The tragedy of Human Rights Watch is that there is a desperate need for objective reporting on human rights across the globe. What do you think? Post a comment.

In many of the 90 countries where it operates, the organization lives up to that standard.

Still in her first month on the job, Hassan could steer the organization in a better direction if she is willing to take justified criticism to heart — not that it seems likely. (h/t Max Mendelbaum)


Countries backing IHRA antisemitism definition also fund its opponents, study finds
In the face of rising global antisemitism, many nations have endorsed the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. Yet, paradoxically, several of these very countries are also financially supporting NGOs that contest this definition.

NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem-based think tank, conducted a recent study that casts a spotlight on this contradiction.

Since its introduction in May 2016, the IHRA’s definition has gained broad acceptance. By July 2023, it was adopted by 40 governments and numerous intergovernmental organizations, marking it as a foundational policy in the fight against antisemitism. However, these endorsements come with a twist. NGO Monitor’s data reveals that a significant number of these countries are also funding NGOs that resist the IHRA framework.

Countries including Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and even the European Union – all known champions of human rights – seem to be playing both sides according to the study’s findings.

These countries have paradoxically been backing organizations that are said to “engage in and promote blatant antisemitism as per the IHRA’s definition,” it reads.

Beyond financial support, these NGOs have been found to propagate antisemitic narratives and often dismiss antisemitism as a non-issue of human rights.

The study emphasizes, for instance, how some of these NGOs endorse views contrary to the IHRA, such as denying “the Jewish people their right to self-determination, suggesting the very existence of the State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”

For some, self-preservation comes first
Delving into the reasons for such opposition, the study suggests that these NGOs are not merely driven by ideological differences, but have self-preservation in mind. With the IHRA’s definition gaining traction, many of their activities, especially those against Israel, risk being tagged as antisemitic.


Lyn Julius: Muslim antisemitism and the real apartheid
The mass exodus of MENA Jews was equal to or greater than the flight of Arab refugees from then-Palestine. These Jews and their descendants now comprise over half of Israel’s Jewish population. Yet Israel is held solely responsible for the Palestinian “nakba,” even though the Palestinian flight was a consequence of the Arab rejection of the Partition Plan of 1947 and a wholly avoidable invasion of Israel by multiple Arab armies.

Trigano noted, “The Nakba (the dispersal of Palestinian Arab families), an absolute source of the delegitimization of Israel in today’s anti-Zionism (‘original sin’ in the words of the post-Zionists), collapses before this comparison. … Moralistic and scholarly discourses are useless in what is a real confrontation, with every ideological attack announcing a future, violent one.”

Invoking the ethnic cleansing of MENA Jews is not just an effective talking point. It also proves that the essence of the Arab conflict with Israel has been the campaign to wipe out Jews wherever they might be in the Middle East.

Moreover, to treat Arab and Muslim antisemitism as a separate issue ignores the influence of Arab and Palestinian academics who are spearheading the current campaign of delegitimization of Israel in the West.

The Soviet Union was the architect of the campaign to delegitimize Zionism in the 1950s, but it exercised a significant influence over Arab leftist intellectuals. It was Palestinian scholar Fayez Sayegh who first extended the concept of “settler-colonialism” to Zionism in 1965. Ten years later, Sayegh would lead the U.N. effort to insert the word “Zionism” wherever apartheid, colonialism and racial discrimination appeared in U.N. reports. His efforts culminated in the 1975 passage of General Assembly Resolution 3379 condemning Zionism as a form of racism and racial discrimination.

Although the resolution was rescinded in 1991, the die was cast. From then on, comparisons between Israel and apartheid South Africa would become more and more frequent, so that today it is commonplace in the human rights industry.

Too many people hesitate to call out Arab and Muslim antisemitism for fear of being branded Islamophobes. Or they view it as a consequence of or an understandable backlash to the establishment of Israel, as if antisemitism in the Muslim world did not exist before 1948.

Supporters of Israel need to change the debate by going on the offensive. As Shmuel Trigano wrote, “If your opponent calls you a ‘fascist,’ he will not repeat it again if you call him a Stalinist.”
America Needs a New Strategy Against Antisemitism
Traditional means of fighting back have failed to stop the rising tide.

Conventional approaches assume that hatred of Jews is a function of ignorance. They assume that antisemites simply don’t understand that the scurrilous charges against Jews are false. In this view, antisemites are accidental bigots.

The solution to this perceived ignorance has been education: making people more familiar with Jews, promoting Holocaust education, and teaching that hating Jews (or other groups) is morally wrong.

