A swastika has been found carved in the wall of a Jewish institution in Budapest. No further details are known.
Source: Fórum az antiszemitizmus ellen
A swastika has been found carved in the wall of a Jewish institution in Budapest. No further details are known.
Source: Fórum az antiszemitizmus ellen
Antisemitic graffiti depicting the Star of David hanging from a gallows and equating Israel with the Nazis has been found on the way to a scenic lookout over Budapest on Hármashatárhegy mountain.
Source: Fórum az antiszemitizmus ellen
Rob van Gijzel, the mayor of Eindhoven in the Netherlands, has blocked the entry of seven foreign hate preachers invited by the town’s Al Fourqaan mosque. The Imams, from Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Kuwait, have previously glorified violent Jihad and attacks on Jews, as well as denouncing women’s rights, homosexuals and non-Muslims. The decision was taken in consultation with the National Coordinator for Security and Fighting Terrorism (NCTV) was challenge in court by the mosque, but the ban remained in place.
Source: Telegraaf
A 91-year-old subscriber to the Jewish Chronicle from Essex, UK, has complained to the police after finding that his copy of the Jewish Chronicle had been delivered having been smeared with faeces. The incident is being investigated as a hate crime.
Source: The JC
A banner at a march of the Polish Law and Justice Party, which enjoys a majority in both houses of the Polish parliament, read: “We demand the immediate liquidation of masonic Jewish life in Poland. It threatens Poles.”
Polish website Polityka noted that the banner was not commented on by the Polish media reporting on the march, but caused an uproar when posted on Facebook.
In a letter to the editor of the Polish Gazette, Michal Sobelman of the Israeli Embassy in Warsaw wrote: “Surely you will agree with me that they [the marchers] are a greater threat to the good name of Poland in the world than the handful of Jews who still remain here.”
In an interview with Hungarian website 444.hu, rapper “Mr Busta” claimed that the world is governed by twelve Jewish businessmen on Wall Street and that six or seven of the twelve are Hungarian Jews.
Source: Fórum az antiszemitizmus ellen
One of Greece’s leading bishops, Bishop Seraphim of Piraeus, has blamed the “Zionist monster” for recent changes in Greek law allowing same-sex couples increased access to civil rights.
Under the new cohabitation bill, same-sex couples who sign a cohabitation agreement will receive the same tax advantages as married, heterosexual couples. The new legislation has also improved inheritance rights for same-sex couples.
It is reported that the bill is extremely unpopular in Greece but is being passed to meet European Union anti-discrimination standards.
Bishop Seraphim of Piraeus has remarked that the increased rights for same-sex couples are the result of a “constant war against the true faith” being waged “by the international Zionist monster,” which he believes controls the Greek government.
In 2010, the bishop told a Greek TV channel that Jews had orchestrated the Holocaust and were to blame for Greece’s financial crisis.
Antisemitic stereotyping is widespread in Greece. A recent Anti-Defamation League survey revealed that Greece has Europe’s highest rate of antisemitic attitudes, with 69% of Greeks espousing antisemitic views.
Source: Times of Israel
Following the reversal of a decision to erect a statue to a notorious Hungarian antisemite, the president of the foundation which had tried to erect the statue has written an official letter denouncing “Zionism” as the cause of Hungary’s problems.
Source: CFCA/Fórum az antiszemitizmus ellen
On Friday night, several streets in the 19th arrondissement of Paris were vandalised with slogans inspired by the theories of Alain Soral and Dieudonné, including: “Israel sterilises black people”, “atheist Jew = Racism”, and “Soral is right.”
Alain Soral said in a 2004 interview: “When you’re talking with a Frenchman who is a Zionist Jew, and you start to say, well maybe there are problems coming from your side, maybe you might have made a few mistakes, it’s not always the fault of other people if no-one can stand you wherever you go… because that’s basically their general history, you see… for 2,500 years, every time they settled somewhere, after about fifty years or so, they get their arses kicked. Surely something strange here ! It’s as though everyone is wrong except them. And the guy will start barking, yelling, going mad… you can’t be able to carry on with the conversation. Which, to sum it all up, tells you that there’s a psychopathology with Zio-Judaism, something that verges on mental illness…”
Source: CFCA/Confusionnisme, Wikipedia
It has been reported that a man in Kassel, Germany was attacked in October after a group of three people spotted a rainbow Star of David badge on his bag.
Two, tall, stocky middle-aged men and a woman, alleged to have been under the influence of alcohol, followed the victim as he tried to escape to a nearby bus stop. As they followed him, they shouted abuse at him such as “Spastic”.
The group cornered the man at the bus stop. The woman spat at him and called him a “miserable Jew”. The victim was pinned against the glass of the stop but managed to struggle free. This infuriated the group and they became increasingly agitated.
A passerby shouted that she had called the police and they were on their way. The attackers then moved on. It is not known if arrests were made.
Source: BGA-Kassel
A sign commemorating the founder of the local Jewish community in Torremolinos, Spain, has been torn down by vandals.
The sign, erected in memory of David Haim Melul, had only been in place for two months before being vandalised.
The vandalism coincided with recent, local controversy around the town’s decision to publicly celebrate Chanukah, the Jewish festival of rededication and lights. Local politicians had been debating the placement of a neon sign reading “Happy Chanukah,” which critics said violated the separation between religion and government. Critics from the center-right Popular Party were also dissatisfied by the absence of a town nativity scene to celebrate Christmas.
The Jewish population of Torremolinos is around 800 people.
Far-right Polish politician Paweł Kukiz has claimed that “a Jewish banker” is funding demonstrations in twenty cities organised by the newly-created Committee for the Defence of Democracy. The demonstrations opposed a law rushed through after Polish elections in October that paved the way for the appointment of five new judges to the Constitutional Tribunal.
Kukiz told Zet Radio: “Apparently the march was financed somehow from the outside. PLN150 million [$38 million] are to be given by the Jews, the Jewish banker, in organisation of the march.”
The Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland said the remark that the demonstrations were funded by “a Jewish banker” required a “firm reaction” from President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Beata Szydło, saying: “For the first time since [Poland’s] democratic elections in 1989, a politician in parliament, who has run for the presidency, has used such obvious antisemitic rhetoric.”
The conservative Law and Justice party (PiS) party, which won the October general election,
has been accused of undermining the independence of Poland’s judiciary. Although Kukiz’s anti-establishment Kukiz’15 grouping was formed in July and came third in the parliamentary election, it is broadly aligned on some issues with the Law and Justice party.
Sources: Radio Poland and JTA
Italian police have opened an investigation into Radio Islam, following its publication of a “Jewish power” list featuring the names of prominent Italian Jewish journalists, businessmen, actors and personalities who the website accused of being part of a “Nazi Jewish mafia”.
The article was published on the Italian page of Radio Islam, a multi-language platform hosting essays from renowned Holocaust deniers. Radio Islam started in Sweden but after its broadcasting licence was revoked and its founder imprisoned, it was relaunched as a website which publishes antisemitic propaganda. The banner of the website says: “Know Your enemy! No time to waste. Act now! Tomorrow it will be too late.”
Sources: Radio Islam, IB Times
A documentary, The British Women Supporters Unveiled, which aired on Channel 4 in the UK, shows how a secret cell of British Islamist women is spreading antisemitic propaganda and encouraging young female Muslims to join ISIS.
The group, who were filmed in a year-long undercover operation, holds highly secretive meetings called Islamic Talks for sisters or Islamic Circles for women. In these meetings, they tell young Muslim women that Britain is waging a war against them and that those who do not support ISIS will be destroyed by Allah.
Some of these meetings are held in Government-funded community centres and take place in front of children.
One of the leading members is a mother of four, Rubana, who lives in London. She is a well-known extremist and has been an instrumental member of several, now-banned organisations, including al-Muhajiroun, which is said to have been behind 50% of UK terror plots, including the 7/7 London bombings and the Lee Rigby murder.
In a two-hour, covertly-filmed lecture, Rubana states that the “good days have already begun [because an Islamic State has been established].”
In a reference to the attacks against ISIS, she adds: “It’s not the first time nations have plotted against the believers. It’s not the first time the alliance has been formed like they have now with this coalition against the Khilafah [Islamic State]. But Allah one by one he will destroy them.”
She goes on to accuse “filthy Jews” of killing innocent Muslim women and children.
Another of the group is Umm Saalihah, has lived at the same address as Mohammed Shamsuddin, who was arrested last year on suspicion of encouraging terrorism and being a member of al-Muhajiroun.
On Twitter, Saalihah has said it is “necessary” to live under the khilafah.
A third woman, under the name Umm Usmaan, has tweeted: “Go to Sham (Syria) for it is the best of Allahs [sic] lands on earth.”
Sources: The Telegraph, RT
RIAS has reported that a man was assaulted on the Berlin underground system after he was spotted wearing a ‘Gay Israel’ badge.