These efforts are failing because the truth is that the people who hate Jews are not uneducated so much as they are evil. We shouldn’t forget that Nazi Germany enjoyed a sophisticated, highly educated culture, and that this did not hinder the Holocaust.

Fast-forward to today, recent research documents that people with higher levels of educational attainment tend to be more antisemitic, not less.

A more effective strategy for combating antisemitism will feature two main efforts: The first is winning the American culture war, and the second is reestablishing strong Middle East policies.

The United States has long been a remarkably hospitable place for Jews because a fundamental principle of the American republic, even if imperfectly practiced, is that all groups deserve equal treatment under the law. The recent rise in antisemitism in the U.S. is a direct byproduct of the degradation of America’s commitment to equal treatment.

Critical race theory is the most potent current manifestation of the challenge to equal treatment. Its proponents believe that groups of people can be divided into two main categories: oppressors and the oppressed.

The oppressed deserve reparations for the injustices they and their ancestors have collectively experienced. The oppressors, in turn, deserve harsh treatment.

This Marxist belief in collective reward and punishment for historic acts is completely at odds with long-standing American political thought.
Irwin Cotler: Canada must continue to defend Israel against baseless United Nations attack
The current UNGA request to the ICJ is manifestly designed to replace that “land for peace” framework with an ICJ opinion that international law requires Israel to withdraw from the disputed territories without any Palestinian concessions on any of the permanent status issues. Such an opinion would make it far more difficult or even impossible for Palestinian leaders to compromise with Israel on such issues.

If the ICJ were to treat Israel as if it has annexed the disputed territories, when it has not done so, it would likely encourage Israeli extremists to urge the government to proceed with annexation. No Israeli government will agree to unilaterally withdraw from the West Bank. Israel’s presence in the West Bank has enabled it to keep the number of rockets fired into Israel from there to around five since 2005. In contrast, over 20,000 rockets have been launched at Israel from the Gaza Strip since Israel’s withdrawal in 2005.

The West Bank, unlike the Gaza Strip, is located very close to Israel’s largest population centres. A Gaza-like rocket threat from the West Bank in the wake of an Israeli withdrawal would put most Israelis in grave danger.

Since Israel will inevitably decline to unilaterally withdraw, the advisory opinion will, in addition to undercutting compromise-minded Palestinians, create yet another Israeli “violation” with which activists can demand anti-Israel boycotts, divestment and sanctions. Given the practical realities, that is presumably the real objective of the architects of the request.

That may be par for the course for the biased UNGA, which again in 2022 passed more resolutions condemning Israel (15) than every other country in the world put together (a total of 12). But Canada should help ensure that the UNGA does not succeed in imposing this one-sided and unproductive approach on the ICJ.

A second and final round of written submissions is due in the case by Oct. 25. Those states, including Canada, which submitted in the first round have until then to submit written comments on the written statements made by others in the first round.

Canada’s second round submission should, in close co-ordination with key allies, robustly defend the “land for peace” legal framework and explain why proposals to eviscerate it are both dangerous and legally wrong. In doing so, Canada will not be defending the current Israeli government, whose policies are controversial. It will be defending, against extremists on both sides, the sole viable path towards a better future for both Israelis and Palestinians.
Israel is being harmed by Zionism's oldest Jewish opponents
The Jews who opposed Zionism
Yet, from the start, Zionism faced several elements of opposition.

The first was from the more conservative sectors of Orthodox Jewry that viewed Zionism as a multiple danger.

It was seen as part of the development of modernization that advocators of the Enlightenment had begun a century earlier, replacing Judaism with a Jewish kultura (culture). It was also a revolt against the traditional Diaspora attitude of awaiting messianic redemption stoically that was, at that time, first promoted by the fifth Chabad Rebbe, the Rashab, and then by the separatist Sighet Hassidic dynasty that became Satmar.

The second group represented the assimilationists – who rejected any national identity. A Jew, while (if at all) embracing forms of religious worship and practice, was first a German, Austrian, Frenchman, Russian, or an Englishman. The insistence of Zionists that Jews constituted a people and possessed a historic homeland was threatening to them.

So much did such people distance themselves and oppose Zionism, that the Balfour Declaration was almost sabotaged by leading British Jewish communal heads Lucien Wolf, Claude Montefiore, and David Alexander, as well as by the Jewish secretary of state for India, Edwin Montagu.

In the United States, as Robert Wistrich noted in his study, Zionism was a tangible threat to the security of Reform Judaism, the stream of the dominant German-Jewish establishment in the United States. They believed in the Diaspora as opposed to Palestine, in religion and not nationalism.