The man was travelling with a friend on the afternoon of 19th December when he passed a group of three people. One, aged around 25, noticed the ‘Gay Israel’ badge and began pushing and shoving the victim, shouting “F***ing Zionist” and “Are you a Zionist or what?”
The victim and his friend attempted to de-escalate the situation and walk away. The perpetrator ripped the badge from the victim and only then let them go.
Passers-by did not intervene throughout the loud altercation.
A British MP has received an antisemitic Christmas card filled with a diatribe against Jewish people. The front of the card shows a child asking an adult: “Do you still believe in the Holocaust?” The adult responds: “Do you still believe in Father Christmas?”
The message inside the card begins with “No Jew can be Prime Minister of England, no MP can be a Jew,” and continues in much the same vein.
Fittingly the last word of the card is “Stupid” which we think is a fitting signature for the sender.
Ah Christmas- what makes that the trigger to send anti Semitic greeting cards I wonder…came today… #notok pic.twitter.com/tCYAWmyTxe
— stellacreasy (@stellacreasy) December 22, 2015
The Amadeu Antonio Foundation has reported that a Jewish man was attacked in a ‘left-wing and alternative’ bar in Bonn, Germany. As the man was ordering, a member of staff forced him into a headlock and ripped his kippah (Jewish skullcap) from his head.
When questioned, the member of staff replied, “I’d rip a headscarf off a Muslim, this is a religion-free zone!” The bar owner voiced his agreement and support of the member of staff.
The Jewish person left the bar and around fifteen people left with him in solidarity. He told the Amadeu Antonio Foundation that he has been threatened in the past by rightwing-extremists and Islamists.
Source: Amadeu Antonio Stiftung
It is reported that Columbia University Iranian studies scholar Hamid Dabashi, known for spreading anti-Israeli propaganda and relativising the Holocaust, is experiencing a surge in popularity in Germany.
In a 2012 article for Al Jazeera, Dabashi compares the Holocaust — unique in being the deliberate, planned and industrialized mass murder of an attempted, entire people — to atrocities such as colonialism and imperialism. Paraphrasing the French post-colonialist poet Aimé Césaire, Dabashi writes, “[T]he Jewish Holocaust was not an aberration in European history. Rather, Europeans actually perpetrated similar crimes against humanity on the colonised world at large.”
Dabashi has also stated that Israel is committing “incremental genocide” and describes it as a “racist apartheid state”.
In May, Dabashi was invited to speak at Freie Universität Berlin. In November, he spoke at the Institute for Foreign Affairs, which is financed by the German Foreign Ministry, the state of Baden-Württemberg, and the city of Stuttgart. In the same month, he spoke at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, associated with Germany left-wing party Die Linke, themselves no strangers to antisemitic scandal.
Dabashi will be one of the keynote speakers at next year’s Conference on Language and Literature in Colonial and Postcolonial Contexts in Bremen, Germany.
Regarded as a hotbed of BDS activity, Bremen has been in the news recently, after an editor at its only independent daily newspaper became the victim of threats and abuse for writing about “Jewish issues” and was subsequently fired. In November. Bremen again received attention after a vigilante group toured the city’s stores and market, labelling products it suspected as coming “from an illegal Israeli settlement.”
Sources: The Algemeiner, Al Jazeera, Times of Israel
Vandals in Sochaczew, Poland desecrated a Jewish cemetery last Sunday night, daubing the prayer room with graffiti saying “F*** Jews,” “[The] Holocaust never happened,” “Islam will dominate” and “Islamic State was here.” A Star of David was depicted hanging from a noose.
The Jewish cemetery is located next to graves for Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox Christians and Muslims. The entire Jewish population of the town was wiped out by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
Director of the Museum of Sochaczew and Battlefield on Bzura, Paul Rozdżestwieński, said in a statement: “As museum professionals and at the same time residents of Sochaczew, we are ashamed of such behaviour and we would like to ask all residents to help organise the restoration of the dignified appearance of Sochaczew cemetery.”
A sign found in the bathroom at a Prague train station has been altered to include an antisemitic theme. An unknown perpetrator altered a sign saying “Stop” to instead say “Stop Jews”.
Source: CFCA
An electrical box in a street in Olomouc, Czech Republic, has been defaced with graffiti equating Jews with the Nazis.
Source: CFCA
It has been reported that martial arts expert Egor Gamajun gave a speech at the Bewusst in die Zukunft (Mindfully Going Forth) conference that took place in Hessen, Germany last month.
Billed as a researcher and teacher, Gamajun has made several racist remarks online about Jews, including that “Zhidy” [a pejorative Russian term for Jews] are “demons personified” who hate Christianity, freedom and all that is holy.
In another post, Gamajun refers to Jews as “devils” and claims they worship “Mammon” – an age-old antisemitic canard. Mammon appears in the New Testament and signifies money or material wealth and the greedy pursuit of gain.
Gamajun is also reported to have claimed that “Hebrews” are placed on Earth to demonstrate the “sickness of humanity” and that there are MI5 and CIA conspiracies underway to undermine Russia by convincing Russian Christians that they are sectarians of Judaism.
The conference’s website is alleged to be linked to neo-Nazi groups such as TrutzgauerBote.info, which deny the Holocaust and glorify Hitler.
Sources: Documenting Anti-Semitism, The Interpreter, Wikipedia
French emergency services have treated fourteen women for burns and itching on their hands and eyes after they touched a security code panel at a synagogue in Bonneuil-sur-Marne which had been coated with a chemical agent.
The incident took place after services had finished and soldiers charged with protecting the synagogue had finished their watch.
Twenty-five emergency medical staff had to be deployed and the victims have now returned home.
A police laboratory is now identifying the chemical used. Police are treating the incident as a criminal act.
Source: CFCA/Le Parisien
One of Germany’s most respected political blogs, NachDenkSeiten, has been drawing negative attention for promotioning controversial conspiracy theorists, widely criticised as antisemtic.
The blog, which receives around 100,000 hits per day on average, recently gave a platform to a piece by prominent ‘9/11 Truther’ theorist Mathias Bröckers, entitled “There’s No Business Like Shoah Business”. Shoah is the Hebrew name for the Holocaust. In the article, Bröckers refers to “overcoming [the] ideological instrumentalisation of the Holocaust” and that “too much ‘Shoah-Business’ leads to tunnel vision.”
He goes on to complain that “the discourse in Germany around Jewish matters has become tragically absurd” and that it is not possible to “criticise the business dealings of billionaire Zuckerberg and banker Rothschild…or expose the scheming of the ‘financial elite’ or ‘Federal Reserve’ without being compared to Hilter.”
He also states that “Past and present, Jews are not the only victims of discrimination [such as racism and the hatred of others] and are more than capable of being ‘perpetrators’ themselves (be it in Gaza or matters of business ethics).”
Bröckers is the author of the widely read article, “The Kosher Conspiracy”, published in the aftermath of 9/11, in which he claims Israel knew about the attacks on the World Trade Centre before they occurred and deliberately withheld this information from the US government.
In October, NachDenkSeiten featured the work of controversial historian Daniele Ganser, who is also known for promoting antisemtic 9/11 theories. Ganser holds popular lectures in Germany, where he is reported to claim “New York Jew Larry Silverstein” ordered the demolition of World Trade Center Tower 7.
Sources: Dialog International, NachDenkSeiten, Mathias Broeckers, Telepolis, FrankfurterRundschau, Wikipedia
The wall of a Jewish cemetery in Tarnów, Poland has been sprayed with nationalist and antisemitic graffiti. Local police are investigating.
Source: CFCA/Radio Kraków
It transpires that a man, reported last month for displaying a Holocaust-glorifying tattoo at a German swimming pool, is said to be a far-right politician who sits on the county council of an area just outside Berlin.
According to news sources, the 27-year-old in question is Marcel Zech, a member of the far-right National Democratic Party. He faces up to five years in prison, if convicted, for violating Germany’s prohibition on publicly displaying Nazi symbols.
As Everyday Antisemitism reported last month, staff and management at the swimming pool were initially indifferent to the display and only reacted when a shocked visitor and persistent journalist followed up the case.
The tattoo shows the gates to Auschwitz and beneath the image, in old German lettering often used by the Nazis, were the words “Jedem Das Seine” meaning “To each what they deserve”, an old German proverb that is displayed over the entrance to the Buchenwald concentration camp.
Source: Times of Israel
The UK’s National Union of Students has been forced to apologise for having deliberately left out Israeli victims of terrorism from a list of countries suffering from terrorist attacks, at the union’s National Executive Council meeting earlier this month.
Despite Israel suffering no fewer than 169 terror attacks targeting Israeli Jews in 120 days, the NUS statement read out at its meeting mentioned attacks by “paramilitary organisations” carried out in Nigeria, Lebanon, Turkey, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Kenya, Palestine, Mali and Paris, but not Israel. The inclusion of Palestine in the list suggests that the omission of Israel was deliberately discriminatory. In recent months Israeli civilians have been the victims of numerous Palestinian perpetrated rock-throwings, vehicular attacks where pedestrians were run over deliberately by cars or vans, and stabbings. These have resulted in numerous deaths and injuries.