At the 1917 Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), Zionism was fiercely attacked as a secular, political movement, and a resolution rejected “every non-religious or anti-religious interpretation of Judaism and of Israel’s mission in the world.”

The anti-Zionist resolution of the 1918 CCAR convention, read: “The ideal of the Jew is not the establishment of a Jewish state – not the reassertion of Jewish nationality which has long been outgrown… our survival as a people is [not] dependent upon the acceptance of Palestine as a homeland of the Jewish people.” In the autumn of 1918, Reform Rabbi Ephraim Frisch sent a telegram to US president Woodrow Wilson opposing a Jewish homeland. He founded “The National Committee of Rabbis Opposed to Zionism” with rabbis Schulman, Philipson, and Berkowitz to block US approval of the Balfour Declaration.

On March 9, 1919, 299 Reform rabbis intervened to attempt to halt president Woodrow Wilson from proclaiming agreement with the Balfour Declaration as adopted at the Versailles Peace Conference. Their letter was published in The New York Times.

The third group were those who, while also rejecting Judaism’s national characteristics, borrowed its messianic zeal, but transferred it to economic and social progress through the revolutionary Marxism.
How a Bizarre Work of Apocalyptic Fiction Simultaneously Typifies British Anti-Semitism and Philo-Semitism
The West Indies-born English author M. P. Shiel’s work earned the admiration of his fellow writer of horror and fantasy H.P. Lovecraft, as well as of such mainstream writers as Eudora Welty. His 1901 novel The Lord of the Sea—which displays the “extreme style and apocalyptic themes” that, in Michael Weingrad’s words, characterizes much of his work—imagines a Jewish takeover of Britain based on the most absurd anti-Semitic assumptions about Jewish power and villainy. At the same time, Shiel describes this terrifying invasion as the result of an eruption of European anti-Semitism that, from a 21st-century perspective, seems almost prophetic. Shiel then introduces a plot twist that turns his hero into a perverse counterpart of the title character of George Eliot’s Zionist novel Daniel Deronda. Weingrad tries to make sense of this bizarre blend of anti-Semitism and philo-Semitism:

The Lord of the Sea is very much a novel of its time. Jews were on the mind of the British empire: as immigrants swelling the poor population of London’s East End, in the persons of wealthy financiers in Europe and some of the rand lords of South Africa, as victims of shocking mass violence in tsarist Russia, as reminders to Christians of millenarian hopes, and as one of the world’s national minorities seeking independence and sovereignty through the recently launched Zionist movement. Shiel’s novel was contemporary with anti-Jewish polemics such as Joseph Banister’s England under the Jews (1901), and the claims by the economist J. A. Hobson in War in South Africa (1900) that Jews were behind England’s involvement in the Boer War that had broken out in 1899.

It was also contemporary with evangelical Christian hopes for Jewish conversion, growing British sympathy for the Zionist movement, and the 1903 proposal to create a Jewish homeland in British Africa. What is most notable about Shiel’s novel is its packing in such extremes of Jewish representation, from the bestial to the messianic, in one place.

English attitudes and standards of accepted behavior towards Jews involve a mix of often contrary tendencies. The long span of English literature has of course produced memorably monstrous representations of Jews in the works of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickens, and others, exercising an outsized influence on the demonization of Jews in literary culture and beyond. In general, however, modern English literary culture featured a range of anti-Jewish prejudices and malicious expressions, sometimes taking extreme verbal or written form, but usually leavened by an English sense of decorum or notion of “fair play,” and in some cases counterbalanced by pronounced philo-Semitism or at least social sanctions against stark expressions of anti-Jewish hostility.

Shiel’s novel reflects the extreme ends, pro- and anti-Jewish, of British attitudes in its messianic, conspiratorial fantasy, to a great extent reflecting the particular sociopolitical moment in which it was written, when anti-Jewish expressions were at a pitch.
Leading comedy agent told comedian that Jews 'exaggerate' antisemitism
A leading comedy agent “screamed” at a Jewish Edinburgh Fringe performer that Jews smeared Jeremy Corbyn and exaggerate antisemitism.

Bennett Arron, who has been hailed as the “Welsh Seinfeld”, said what had been a “wonderful” experience at the world's biggest arts festival was spoiled when he was subjected to a hateful rant on Sunday night.

After a highly successful run that saw him perform to sell-out crowds, the stand-up went to a bar with his family to celebrate.

When a comedian friend asked if his agent - who allegedly represents multiple well-known comedians - could join, Arron said he could.

“Within a phenomenally short space of time [the agent] started talking about Jews,” he told the JC.

“My friend - who’s a client - mentioned Jeremy Corbyn, obviously they'd spoken about him in the past.

“That seemed to be the catalyst for him to say, ‘why did Jews exaggerate antisemitism?’ out of nowhere.

“[The agent] said there was no proof [of Corbyn’s alleged antisemitism]. I said this isn’t the right time to talk about this - my friend was trying to calm him down.”

Despite this, Arron said, the agent would not stop shouting that Jews “should never have been given Israel”.

He said: “It was sort of coming from nowhere - it was so loud, so angry.
‘Shaken’: City University of New York Faculty Condemn Hiring of Anti-Israel Professor Marc Lamont Hill
The City University of New York’s (CUNY) hiring of prominent academic and anti-Israel commentator Marc Lamont Hill as “presidential professor” of urban education in the school’s Graduate Center has “shaken” the academic community there, according to a letter obtained by The Algemeiner on Monday.

Hill’s appointment has stirred controversy because of both his past comments concerning Israel and Zionism and numerous civil rights complaints alleging that CUNY itself fosters a hostile, antisemitic environment in which members of the Jewish community are threatened and harassed.

“If CUNY is not to go down the rabbit hole of selective racism and instead continue its historic tradition of academic integrity and moral clarity, it must reverse course,” the CUNY Alliance for Inclusion (CAFI), a faculty group that seeks to combat antisemitism, wrote to the university’s leadership. “We understand that Professor Hill is a recognized and acclaimed expert on race and educational policy, but this doesn’t excuse his many past offensive remarks and virulent anti-Israel activism, which have landed as deeply offensive on the campus Jewish community at Temple and elsewhere where he has been a guest speaker.”

CAFI went on to argue that Hill appears to be obsessed with maligning Israel and that his views have led him to make offensive comments and questionable political alliances — such as his friendship with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who has called Judaism a “gutter religion” and said the Star of David is satanic.

“This indicates a lack of seriousness in his broad approach to scholarship,” the group continued. “These flaws cannot be overlooked in a person hired in the rank of Presidential Professor. While we find his biased views on the Jewish state abhorrent and antisemitic, we acknowledge his right to have and express these views. The question we ask is if these views are consistent with the high standard of scholarship, which we and the public except from academics who occupy the highest academic ranks at CUNY.”

The group concluded by inviting Hill to attend an event — titled “Advocating Empathy and Reconciliation in the Midst of Conflict — that will be led by Palestinian peace activist Mohammed Dajani Daoudi at the CUNY Graduate Center on Sept. 21.

In 2018, Hill was rebuked by Temple University, his former employer, and fired by CNN after calling for a “free Palestine from the river to the sea,” a slogan widely interpreted as a call for the destruction of Israel.


PodCast: PROFESSOR JEFF LAX: CUNY’s systemic anti-Jewish agenda is ‘surreal’
Jeff Lax, an accomplished law professor and the founder of SAFE CUNY, appeared on the VIN Podcast in an exclusive interview.

Mr. Lax was passionate, informative, and did not ‘pull punches’ as he described the systemic antisemitism which has become rampant at CUNY, as well as the way he and other Jewish professors are being targeted, for the “crime” of trying to expose the university’s bias and hate.

In this powerful episode, Jeff discusses:
The hiring of antisemite Marc Lamont Hill – who is so anti-Israel, he was fired by CNN! Hill has demanded a free Palestine “from the river to the sea”, which is a direct quote from the terrorist Hamas charter.
How four Zionist professors are being investigated for the sole reason, that they filed antisemitism complains with the schools
The expungement of Jewish senior administrators throughout the entire CUNY, despite a large number of Jewish students and faculty.
The work of his own amazing organization, SAFE CUNY, without which there would perhaps not be any other group exposing the endless hate and antisemitism that occurs on a daily basis at CUNY.
The senior administration’s culpability and antisemitic agenda.
The head of the “discrimination department” at the university, who is supposed to weed out antisemitism, being the former CAIR Director in Minnesota, who led the BDS movement there.
His own concerns about losing his position at CUNY, because he has filed complaints and refuses to ignore the behavior he witnesses


Artificial Intelligence & Robot Guns: The Media’s Skewed Coverage of Israel’s Defensive Technology
What the Media’s Missing on Facial Recognition Technology

Mainstream media outlets portrayed Israel’s actions as focused solely on monitoring the Palestinians and as existing outside the realm of acceptable behavior for democratic countries.

However, as noted by NGO Monitor, both of these impressions are false.

There are surveillance cameras that employ facial recognition technology in the Ashdod port as well as Jewish areas of Jerusalem and there is an initiative underway for this technology to be expanded across the country.

This technology is also used by both Israelis and foreigners entering and exiting Israel through the airport.