The original National Union of Students’ statement read “those who have perpetrated these attacks, have targeted people of all faiths, of all backgrounds and of all identities. Since the attacks, we have seen an increase in retributions places on Muslim communities here in the UK and around the world. We restate the NUS’ commitment to fighting Islamophobia.” The Jewish victims of terrorism in Israel were not mentioned, though.
Since being condemned widely for this action, National Union of Students president Megan Dunn eventually apologised to Jewish students at an event with around 100 Jewish attendees. She insisted that “antisemitism and abuse of Jewish students is unacceptable.”
RIAS reports that a Berlin-based, Muslim woman received death threats via Facebook earlier this month after criticising an antisemitic remark that appeared in the group “Ich liebe Ausländer Lounge” (“I Love Foreigners Lounge”).
One threat read, “Listen you little Jewish whore, what are you thinking attacking […] you Zionist slut you should be gassed like Hitler did you worthless piece of trash. Your whole Jewish generation should be gassed you have no honour you stinking stinking Jew.” [Punctuation as per original]
The woman, who often makes statements against antisemtism and salafism on her profile, told RIAS this is not the first time she has received threats.
Source: Recherche- und Informationsstelle Antisemitismus
A group of young orthodox Jews travelling by train through a suburb of Paris were subjected to an antisemitic rant caught on a camera by a fellow passenger.
The man, who described himself as being of Algerian descent, abused and threatened eight Jewish youths on the RER D line near Melun, a suburb of Paris, on 7th December at 21:30.
He said: “You band of motherf***er bastard Jews … You band of bitches; you dirty bastard race,” before adding: “If only I had a fragmentation grenade.”
He then ranted about Israel, claiming it had recently killed 5,000 Palestinian babies, before leaving the train at the Villeneuve Saint-Georges station.
Nobody intervened.
Source: Algemeiner
Danish imam Sheikh Abu Bilal Ismail has been found guilty of incitement to hatred, after calling for the murder of Jews at a mosque in Berlin in 2014.
A German court fined Abu Bilal Ismail €1,300 for comments he made during a sermon to al-Nur mosque. Situated in Berlin’s Neukölln district, the al-Nur mosque is widely considered a hotbed of radical Islamism.
Ismail told the packed audience to “destroy the Zionist Jews…,” and to “count them and kill them to the very last one. Don’t spare a single one…make them suffer.”
The verdict found that Abu Bilal Ismail had delivered a “hostile and hate-filled view toward Jews as a population in Germany,” and that he considered Jews as “criminals who kill prophets and children,” “worse than wild beasts in the jungle” and that “Allah should kill Jews.”
Ismail defended his speech by insisting the remark “Zionist Jews” was directed at Israeli soldiers fighting in the Gaza Strip last year. He also remarked that he lives peacefully alongside all religious groups in Denmark.
Source: The Jerusalem Post
Swiss police are investigating following the discovery of typewritten antisemitic leaflets delivered through mailboxes in Kreuzlingen.
The leaflets were titled “The Myth of the Holocaust” and claimed that the Holocaust was “a deliberately invented lie” spread by “Zionists” and “many Jewish-paid liars” in order to “extort billions of euros from the German people”.
Daniel Killy, former Executive Managing Editor of Bremen’s Weser-Kurier, who became the victim of threats and abuse for writing about Jewish issues and Israel and was fired shortly after, has been accused of “playing the victim” by the German daily newspaper Junge Welt.
In November, Killy reported to Arutz Sheva that he discovered a Nazi-style denunciation of his life and work, written by a former editor at the paper (himself the son of a Nazi), had been circulated amongst Bremen’s politicians.
According to Killy’s account, he received a letter from his Chief Executive Officer at the paper’s publisher, Bremer Tageszeitungen AG, officially forbidding him from engaging in voluntary work for the Jewish Community. In a meeting with his CEO, Killy says that he was warned: “Mr. Killy, you need to understand that we as Bremen’s monopoly paper can’t afford to be considered pro-Jewish.” When Killy responded that this explanation was perhaps seventy years too late, he said that his CEO replied: “No, no, of course I didn’t mean it like that” and assured him that there was no longer a problem.
Six weeks later he was fired.
In an article on their website, Junge Welt describes Killy’s report to Arutz Sheva as being “clearly intended to incite controversy amongst an Israeli and international audience regarding how a Jewish editor is treated by a German newspaper.” Quoting Meedia, Germany’s largest news agency, they restate Bremer Tageszeitungen AG’s position that, as an active member of Hamburg’s Jewish community, Killy’s lacked necessary journalistic neutrality.
In his interview with Arutz Sheva, Killy remarks that, “this instruction [to cease writing on Jewish and Israeli issues] went against Germany’s official state doctrine. Germany is a steadfast friend of Israel and protector of its Jewish population. To be forbidden, as a journalist, to take a stand for Jewish issues, is a demonstration of blunt anti-Semitism, and does not stem from media neutrality.”
Junge Welt reports that, in addition to Killy’s “neutrality” being questionable, he had also neglected to acquire written permission prior to engaging in voluntary work as press spokesperson for Hamburg’s Jewish community, thereby breaching the terms of his contract with the Weser-Kurier.
Junge Welt goes on to report the upset accusations of antisemitism caused at Weser-Kurier and writes that management called into question the quality of Killy’s journalism. Editor-in-chief Moritz Döbler stated, “We were forever arguing over the position of the paper,” and Ruth Gerbracht, chair of Bremer Tageszeitungen AG, is reported to have been “appalled at how Killy was damaging our paper.”
Junge Welt concludes by stating, “Criticism against Israel does not necessarily equal antisemitism and firing an editor with Jewish beliefs is not automatically motivated by antisemitism.”
Sources: Junge Welt, Arutz Sheva
A Jewish candidate to succeed Boris Johnson as Mayor of London has spoken out against antisemitism online. Zac Goldsmith told a lunch for Conservative Friends of Israel: “Sadly, social media is a reminder of the rising wave of antisemitism which sweeping across Europe. There is no denying or ignoring it. Particularly on social media, criticism of Israel has become a cover for an old hatred.”
Mocking the abuse he has received, Goldsmith said that according to Twitter users “I have this amazing control over the press – which should make my mayoral contest very easy; and that my family have completely infiltrated the royal family.”
Source: Algemeiner
A memorial plaque demarcating one edge of the Warsaw Ghetto has been defaced with a swastika. The plaque must now be dismantled and taken to a specialist paint removal laboratory. The plaque was erected in 2008 and is dedicated to the “memory of those who suffered, fought and died.”
Source: CFCA/TVN Warszawa
Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the National Front party in France sent an antisemitic tweet to a politician from the French Republican party. Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was expelled from the National Front at a Special Congress in August, tweeted Christian Estrosi, the Republican incumbent mayor of Nice who is being challenged in a close election by Jean-Marie Le Pen’s granddaughter, National Front candidate Marion Maréchal Le Pen. In the tweet, Jean-Marie Le Pen referred to close poll results, telling to Estrosi to “Put on a brave face” with a link to a a video of Estrosi wearing a Jewish skullcap and dancing with Jewish men. The tweet was deleted shortly afterwards.
https://twitter.com/arthurberdah/status/673623660704477184/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
The prosecution of Dutch rapper Ismo (Ismael Houllich) has come to a halt. A court criminal court in Breda acquitted him because the judge felt that the rapper’s lyrics were “artistic expression” rather than hate speech, even though they “are of an offensive nature.”
Filmed in Breda, the video for Ismo’s first single, “Eenmans” (or “One Man’s”), shows Ismo singing: “I hate those f***ing Jews more than the Nazis” and “don’t shake hands with faggots”.
The prosecution had sought a fine of €1,000 euros and a further suspended fine of another €500. The prosecution also requested the removal of Ismo’s video clip from YouTube.
The Center for Information and Documentation on Israel and an umbrella group of gay organisations in the Netherlands issued a joint statement calling on the prosecution to appeal the “disquieting sentence, which appears to be a carte blanche for discriminative statements as long as they are made in a rap song.”
Source: Forward
In a statement to Campaign Against Antisemitism, Hertfordshire Constabulary has said that last Saturday at 13:10, a person driving a white Ford Transit van along Deacons Hill Road wound down their window and shouted offensive language towards a man in his 50s. According to the police statement: “The matter is being investigated as a public order hate crime and investigations are on-going. No arrests have been made at this time.”
Did you witness this incident? If so, please tell us more about what happened.