Further, the use of this technology is not unique to Israel.

A recent study on the use of facial recognition technology around the world found that Israel used this system less than Australia, the United States, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Japan, Sweden, Canada and other democratic countries.

A debate over the usage of such technology in democracies is a valid one. But only Israel, it seems, is subject to the intense scrutiny and skewed focus that has characterized the mainstream media’s coverage in recent years.
The Nazi Officer Who Saved 100 Jewish Families
Dr. Albert Battel was a German loyalist. Born in the Province of Silesia in 1891, a part of the German empire, Battel served in the German Army during World War I. The war was devastating for Germany; the country lost 12% of its population and 13% of its land to the Allied forces.

In the aftermath of WWI, Battel attended the University of Berlin and the University of Breslau, became an attorney, and practiced in Breslau, Poland (now renamed Wroclaw). As Hitler began his ascent to power, Battel heard him speak and was inspired to join the Nazi Party in the early 1930s, serving as a lieutenant in the Wehrmacht army reserves.

When Battel was 51, he was stationed in the town of Przemysl in Poland, working as the adjutant to Major Max Liedtke, the local military commander. On July 26, 1942, the Nazis were planning to “resettle” the Jewish ghetto there, which was a code word for “liquidate.”

Battel couldn’t believe his eyes: Jewish children and adults were beaten. Families were separated from each other and sent to their death in the concentration camps. Others were killed on the spot.

This was a moment of truth for Battel. He so deeply loved his country, but at the same time, liquidation was not an act of patriotism. It was murder.

Could he go through with it?
Germany reveals plans for national memorial to remember Polish Jews who died in Holocaust
Germany will construct a "German-Polish House" in Berlin to serve as a national memorial to commemorate three million Polish Jews who died in the Holocaust.

The planned memorial and museum will also commemorate two million other Polish citizens who died during World War II and detail Nazi Germany's brutal occupation of its neighbour between 1939 and 1945.

It is also intended to inform visitors about the past and be a space for encounters between Germans, Poles and others.

The planned attraction will show everyday life under Germany's "six years of occupation terror" and the Polish citizens' armed resistance, including the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising by Jews in 1943 and the Warsaw Uprising in 1944.

The new development was announced by German Culture Minister Claudia Roth on Monday. The Culture Ministry said it would become a memorial with a "striking artistic element."

She said: “The planned German-Polish House will commemorate Poland's suffering between 1939 and 1945, and the violent deaths of more than 5 million Polish citizens, including some 3 million Jewish children, women and men.”

Roth said the planned memorial is expected to be located at the former Kroll Opera, near the German Reichstag parliament building.

The Kroll Opera was used as a temporary seat for the Nazi parliament after the Reichstag burned down a month after Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933. It was there that Hitler gave his speech announcing Germany's attack on Poland on September 1, 1939.
Israel's Yad Vashem seeks Romanian accountability for Holocaust - exclusive
Israel’s official Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem, issued on Tuesday an internal document outlining four essential principles for a leader of a far-right Romanian party, urging an acknowledgment of Romania’s role in the Holocaust, ahead of Monday’s meeting between MP George Simion, the head of the Romanian AUR Party (The National Liberal Party), and Israeli Ambassador Reuven Azar.

This comes amid increasing concerns over the behavior of some AUR Party members and has ignited discussions on the recognition and treatment of Holocaust narratives in current European politics.

While Yad Vashem has not publicly commented on the meeting, it conveyed its disapproval to both the Foreign Ministry and the Israeli ambassador to Romania, due to concerns over the behavior of certain AUR Party members. The Jerusalem Post has learned that Yad Vashem previously participated in discussions about a potential visit by Simion, and had outlined four crucial expectations for any engagement with the Romanian leader.

A document shared with the Post reads, “Our embassy in Bucharest sought our perspective on the anticipated remarks of a Romanian political leader concerning the Holocaust and antisemitism.” This document delineated four essential principles for any future statement.

First, there should be an acknowledgment and acceptance of responsibility for the Holocaust of Romanian Jews.

Second, the Romanian-initiated and executed genocide during which hundreds of thousands of Jews perished must be addressed. This includes specific mentions of massacres led by Romanians.

Third, a condemnation of antisemitism, acknowledgment of its existence in Romania, and the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. This includes a clear denunciation of war criminals such as Ion Antonescu, who played a significant role in the Holocaust in Romania.

Fourthly, the leader must explicitly support the Romanian government’s educational stance on the Holocaust and counter any recent dismissive remarks by party members, such as those downplaying the Holocaust as a “small matter.”
Ukraine-Russia War has been a disaster for Holocaust research
A determined yearlong effort to establish permanent memorials at mass graves in Ukraine filled with Jews murdered during the Holocaust has encountered new hurdles since Russia’s invasion of the country 18 months ago.