Source: Hertfordshire Constabulary
A Facebook user calling himself Rizwan Latif, who says he lives in Cardiff, has commented on Facebook that Jews control the media, NATO, UN and politicians. Responding to a Facebook post claiming that the media and police were using the terrorist stabbing in Leytonstone, Greater London on Sunday to “falsely…promote the narrative of a Muslim enemy within our borders”, Latif commented: “Media and its Jooish agenda”. Latif added: “I will shout it from facebooks proverbial roof top. It’s the feckin jooz…Media and press owned and controlled by jooz. Check owners and editors. Mostly jooz Most of the American British and European politicians owned and controlled by jooz. All others are slaves of the banks. IMF etc Nato and UN serviced by jooz.”
Source: Facebook
An Irish judge has jailed a Holocaust denier for five months for using performance art in a public square in Ennis to further his claims that the Holocaust did not take place. Dermot Mulqueen, aged 49, was jailed at Ennis District Court, for the lunchtime performance to a crowd of teenagers on 23rd January 2015, when he put an axe through a TV as part of his “Liberation of the Mind” act with which he intended to launch “International Holocaust Hoax Day”. He was convicted of breaching Section 9 of the Offensive Weapons Act and section 6 of the Public Order Act.
Mulqueen told the court: “I wasn’t breaking the law, I was breaking a taboo. There was nothing threatening about what I did.” In his statement to police, Mulqueen had said: “I found out that the Holocaust was a hoax in August 2013 after coming across a video by David Cole on Auschwitz on YouTube. I am not a racist but I have found out that the Holocaust was a hoax and I wanted to highlight this.”
In sentencing, the Judge Patrick Duncan said Mulqueen “may have a view and an interpretation of history, but it is an historical fact that the Holocaust was the greatest crime perpetrated against a section of mankind in the history of mankind”. According to the judge, by his actions Mulqueen had “behaved in the most offensive way, not merely towards a particular section of society but towards society generally”.
After sentencing, Mr Mulqueen was released on bail pending his appeal.
Source: CFCA/Irish Times
RIAS has reported another incident of vandalism in Berlin on the anniversary of Kristallnacht.
Kreuzberg’s Mehringplatz is home to the „Pfad der Visionäre” (“Path of World Visionaries”) installation. This feautres panels set into the ground, quoting selected personalities from UN Nations. Each panel includes the flag of the country of the person’s origin.
Theodor Herzl represents Israel. On 9th November 2015, the 77th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the glass covering the panel was destroyed and the Israeli flag scratched off. It was the only panel to receive such treatment.
Source: RIAS
RIAS have reported the theft of a Stolperstein Jewish monument in the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district of Berlin, Germany.
Stolpersteine (“stumbling blocks”) are small, cobblestone-sized, brass memorials created by artist Gunter Demnig to commemorate victims of Nazi oppression. Stolpersteine are usually installed into the ground around the area a victim lived or worked and usually include details such as the victim’’s name, date of birth, deportation and murder. Before the Holocaust, it used to be customary in Germany for non-Jews to say, on stumbling over a protruding stone, “There must be a Jew buried here.”
The stolen Stolperstein commemorates Heinrich Blumenthal, who was murdered in Auschwitz. It was installed in July 2013 and stolen on 9 November 2015, the 77th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the pogrom against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and Austria, carried out by SA paramilitary forces and civilians.
This is the second case of vandalism of a Stolperstein in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf this year. In June a Stolperstein commemorating a victim, Nelly Friedberg, was so badly vandalized, it had to be replaced.
Sources: Recherche- und Informationsstelle Antisemitismus, Wikipedia
It has emerged that the Hungarian government has provided much of the funding for life-size bronze statue honouring Bálint Hóman. Hóman was a key figure in the persecution of Hungarian Jews before and during World War II. He played a significant role in the drafting of anti-Jewish laws adopted in Hungary during the late 1930s, and supported Nazi Germany and the fascist Arrow Cross regime in 1944. Hóman remained unrepentant until his death in 1951.
The Székesfehérvár foundation, which is erecting the statue (with a major contribution from the Hungarian taxpayer), claimed that the statue honours Hóman’s academic achievements, including co-authoring an eight-volume history of Hungary published between 1938 and 1941.
The President of the World Jewish Congress, Ronald Lauder, has called on Hungary to stop the unveiling.
Source: World Jewish Congress
Graffiti of a crossed out Star of David has been found along with the words “Stop repressing opinions” near a bus stop on the Way of the Martyrs of Majdanek in Lublin, Poland. Majdanek was a notorious concentration camp on the outskirts of Lublin.
Campaigning group HejtStop asked the Board of Roads and Bridges to remove the graffiti. Karol Kieliszek from Lublin City Hall has said that it will be removed this week.
Source: CFCA/Kurier Lubelski
An Arsenal Football Club fan sent the following report to the club:
I’d like to raise a complaint about the action of some of our ‘fans’ on the 8pm train from Norwich to Liverpool Street station on Sunday night [29th October].
I was sitting with a group of friends and, as you’d expect, we were singing some Arsenal songs – trying to take our mind off the disappointing result!
We were singing about players and general Arsenal songs, at which point another group of Arsenal supporters, all men mostly in their 50’s, who were standing up around the train shop area started singing songs about Tottenham.
Within the space of about a minute, the generic songs about Tottenham quickly descended into blatant and overt racism, all led by this group of men.
It started with “I’ve got a foreskin haven’t you, f***ing Jew” and then they started singing “Gas them all, burn in hell”.
My friends and I were unsurprisingly appalled by this – I immediately went and got the two British Transport Police who were a couple of carriages down from us. The men weren’t stupid enough to continue singing those songs with the police around, however they continued to look over at us, calling us “grasses” as if that was worse than being an antisemite and a racist – on top of the obvious disgust at grown men being so openly racist, it was frankly embarrassing that they were trying to intimidate myself and my friends.
I just wanted to bring this up with the club so that you had a record of this happening. I don’t know how such behaviour can be stopped but as an away supporter I feel that incidents like this have been on the increase in the last couple of years. I had friends on the same train (in a different carriage) who also had a similar experience with a different group of people so this wasn’t a one-off.
I love travelling away with Arsenal but find that the selfish actions of a small minority of ignorant people end up ruining a lot of trips for us and giving a bad reputation to the club as a whole.
Source: Gooner
The architect of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, reportedly told his cousin on 15th November that he intended to carry out attacks on Jewish targets, among others.
A leaked witness statement published earlier this week revealed how Abaaoud approached his cousin, Hasna Ait Boulahcen, two days after the terrorist attacks, asking her to hide him while he prepared further attacks. The witness statement said that Abaaoud told his cousin that “they would do worse in districts close to the Jews and would disrupt transport and schools.”
Source: Daily Mirror
Rotterdam commissioner Latif Tali has pressed charges of discrimination and inciting hatred against Ahmet Akgunduz, rector of the Islamic University of Rotterdam, in the Netherlands.
According to RTV Rijnmond, the basis for the accusation is a series of tweets by Akgunduz about Kurds, however it is reported that complaints of antisemitism and homophobia will be added to the file due to Akgunduz’s previous statements.
Since the Islamic University of Rotterdam is not run by the state, the Ministry of Education cannot intervene, however Minister for Education Jet Bussemaker is reportedly working to change the law and has urged anyone targeted by Akgunduz to file a complaint with the police.
Source: NL Times
A blog has been published on the website of the London School of Economics in which it is claimed that, as a matter of religious belief, Jews consider non-Jews to be inferior to the extent that Jews are permitted to “exterminate” non-Jews.
One extract reads:
Notions of ‘racial’ superiority are contained in Jewish scriptures and Rabbinical pronouncements have the effect of relegating ‘the other’ to a standard which is sub-human and, therefore, not deserving of the same considerations that are reserved for one’s ‘own kind’.
Complaints can be sent to LSE’s Director, Prof. Craig Calhoun at [email protected]
Source: London School of Economics Blog
Two Israeli journalists, Amalya Duek and Dafna Liel, were in a taxi in Brussels. As they got out, the driver asked them if they were from Israel. When they answered that they were, he shouted “Dirty Jews!” and drove away.
@l_daphna ואני על מונית בבריסל. רגע לפני שירדנו, הנהג שואל אם אנחנו מישראל. עונות שכן. והוא, בלי להתבלבל צועק ״יהודיות מסריחות״ ונוסע
— עמליה דואק (@AmalyaDuek) December 2, 2015
Source: CFCA/The New Antisemite/Amalya Duek
A rally against Islamophobia to be held in Brussels, which Amnesty International is co-sponsoring, will feature Dyab Abou Jahjah as a keynote speaker. Abou Jahjah is a former fighter for antisemitic terror group Hezbollah, believes Europe made “the cult of the Holocaust and Jew-worshiping its alternative religion,” and questioned the existence of the Nazi gas chambers. On account of his views, Abou Jahjah has been banned from entering the United Kingdom since 2009.
Source: Tablet
The London School of Economics has condemned an exhibition by pro-Palestinian students which glorified Palestinian terrorists who have been stabbing Israeli Jews in a wave of antisemitic terrorism. It is surprising though that in condemning the exhibition, LSE suggested that the students might not have intended to celebrate the terrorists whose photographs were graphically displayed in the exhibition. It seems that the only purpose of the exhibition was to celebrate Palestinian terrorists who had been killed in self-defence by Israelis protecting themselves from attacks being perpetrated by the terrorists against any Jewish civilian they could find.
The full statement from LSE said:
The School was deeply troubled by the exhibition held by the Students’ Union Palestine Society in the Saw Swee Hock building in October 2015.
This is not a matter of free speech within the law, which the School is obliged to uphold across its premises: the law was not broken. Neither is it in itself a concern that offence was caused. The concern is that both the content of the exhibition and the manner in which it was displayed, together with related activities off campus and on social media, caused serious harm to relations between sections of our community on campus. The apparent celebration, even if unintended, of violence and perpetrators of violence caused significant distress to students who identify with victims of that violence.
As a university we are committed to encouraging the free exchange of ideas in an atmosphere of mutual respect. The School asks that all Students’ Union societies act with respect for the views and feelings of all their fellow students.
Source: London School of Economics
The Welwyn Hatfield Times reports that at a match between Hertford Town and Welwyn Garden City, antisemitic singing broke out amongst Hertford Town fans, which they directed towards their opponent’s fans. According to the report, a “mindless minority” started the antisemitic singing, repeating the song twice. The report included no
Source: The Welwyn Hatfield Times
Three 10-year-old boys have been caught by Czech police vandalising gravestones at the Jewish cemetery in Frydek-Mistek. The police officers returned the boys to their parents.
Source: CFCA/Policejní Deník
The Czech Council for Radio and Television Broadcasting (RRTV) will examine the participation of the Ortel rock band associated with extreme right at the Saturday live transmission of the Czech Nightingale award-giving ceremony at the Nova television station, Czech Television said today.
Ortel finished in the second place in the Czech Nightingale and its singer Tomas Ortel, who had performed for the neo-Nazi group Conflict 88, was third in the category of male singers.
The founder of Ortel, who calls himself Tomáš Ortel, is also the founder of the neo-Nazi cult band Conflict 88. The number 88 is a neo-Nazi cryptogram for the Nazi greeting “Heil Hitler”.
Jan Chvojka, a deputy for the Social Democrats (CSSD), has filed a complaint about the performance of the group whose texts are often targeted against minorities. “The band is already moving beyond the edge of law,” Chvojka said.
“It provokes xenophobic moods, having an antisemite and chauvinistic background. I am of the view that such a group has no place at the prime time on the channel of the most watched commercial television station,” he added.
The Nova television station that broadcasts the programme said it could not see anything bad in the participation of the group and its singer.
Source: CTK National News Wire
A retired professor who used to teach at the University of Cambridge has told an Israeli schoolgirl that she will not answer her question about horses until “there is peace and justice for Palestinians”. Marsha Levine, an expert on the domestication and history of horses was approached by 13-year-old Shachar Rabinovitch by e-mail. Shachar was undertaking a school project and sent Levine an e-mail in her best, most polite English. Levine politely responded that “You might be a child, but if you are old enough to write to me, you are old enough to learn about Israeli history and how it has impacted on the lives of Palestinian people. Maybe your family has the same views as I do, but I doubt it.”
Speaking to a Jewish journalist1, Levine said: “Jews have turned themselves into monsters. I want this girl not to worry about horses…I don’t see any obligation to further her ego or make her feel better about herself. I don’t think it’s about her – I think it’s about her parents. I gave her useful information which might help her for the rest of her life. I have to stand up for what I believe in…The Jews have become the Nazis. Jews are behaving just like the people who treated them. It’s not all Israelis or all Jews.”
Speaking to the Telegraph, Shamir Rabinovitch, who posted his daughter Shachar’s e-mail exchange with Levine on Facebook, said he was “shocked” by the reply. He said: “You have to ask yourself: what is there to gain from not talking to a 13-year-old girl? How does that solve anything? She asked a very polite question about horses, something she is interested in. Why do you reply with such anger? It really crossed the boundary. I think it’s ok to have different opinions about Israel…But it’s not OK to involve children in this stuff.”
Sources: Israelly Cool and The Telegraph
1 Dysch, M. (2015) Ex-Cambridge academic justifies boycotting Israeli schoolgirl by claiming ‘Jews have become Nazis’, Jewish Chronicle, 1 December
Scotland’s only Jewish faith school is to employ a full-time security guard in response to parents’ concerns for pupils’ safety.
Police and council officials put Calderwood Lodge Primary School in Glasgow on high alert after last January’s terrorist attacks in Paris, and the school felt targeted when anti-Israel stickers began appearing on nearby lampposts.
Tim Lovatt, from the school’s parent council, said: “We held a parent forum meeting to ask for a mandate to ask the council for the security guard and there was overwhelming support to have security. You can’t protect your children enough.”
Funding for security guards at Jewish schools in England and Wales was introduced in 2010. In March prime minister David Cameron announced an extra £11m, including £7m is for guards outside more than 100 Jewish schools and £3m for protecting synagogues.
Two thirds of the antisemitic incidents recorded in Scotland last year took place in Glasgow. A recent poll suggested that 64 percent of Scottish Jews had “witnessed or experienced more antisemitism than in previous years”.
Although Calderwood Lodge is a Jewish faith school with a curriculum including Hebrew and Jewish culture, many of its 150 pupils are Muslim, Christian or have no religion.
An East Renfrewshire council spokeswoman said: “Following feedback from parents and the release of additional funding from the UK Government, it has been agreed that a security guard will be employed at Calderwood Lodge to support the school’s existing security procedures. The funding from the government is in place to support existing security measures at Jewish schools and organisations across the UK. There have not been any security threats at Calderwood Lodge or in the local community. This decision has been taken as a result of parental feedback and takes advantage of the additional funding available.”
Earlier this month it was reported that Jewish students in Scotland were afraid to reveal their Jewish identity.
Source: The National
Journalist Vivienne Walt, writing in TIME, has suggested it is easier to explain the murder of Jewish Parisians than the murder of non-Jewish Parisians:
In January it had been relatively simple to explain to my child, who was then eight, why the cartoonists had been the target, and why a Jewish supermarket was attacked—grim as the details were… Answering questions over dinner on Sunday was more difficult, however. The targets this time were young people having fun on a warm Friday night; people, in fact, who were his age not all that long ago. To children in Paris, Charlie Hebdo had seemed a one-off attack, involving targets that were not part of our ordinary lives.
Walt also suggested that Jewish people in a supermarket were not “the most normal of people,” writing that:
…Friday’s attacks impacted so many regular Parisians because they had been aimed directly at the most normal of people — the drinkers, the concert-goers, the soccer fans.
The Algemeiner news site adds that despite Walt’s suggestion that the youth of the victims was also more shocking in the November attacks than the January attacks, “Yoav Hattab, murdered in the HyperCacher kosher supermarket attack in January, was 21, and Yohan Cohen was 22. They were pretty young. In fact, they were younger than nearly every victim of the more recent Paris attacks. But apparently that didn’t make it more difficult to explain their murders to Vivienne’s 8-year-old son. Shopping for food is probably as familiar an experience to her son as sitting in a café or going to a concert, but clearly that didn’t make the job of explaining those murders any more difficult.”
Source: Time Magazine/Algemeiner
The mayor of the Hungarian town of Szentgotthárd has claimed that “Israel and international business” was behind the atrocities committed in Paris earlier this month. Speaking at a Council meeting about proposals to open a refugee camp in the area, Huszár Gábor said that the Paris attacks were orchestrated by Israel and international business circles to influence Europe against Muslims, and that those same circles were out to discredit his Fidesz party.
Source: Politics.hu/HVG
RIAS have reported that on the morning of Saturday 28th November, four drunk men entered an underground train at Berlin’s Senefelder Platz station. Once on the train, the men began making xenophobic remarks about two people speaking English in their vicinity.
One of the two being verbally attacked questioned the men in German, asking what the problem was. “You and your Jewish friend are the problem,” came the response.
As they were exiting the train, one of the two replied, “What would be the problem if we were Jewish?” The four men responded by approaching the two, who were already at the door, in an aggressive and threatening manner.
The English-speaker suggested they all exit the train together to calmly discuss the matter. As the doors closed, one of the four replied he did not owe any “filthy Jews” an answer and threw his kebab container at them.
A memorial in for 15,000 Jews who were executed during the Holocaust along with other locals, resistance activists and Soviet prisoners, has been vandalised. The “Grieving Mother” monument in Poltava, Ukraine was spray-painted with drawings of gallows and a common Jewish surname.
The North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) branch of the German movement Pegida (Patrioten gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes/Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident) recently conducted a discussion on its Facebook page ‘confirming’ that Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, is Jewish.