“It is a challenge now to teach about World War II and crimes against humanity then, while experiencing crimes against humanity in the current war,” says Vitalii Bobrov, education director for the Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies in Kyiv.

For Aleksandra Wroblewska, research associate at the Connecting Memory project in Berlin, “the Russian war in Ukraine has been a disaster for Holocaust research.” She has worked for more than a decade with Bobrov and other partner organizations in Ukraine to locate and protect mass graves of Jews murdered by the Germans and local collaborators. More than 1.5 million Ukrainian Jews perished in the war.

Collecting information from the Second World War period, even before the current conflict with Russia, was a painstaking effort that took patience, perseverance, and investigative ingenuity. The initial task, Wroblewska explains, is to secure information from archival sources, analyze them, and create a historical narrative.

To date, 21 mass grave sites have been dedicated in central and eastern Ukraine, and another four are slated to be completed in the fall.

The effort began in 2010, when the American Jewish Committee’s Berlin office, where Wroblewska was working, launched its Protecting Memory Project in collaboration with Father Desbois, a French Catholic priest, whose organization, Yahud-in Unum, documented hundreds of Holocaust-era mass graves sites in Ukraine and other eastern European countries. AJC Berlin secured a German government commitment to fund the initiative.

The first five sites, hidden for more than seven decades, were dedicated at Rava Ruska, Kysylyn, Ostrozehts, Bakhiv, and Prokhid in 2015. Each has clearly delineated borders, signs commemorating the Jewish men, women, and children murdered there, and information boards relating the history of the once-vibrant local Jewish communities.
German state premier demands answers on antisemitic flyer allegedly made by deputy
A powerful German state leader ordered a probe Tuesday into an antisemitism scandal within his ruling coalition just weeks ahead of a key regional election.

Bavarian premier Markus Soeder, who has ambitions to also lead Germany, had earlier called crisis talks between his conservative Christian Social Union (CSU) and his junior partners, the populist Free Voters, over an affair that emerged at the weekend.

Free Voters leader Hubert Aiwanger, who is also Soeder’s deputy in the state government, allegedly produced a flyer as a teenager mocking Holocaust victims.

Witnesses told the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung that Aiwanger had been disciplined by his school three decades ago for the leaflet, which proposed a satirical quiz on “the biggest fatherland traitor” and offered as a prize “a free trip through the chimney in Auschwitz.”

Aiwanger has denied being behind the leaflet and over the weekend his brother assumed responsibility for the text, which Soeder on Tuesday described as “disgusting, revolting and the most ghastly Nazi jargon.”

He told reporters after the emergency coalition talks that he was not satisfied with Aiwanger’s explanation and demanded he reply in writing to 25 questions about the affair.

“This isn’t just a foolish youth prank,” he said, adding that “even the suspicion” that Aiwanger was behind the flyer “damages the image of Bavaria.”

“There is no place for antisemitism in the Bavarian state government,” he added.
Neo-Nazi propaganda emerges again in Georgia (USA)
Residents in Macon's Beall's Hill neighborhood encountered flyers bearing hate-filled messages from the neo-Nazi Goyim Defense League (GDL) on Sunday afternoon. Regrettably, this isn't Central Georgia's first encounter with such propaganda.

Earlier in June, tumultuous events unfolded outside Temple Beth Israel in downtown Macon when GDL members initiated an aggressive demonstration. Onlookers recounted disturbing scenes where protestors, armed with bullhorns, blared obscenities and disseminated prejudiced messages.

The local police promptly intervened, arresting one protestor on charges of disorderly conduct and public disturbance. However, just a day later, another unsettling incident occurred: neo-Nazis, brandishing swastika flags, held a demonstration outside a Chabad synagogue in Cobb County, Georgia.

In response, a unity service was held a week later, attended by Senator Jon Ossoff, Rabbi Elizabeth Bahar of Temple Beth Israel, Rabbi Emeritus Larry Schlesinger, and key figures from the Macon-Bibb County community.

During the service, Senator Ossoff highlighted the harrowing legacy of the swastika, emphasizing, "It's more than a symbol of hate; it represents massacre, slavery, medical experimentation, extermination, and genocide."

Neo-Nazi resurgence
Following the most recent incident, 13WMAZ approached the Bibb County Sheriff's Office for comments. Officials indicated their awareness of the situation and confirmed that investigations were underway. Fortunately, no disturbances were reported in connection with the event.