The discussion was initiated by a user who asked, “How can we prove that Merkel is a Jew? How do we proceed???”, going on to demand that Merkel and “her whole crew” be arrested, for reasons unstated. The user went on to state that she intended to search the internet for Merkel’s birth certificate, in order to obtain the “next piece of evidence” of Merkel’s Jewishness.
Pegida NRW responded to the comment by stating, “Maybe you are hearing this news for the first time. But the majority of the population is already aware that Merkel had Jewish parents and that this woman’s parents weren’t quite right in the head.”
Pegida NRW went on to conclude in its response that “Merkel was definitely Hoenecker’s [Erich Honecker, leader of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), 1971-1989] last revenge against capitalism,” and that Merkel has been “striving to plunge Germany into ruin since the fall of the GDR.”
Pegida, is a German anti-Islamic political movement founded in Dresden, Germany in October 2014. It is widely criticised for being a far-right organisation. In January 2015, its Chair, Lutz Bachmann resigned after coming under fire for a number of Facebook posts classified as hate speech in Germany. Bachmann was reinstated the following month. Pegida has over 180,000 supporters on Facebook. Its demonstrations are reported to draw crowds of up to 25,000 people.
The posting led to a series of criticism from journalists and Volker Beck, MP for Germany’s Green Party. The Jersulam Post reports that the DITIB has since “distanced itself” from the remarks made on its website and that the person responsible has resigned.
Source: The Jerusalem Post
Reports have emerged of an ongoing incident regarding a man who openly displayed a Holocaust-glorifying tattoo at the TURM ErlebnisCity swimming pool in Oranienburg, Germany this summer.
The man, who is reported to be in his late twenties, was topless as he bathed with his young son. A large tattoo of the gates to Auschwitz was clearly visible on his lower back. Beneath the image, in old German lettering often used by the Nazis, were the words “Jedem Das Seine” meaning “To each what they deserve”, an old German proverb that is displayed over the entrance to the Buchenwald concentration camp.
A shocked eye-witness reported the man to a member of staff, who reacted with indifference and replied that he was unable to intervene. The witness, speaking to the Berlin daily newspaper BZ, reports that this reaction shocked him further, as did the other bathers’ nonplussed attitude to the tattoo.
The witness then sought out a second member of staff, who finally ordered the tattooed man to leave the facility.
When BZ followed up the incident, Kay Duberow, director of Stadtservice Oranienburg GmbH was unable to advise what measures had been taken. When pressed further, Duberow advised that Stadtservice Oranienburg’s policy is to report all cases of displayed or suspected hate symbols to the police. In this case, the procedure had not been followed. It is not clear why.
When BZ continued their investigation later that day, a police report had still not been filed.
After further pressure from BZ, state prosecution is now conducting criminal proceedings against the man in question. A police representative confirmed to BZ that the tattoo falls under the category of hate speech and is punishable by law.
Oranienburg, where the the TURM ErlebnisCity swimming pool is located, is itself home to a former concentration camp, Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg. Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was used primarily for political prisoners from 1936 to the end of the Third Reich in May 1945.
Video has emerged of a large crowd of Dutch fans of PSV Eindhoven jumping up and down whilst chanting “If you don’t jump you’re a Jew”. The incident took place outside the Crown & Anchor pub in Manchester prior to a match between PSV Eindhoven and Manchester United. It appears that Greater Manchester Police took no action.
Sources: Mirror, Irish News
The editor of the French far-right publication Rivarol, Fabrice Bourbon, has been fined €4,000 by an appeal court for incitement to hatred against Jews. In January 2014, Rivarol published an article entitled “The unacceptable Jewish thought police”, attacking the decision of France’s Council of State to ban performances by antisemitic comic Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala.The article referred to the Council of State as “a rabbinical court” and stated that French people were living under “full Jewish tyranny”. The Court of Appeal doubled the fine originally imposed by decision of the lower court.
A Freudian slip by Gérard Araud, French Ambassador to the United States of America, has prompted outrage after he distinguished between French Jews targeted by terrorists and “ordinary citizens”. In a letter to French citizens living in the US following the terrorist attacks in Paris, Araud wrote: “These are the foundations of our model of society that the terrorists seek to destroy: Yesterday journalists and Jews; now ordinary citizens whose only crime was to enjoy life on a Friday night in Paris.”
The letter prompted disgust on social media. Ron Agam, a French-born artist living in New York, posted his outrage on Facebook: “Tonight French people in the US received a letter from the French Ambassador about the events in Paris. To my surprise I learned that I — the Jew that I am — was not a regular French citizen, I was a Jew.”
Source: Algemeiner
Berlin Meschugge, a regular party night for Berlin’s Jewish LGBT community, had its Facebook page hacked with anti-Israel messages this morning.
The page’s cover image was replaced with a “Free Palestine” banner and their profile image with a crossed-out Israeli flag. The hacker(s) then posted “Death to Israel!!!” from the account and deleted records of past events. The page has a following of over 6,000 people.
This is not the first time that hackers have targeted Jewish organisations under the guise of protesting against Israel.
Source: Berlin Meschugge
The Jewish community in Malmö, Sweden, has launched an emergency appeal for funds to secure the home of Shneur Kesselman, the last remaining rabbi in the city, which is home to some 1,500 Jews. The rabbi and his family have been targeted hundreds of times. Incidents have included being pelted with bottles and being chased down by cars, forcing the rabbi to run for his life. In spite of the danger he faces in this supposedly-tolerant European city, where antisemitic incidents are a constant occurrence, Rabbi Kesselman is determined to stay to minister to his community.
The community of Malmö and Chabad Lubavitch have launched an emergency appeal for funds to relocate Rabbi Kesselman and his family closer to the synagogue and to secure their family home. For the next four hours, a group of donors has agreed to match every donation to the emergency fund. Donations can be made here.
Celtic FC supporters angered by their one of their club’s non-executive directors’ support of the British government’s tax credit cuts have directed antisemitic abuse at him online, it has emerged.
The Glasgow club’s fans take pride in the club’s history of supporting people in poverty, and most of the anger directed toward Ian Livingston has been expressed in political terms.
But there have also been bigoted comments posted on fans’ forums, as the Conservative peer revealed yesterday in a message on one such forum. His comments came by way of explanation after club chairman Ian Bankier mentioned there had been “criminally racist” insults to Lord Livingston, a claim that caused uproar among the fans who felt Bankier was seeking to deflect criticism.
Lord Livingston, a prominent businessman and former chief executive of BT Group, wrote: “I hope you don’t mind me posting this. As the person about whom a number of abusive comments were made, I thought you might be interested in a couple of the racist ones so you can perhaps see why the chairman was upset about them. Michael Higgins: ‘Get this Ashkenazi c**t out of our club and take that other fake Jew prick Biton with him. This is typical of their sort, infiltrating and destroying every country and establishment from within.’ Or someone under the name Ross Grant saying ‘He’s a Jew what do you expect’.
“Many others were simply abusive, not, I assume, anything to do with my religion but rather because I had a different political view.
“Actually I wasn’t in agreement with the nature of the tax credit cuts but believed that this motion was not something the unelected House of Lords should do, so voted against it.
“No doubt some will disagree but you might consider the nature of expressing your view and whether abuse is also in line with your view of Celtic’s ethos. I have always believed Celtic fans are the best in the world and a few racist postings on social media will not change that.”
The Affiliation of Registered Celtic Supporters’ Clubs, Celtic Trust and the Green Brigade condemned the antisemitic abuse but rejected Bankier’s description of it as “criminally racist”, and called on him to “consider his position as chairman”.
The Berlin district of Alt-Mariendorf is seeing repeated incidents of antisemitic graffiti, reports RIAS. Anti-Jewish slogans have been appearing in the area around Alt-Mariendorf’s underground station since 24 October, including “Who is Rothschild – inform yourselves (Internet)”, and two occurrences each of “Juden rein” [sic], a Nazi phrase referring to a place from which all Jews had been forced out, and “Jews Out”.
Source: RIAS – Recherche- und Informationsstelle Antisemitismus
A report in today’s Herald reveals the fears of Jewish students at Scottish universities. Students have reportedly said that they were “hounded” for failing to attend lectures during Shabbat, and one student even told the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities (ScoJeC): “I was told by my university that either I sit exams on Shabbat or I fail.” In another case, a Jewish student said that she no longer went to the business school or library and was worried about attending classes “due to fear of being harassed or attacked.”
In a letter voicing concerns about a new definition of academic freedom, which ScoJeC worried could make it even harder to protect Jewish students’ rights, ScoJeC wrote: “It is troubling that when the Jewish Student Chaplaincy Scotland has intervened with the support of ScoJeC to assist Jewish students who find themselves subject to abuse, our concerns have been dismissed by senior university staff who appear not to recognise that there have been failures.”
ScoJeC blamed much of the intimidation of Jewish students on the tenor of political discourse about Israel, writing: “We have evidence that the manner in which some academic and research staff have expressed views about the situation in the Middle East has contributed to both Jewish and Israeli students feeling compelled to deny or hide their Jewish identity at the very time in their lives when they should have the freedom to explore it. The issue is not that some academic and research staff hold views about the situation in the Middle East — that is their right. Nor is it simply that they have expressed those views in public — what concerns us greatly is the manner in which some staff have done so.”
Universities are supposed to be places of tolerance and respect, but for Jewish students across the UK university is often not the broadening experience that it should be. Any Jewish student who voices support for Israel, where half of the world’s Jews live, is liable to face a wall of extreme, unabating hatred, which is the opposite of what university should be. The victimisation of Jewish students in this way appears to allow more traditional forms of discrimination to flourish.
Source: CFCA/The Herald
A young Jew had reportedly been beaten with sticks in Paris. According to reports, the boy was approached by a group with pro-Palestinian banners. The group are said to have shouted antisemitic slurs and beaten the boy with sticks.
Source: CFCA/Le Monde Juif
RIAS, an antisemitism watchdog based in Germany, has received a report that several members of staff at a children’s daycare centre in Tempelhof-Schöneberg, Berlin regularly make remarks, some extremist, against Jews, Muslims, Sinti and Roma.
The group of staff are alleged to have called circumcision “culturally archaic” and said that “that bunch of immigrants” should “adjust to the standards of a German kindergarten”. The staff were reported to be unmoved by the presence of swastika graffiti within the kindergarten. Antisemitic graffiti within the surrounding area is noted to be a regular occurrence.
This is the second kindergarten in Berlin reported as a site of antisemitism by RIAS in the last month.
A swastika has been found spray-painted in West Hackney Recreation Ground. Shomrim, the Jewish neighbourhood watch patrol, found the graffiti and informed local police and Hackney Council. The Council is arranging for the graffiti to be removed. The one-hectare park reopened a year ago following a £700,000 restoration programme.
Source: Shomrim
A student at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany has reported antisemitic graffiti on university property.
Posters promoting left-wing and anti-fascist causes have been daubed with slogans such as “F*** the Jews”, “Merde Juifs!”, “Jews out!!!”, “Stupid Jews” and “Hamas”.
In 1933, the university’s nationalistic German Students Association infamously transported approximately 20,000 books, deemed ‘degenerate’, from the university library and other collections to Bebelplatz, a square in front of the university, and destroyed them in a mass book burning.
According to the Guido Fawkes political blog, the Green Party’s spokesman, former Labour MP Tony Clarke, told BBC Radio 5 Live: “There are British oil companies such as Genel Energy, run by Nathaniel Rothschild, one of George Osborne’s friends, who are making money, who are buying oil from ISIS, who are putting money into the pot, allowing ISIS therefore to fuel their evil across the world.”
It is worryingly common to hear antisemitic conspiracy theorists claim that ISIS is funded by the Rothschild Jewish banking family, a shorthand reference to nefarious Jewish financial influence.
City AM has reported that the Green Party has retracted their spokesman’s statement: “The Green Party and Tony Clarke apologise to Genel Energy for this false statement, which they have withdrawn and have undertaken not to repeat. The Green Party and Tony Clarke wish to publicly retract this statement and accept it to be untrue and without foundation. Genel Energy…is not, and never has been, a purchaser of oil from anyone.”
It is clear that this apology was wrung from the Party by the possibility of action for defamation by Genel Energy.
In the run-up to this year’s general election, Green Party leader Natalie Bennett showed that she had no idea how to combat antisemitism when asked what she would do to protect British Jews. The Party has long been criticised for its failure to tackle antisemitism within its own ranks.
Source: Guido Fawkes
A Jewish man from London sent in the following report:
In October I went for a drink with a non-Jewish woman I met through the dating app, Tinder. It was a good-humoured experience until right at the end of the evening when it came up in conversation that my background is Israeli-Jewish (my mother is from Israel but I was born and raised in Britain). At that point the woman, a 29-year-old social worker and Green Party member, launched a furious personal attack on me, yelling, pointing her finger and making racist comments, including accusing me of personally of being a child killer, saying: “Israel has been grabbing land, killing innocent people, including children – and you probably did that too.” Other comments included claims about “you and your people” being responsible for various wrongdoings and “I wish I’d know this earlier”, suggesting that she racially profiles men that she dates. I explained that I felt her behaviour was prejudiced and racist, but she did not respond. I felt that one minute I was a perceived as a human being, the next I was some kind of a monster. I am a thick-skinned person, but this kind of unashamed racism left me feeling sick.
A Jewish man from London sent in the following report:
I was sitting on a bench in Victoria Park, east London today when a man approached me and gave me a flyer for the Evangelical Reformed Church in Hackney. I politely said “No thanks”; he then held the flyer towards me and invited me to attend the church, at which point I said “No thanks, I’m Jewish” since this normally makes evangelists stop. “So you’re special, then,” he replied, before claiming that all types of people attend the church. “What do you mean by ‘I’m special’?” I asked. After repeatedly avoiding the question, he replied: “You said you’re Jewish so that means you think you’re special. You set yourselves apart from other people.” I continued to press him on what he meant my that and he eventually told me: “You’re Jewish so you think that you are superior to other people.” I told him that he is a racist, to which he replied, “I’m an evangelical. I want to save souls.” He remained calm and confident during the incident which left me feeling sickened.
It has been reported that a man living in Germany, who receives mail from organisations such as the German-Israeli Society, returned home to find his post covered in Jew-hating defacement, including swastikas and the words “Filth” and “Jew”.
Source: Watch: Antisemitism in Europe
University students at Leiden University in the Netherlands have vandalised a Jewish student’s room to look like a Nazi concentration camp. The incident was reported by Volksrant to be the work of members of the university’s Minerva Society, Holland’s oldest student association.
“Arbeit macht frei”, a phrase which famously hangs on the gates to Auschwitz, was painted on a wall, barbed wire was hung from the ceiling, a swastika was attached to the wall, and mass graves were painted on the floor.
Max Grapperhaus, the head of the Minerva student association, would neither confirm nor deny reports, but did say that “whether Jewish guys live there or not, such activities are inappropriate and cannot be tolerated.”
Leiden University is reportedly considering disciplinary action, including expulsion, against the students responsible.
Video: AD.nl
Source: CFCA
A Holocaust memorial in Oviedo, Spain, has been desecrated. A plaque saying: “Never again will the barbaric acts of the Nazis be repeated” was ripped off and there were traces of paint on the plinth it had been attached too. The local Jewish community has appealed to the municipality to restore the memorial as soon as possible.
Source: CFCA
The Berlin Football Association’s judicial review has found two FC Neukölln players guilty of antisemitic conduct against the Jewish team TuS Makkabi and has issued suspensions.
The review supported the decision to suspend a match that took place on 18th October 2015, when it emerged that an FC Neukölln player was threatening to commit murder by stabbing. The review noted that the player in question was likely referring to the recent wave of stabbings against Israeli Jews when he made his threats. The review also noted that the player was wearing an “I love Palestine” t-shirt at the time of the incident. He was suspended for ten matches.
A second member of FC Neukölln has been suspended for twelve games for punching a member of TuS Makkabi. He advised the review that he recognises his misconduct and apologises. The review did not consider it relevant that the same member of the Jewish team also received a headbutt from another FC Neukölln player.
The review fined FC Neukölln, issued penalty points and ordered it to cover the costs of the hearing.
This is the second time in recent months TuS Makkabi has been on the receiving end of antisemitic attacks from opposing teams. They received antisemitic verbal abuse from a player throughout their game against BFC Meteor 06 in August. The offending player had a history of racist conduct and was suspended until 2017.
Source: Jüdische Allgemeine
A crowd of protesters in Wroclaw, Poland, have burned effigies of Jews holding EU flags. The act was committed outside City Hall and though police were present, no action was taken and no complaints have been filed. The protesters were part of a larger demonstration against immigration, particularly from Syria.
Source: Algemeiner/Wyborcza
A man wearing a kippah (Jewish skullcap) has been stabbed in Marseille by three assailants who shouted antisemitic abuse and support for ISIS. Police say the attack took place at around 20:00 local time. The victim is a 57-year-old man who was attacked outside his home near a school and synagogue complex, according to AFP.
The attackers forced their victim to look at photographs on their smartphone of Mohammed Merah, the French Islamist terrorist who went on a rampage in 2012, shooting dead three French soldiers, a Jewish teacher and three Jewish schoolchildren aged three, six and eight.
They then showed him a t-shirt with the ISIS logo and stabbed him multiple times on the arms, legs and stomach. A police patrol arrived and the attackers fled on a scooter. Their victim somehow escaped serious injury.