In a conversation with 13WMAZ, Rabbi Bahar lamented the ongoing attacks, stating, "It's disheartening to witness these incidents persistently. Given the reactions they evoke, it seems likely that they will continue."

The GDL, identified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, specializes in disseminating antisemitic beliefs and endorsing conspiracy theories. Predominantly active on social media, the GDL also operates GoyimTV, an online platform for their content. Their activities range from distributing inflammatory flyers to organizing public demonstrations.
Legislation to ban Nazi salute and symbols to be introduced in Victoria (Australia)
Victorians who intentionally perform a Nazi salute will face harsh penalties under new legislation introduced to parliament.

The state government said the new reforms would prevent hateful conduct and address the harm it causes the community.

If the bill is passed, police will also have the power to direct a person to remove the Nazi symbol from the public, including if displayed at a march or protest.

Anyone caught breaking the rules will face penalties of more than $23,000, 12 months' imprisonment or both.

Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes said the state had "zero tolerance for the glorification of hateful ideology".

"We're making sure people who use these symbols and gestures to harass, intimidate and incite hate are held accountable for their cowardly behaviour," she said.

"While we wish making these laws wasn't necessary, we will always tackle antisemitism, hatred and racism head-on – because all Victorians deserve to feel accepted, safe and included."

The ban will include a broad range of symbols and gestures used by the historic Nazi Party and its paramilitary organisations, including anything which closely resembles a Nazi symbol or gesture.

Exceptions will apply if the performance or display of a Nazi symbol or gesture is done in good faith for a genuine academic, artistic, educational or scientific purpose.

The state government made moves to ban the public display of Nazi symbols last year.

In June, the federal government announced it would ban the public display of Nazi symbols.

Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dvir Abramovich said the move has been much-needed in Victoria.
NJ AG Fines Jackson Township $575K, Compels It to Accommodate Orthodox Jews’ Religious Freedoms
New Jersey’s Attorney General Matthew Platkin and the Division on Civil Rights on Monday announced they reached a settlement resolving a lawsuit the DCR filed alleging that Jackson Township violated the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination by discriminating against Orthodox Jewish residents through––among other things––the use of zoning and land use powers that made it harder for Orthodox Jews to practice their religion.

The settlement, which is memorialized in a consent order and approved by the Superior Court, provides broad equitable relief prohibiting the Township from discriminating against Orthodox Jews. The consent order requires the Township to adopt new policies and procedures that protect religious freedom and repeal prior ordinances that discriminated against Orthodox Jewish residents. It also requires ongoing monitoring of the Township’s compliance with the LAD.

The $575,000 settlement includes $275,000 in penalties, a $150,000 restitution fund for individuals harmed by the Township’s actions, and an additional $150,000 in suspended penalties that will be assessed if the Township violates the consent order.

Under the consent order, Jackson Township is also required to notify DCR of any decision, policy, practice, rulemaking, or vote that may affect religious land use within the Township or the free exercise of religion within the Township, including, but not limited to, sukkahs, schools, dormitories, eruvim, or the ability of Orthodox Jewish people to freely exercise their religious beliefs and practices. DCR will have the opportunity to object to any such decision, policy, practice, rulemaking, or vote.

Jackson Township also agreed to repeal zoning ordinances that were allegedly enacted to prevent Orthodox Jews from establishing religious schools and eruvim in the Township, as well as to publish a written description of the Township’s permitting requirements and procedures for sukkahs.

DCR’s 2021 complaint against Jackson Township alleged that the Township adopted discriminatory zoning and land use ordinances and enforcement practices that targeted the Township’s growing Orthodox Jewish population.
Tennessee court rules couple has the right to sue state after foster care agency denied them services because they are Jewish
A Jewish couple has grounds to sue the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services after a state-funded adoption and foster care agency denied them services because they are Jewish, a Tennessee appeals court ruled Thursday.

The decision is the latest development in a long-running battle that began in 2021, when Elizabeth and Gabriel Rutan-Ram turned to the Holston United Methodist Home for Children in Greenville, Tennessee for foster parent training. The couple hoped to foster, and later adopt, a child.

According to a lawsuit the couple filed last year, the agency declined to work with them because they were Jewish. A Tennessee state law passed in 2020 allows adoption agencies not to place children in homes that violate the agencies’ “religious or moral convictions or policies.”

The couple was open about being Jewish, with Gabriel Rutan-Ram telling the Jewish Telegraphic Agency last year that “They would have seen the mezuzah on the door” as well as a painting of the Western Wall in the house.

The lawsuit, which the Rutan-Rams filed with the support of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, takes aim at the law, which was principally intended to exempt agencies from working with same-sex couples. But later last year, a three-judge panel dismissed their claims on technical grounds, as the Rutan-Rams have received state support in fostering a teenage girl, whom they are introducing to Jewish life.

Thursday’s ruling reverses that decision, with another three-judge panel ruling that the couple has the right to sue as prospective foster parents and as taxpayers, lacking access to the same services available to Christians. Joining the Rutan-Rams in their lawsuit were six other Tennessee taxpayers, four of them faith leaders, who objected to their tax dollars being used to fund religious discrimination in foster care.
Veteran catcher Ryan Lavarnway pens children’s book about how playing for Israel brought him closer to Judaism
When Ryan Lavarnway joined Team Israel for the World Baseball Classic in 2017, the journeyman catcher chose jersey no. 36 not because of the number stitched onto the back, but because the shirt fit him best.

But in the years since that tournament, any time Lavarnway has represented Israel, he’s stuck with 36, which holds meaning as a multiple of 18, a number that signifies life in Jewish tradition.

That choice is emblematic of Lavarnway’s experience with Team Israel, one that he says has changed his life. It’s also the inspiration for a new children’s book, which hits shelves today, written by the recently retired member of the 2013 World Series champion Boston Red Sox.

In “Baseball and Belonging,” illustrated by Chris Brown, Lavarnway chronicles his life, athletic career and how a call from Israel’s burgeoning baseball program helped him find his Judaism.

“When I played for the WBC team in 2017, that was a really life changing experience for me,” Lavarnway, 36, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “I didn’t feel a huge connection to my Judaism, to any religion, to the community at all. Through playing for Team Israel, I felt that for the first time.”

In the book, Lavarnway wrote that growing up in an interfaith family — his mother is Jewish and his father is Catholic — left him feeling lost.

“His parents let him choose his path,” Lavarnway writes early in the book, which is narrated in rhyme in the third person. “They said, ‘You can be either.’ But thinking he was half and half made him feel like he was neither.”

When Israel recruited him to join the 2017 team — the WBC allows players to represent countries where they are eligible for citizenship — Lavarnway writes that it was “the answer to his dreams.”
Helen Mirren Explains Why She Ignores BDS Pressure, Praises Israel
British actress Dame Helen Mirren has faced pressure from the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel throughout her career but prefers instead to support Israeli artists and the Jewish state as a whole, the famed Academy Award winner explained in a new interview.

“I’ve met great artists in Israel. To abandon those artists didn’t seem the right thing to me,” Mirren, 78, told the Israeli media outlet N12. “On the contrary, work with the artists of Israel. It’s the artistic community that I believe will carry Israel forward.”

The actress added that she’s been told in the past not to go to Israel or participate in Israeli projects but chooses to ignore those requests because she’s “met such extraordinary people” in the country.

“I know that there is a foundation of deep intelligence, thoughtfulness, commitment [and] poetry even in Israel that is very, very special,” she explained.

The BDS movement, which seeks to isolate the Jewish state from the international community as a step toward its eventual elimination, tries to pressure individuals, companies, and other entities not to travel to or associate with Israel.

Mirren plays former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in the recently released film Golda from Israeli director Guy Nattiv. The movie tells the true story of Meir’s leadership during the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

Mirren came to Israel for the first time after the war and worked as a volunteer at Kibbutz Ha’on by the Sea of Galilee. She told N12 about being in Israel during that time: “The extraordinary magical energy of a country just beginning to put its roots in the ground — it was an amazing time to be here.”
'Borat' fights online hate speech on 60th anniversary of March to Washington
Truth and lies: Spreading hate on social media
Cohen pointed out that people have a choice in their understanding of the truth. For example: As Borat, Cohen convinced an entire bar in Arizona to sing "Throw the Jew Down the Well." But in Nashville, people started to boo and chased him out of the bar when he tried the same trick.

"The idea that people of color are inferior is a lie," Cohen stated. "The idea that Jews are dangerous and all-powerful is a lie. The idea that women are not equal to men is a lie. The idea that queer people are a threat to our children is a lie."

He went on to explain that in today's media landscape, knowing the difference between truth and lies is more important than ever. "Today, the forces of hate have a new weapon that was not available in 1963: Social media."

Social media platforms, said Cohen, deliberately amplify content that triggers outrage and fear, particularly fear of the "other."

"They've gone from Klan rallies to chatrooms," he claimed.

To conclude, Cohen addressed the recent surge in hate crimes and murders of religious and ethnic minorities in the US and worldwide.

"We call on people everywhere to join us in standing up to hate, conspiracies, and lies, especially on social media."




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