Last month three Jews were attacked on their way to synagogue by a man of Moroccan or Algerian descent shouting antisemitic abuse. At the time Marseille police suggested that the man was mentally disturbed but this was later refuted by one of his victims, and the court dismissed the attacker’s plea of insanity.
Source: AFP
A former member of the right-wing Independent Greeks party has asked whether thousands of French Jews moved to Israel earlier this year because they had been told of last Friday’s terror attacks in advance.
On Saturday Panos Leliatsos posted on Facebook that 9,000 French Jews moved to Israel three months ago after being summoned by the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem.
Leliatsos asked: “Does it tell you something?” (Greek: ‘σας λέει κάτι’), implying that they knew of a Jewish plot to stage the attacks and pin the blame on Muslims.
Leliatsos also posted a link to an article that actually undermined his argument: it explained that many French Jews made aliyah in the aftermath of January’s terror attack on Hypercacher, a kosher supermarket in Paris.
His comments came to light after being repeated on Greek right-wing conspiracy theory blog Anemos Anatropis.
Source: CFCA/The New Antisemite
Police report that two women, aged 21 and 36, vandalised the only synagogue in the German state of Brandenburg. According to the police report, the windows of the synagogue in Cottbus were smashed.
The alleged perpetrators are said to have first attempted an act of vandalism against the synagogue yesterday but were unsuccessful so they returned this morning. At the time of their arrest today, the women in question had blood alcohol content measuring 1.79 g/L and 1.52 g/L. Investigations into their motives are said to be “ongoing”.
Source: Märkische Allgemeine
RIAS, an antisemitism watchdog based in Germany, has released details of an antisemitic verbal attack that was directed at a person looking at a memorial to the Refugee Children Movement in the Friedrichstraße area of Berlin this summer.
The memorial commemorates the rescue effort that took place during the nine months prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, when the United Kingdom took in nearly 10,000 predominantly Jewish children from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the Free City of Danzig.
A young man passing the memorial is said to have remarked loudly, “Hitler should have finished off the job!” The woman to whom the abuse was directed replied, “Hitler should have done no such thing, you f***ing antisemite!” This left the young man and observing passers-by speechless.
A Jewish couple, Michael and Clarissa Israel, found a newly-painted swastika on a wall whilst walking in the north of London. Speaking to the Ham & High, Michael Israel said: “I have lived here for 13 years and it has never happened before. I’m just a bit shocked. Maybe it is connected to what has been going on in the last week [in Paris].”
Photo: Ham & High
Source: Ham & High
The Hungarian Academy of Arts held its plenary assembly on 5th November in Budapest. During the meeting, an activist disturbed it to protest against the academy’s policy on the distribution of funds. In footage taken during the incident, the audience starts jeering at the activist and a member of the audience clearly says: “He is a filthy Jew as well”.
Source: Origo
Translated by: Fórum az antiszemitizmus ellen
A disturbing account of comments by a kindergarten teacher has emerged from Berlin.
According to Recherche- und Informationsstelle Antisemitismus (RIAS), in a morning group that took place on 19th October 2015, a five-year-old child remarked, “My mommy says that Hitler didn’t kill all the Jews. God is helping to destroy them.”
A second child asked, “How do you know what God wants?”
In a follow-up discussion between staff at the kindergarten, one teacher reportedly remarked, “Unfortunately, Hitler didn’t finish off all the Jews.”
Source: RIAS
Recherche- und Informationsstelle Antisemitismus (RIAS), a watchdog organisation based in Germany that tracks instances of antisemitism, released details on Thursday regarding information it received earlier this year. A Holocaust survivor, based in Berlin, reports receiving antisemitic physical and verbal harassment from a group of five youths as she returned home from attending synagogue in Berlin’s Charlottenburg in April 2015.
She reports that she was travelling on the underground train system, when one of the youths said “Shabbat shalom” to her in a loud, aggressive voice. She was then pushed, shoved and stared at in a threatening manner. The group made several remarks in Arabic, which she was unable to understand. She left the train prematurely, fearing further attack.
She remarks that the atmosphere in the area surrounding her synagogue has become palpably more hostile since summer 2014.
Source: RIAS
A public hearing into the case against Imam Abdallah I. took place in Berlin’s district courts in Tiergarten on 12 November 2015. Imam Abdallah I. was found guilty of hate speech and fined €1,000 for a sermon he held at the Al-Nur mosque in Neukölln, Berlin the previous year, in which he declared that “Allah wants to kill the Zionist Jews”.
The courts have confirmed that unrest broke out in the public viewing area during the hearing. A man, who was wearing a kippah while viewing the hearing, reports being called a “Jewish pig” by another member of the public.
Source: BZ Berlin
On Friday night, a group of six football supporters, aged 18-24, sang the infamous, antisemitic “U-Bahn Lied” [Underground Song] in front of Dortmund’s main train station in Germany. The song describes building an underground train line “from Jerusalem to Auschwitz.”
Police intervened at approximately 00:30 and demanded that the group desist. The group responded negatively and were taken in for questioning. They are now facing police investigation.
One member of the group, a Dortmund local aged 24, whose blood alcohol content measured 1.7 g/L, attacked an officer. He now faces additional charges. The officer in question received injuries to his chest and arms.
Source: Der Westen
A Polish far-right group has held a demonstration in Krakow, during which crime scene outlines were drawn on the ground with a Star of David drawn on as well as pools of red paint to represent blood. The demonstrators then marched and stamped over the figures. Local police are investigating.
Photo: Wyborcza
Daniel Killy, former Executive Managing Editor of the Weser-Kurier, the only independent daily in the major German port city of Bremen, became the victim of threats and abuse for writing about Jewish issues and Israel. Soon after he joined the paper, he discovered that a Nazi-style denunciation of his life and work written by a former editor at the paper (himself the son of a Nazi) had been circulated amongst Bremen’s politicians.
According to Killy’s account, he received a letter from his Chief Executive Officer at the paper’s publisher, Bremer Tageszeitungen AG, officially forbidding him from engaging in voluntary work for the Jewish Community. In a meeting with his CEO, Killy says that he was warned: “Mr. Killy, you need to understand that we as Bremen’s monopoly paper can’t afford to be considered pro-Jewish.” When Killy responded that this explanation was perhaps seventy years too late, he said that his CEO replied: “No, no, of course I didn’t mean it like that” and assured him that there was no longer a problem.
Six weeks later he was fired.
Source: Arutz Sheva
An Austrian bed and breakfast owner in Innsbruck has been fined €50 for refusing to accommodate Jewish guests. When a Jewish guest tried to make a booking, requesting a fridge they could use for kosher food, the owner of the bed and breakfast responded that she had consulted her husband and they had decided to decline the booking due to “bad experiences” with Jewish guests.
Source: Tiroler Tageszeitung
Local police are investigating after a swastika and what appeared to be a vehicle registration number were drawn on the wall of a Jewish community centre in Leipzig, Germany.
Photo: Jüdische Allgemeine
Source: Jüdische Allgemeine
Disturbing accounts are emerging of the Kristallnacht commemoration ceremonies on 9th November in Berlin. Kristallnacht was a pogrom across Germany and Austria during which Jews were murdered and beaten up and their property destroyed. Kristallnacht is often seen as the start of the Nazis’ Final Solution, and the Holocaust.
Moabit memorials: Police report that a memorial in Moabit, Berlin, was vandalised with Holocaust denying and revisionist graffiti reading: “Ausc. .it. 1058”, “1058 is a lie and joke”, “learn the truth, read the revised lists” and “hear the truth from wherever it might come”. The memorial marks the railway station from which many of Berlin’s Jews were deported to concentration camps, and also commemorates the 36 synagogues destroyed by National Socialists. Nearby, another memorial was daubed with graffiti reading “Gas chamber liars”, “Holohoax – The Zionists Did It” and “9.11 – false flag” (a reference to the antisemitic conspiracy theory that Israel was responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks). Yet another makeshift memorial to the victims of deportation that read “They were our neighbours” was vandalised with the words “All lies!”
Abuse at Kristallnacht march: The annual antifascist demonstration commemorating Kristallnacht repeatedly suffered verbal abuse from bystanders shouting: “Freedom for Palestine” and “Free Palestine”. One demonstrator reported hearing “F***ing Jews”. A 2-litre tetra-pak carton was also thrown at the procession.
Abuse on public transport: At around 16:45 on a train, an elderly person was reported to be shouting antisemitic, revisionist harassment, about “Lies about what our fathers and forefathers are alleged to have done” and using the term “Jew” as a term of abuse.
Buildings daubed: The Marzahn-Mitte community building and two further offices in Marzahn, Berlin, whose work includes refugee support were vandalised with antisemitic graffiti, including a “J” and a Star of David.
Far-right demonstrations: Three far-right demonstrations took place in central Berlin, including one within 100 meters of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, at which the NPD’s leader Sebastian Schmidtke described 9th November, the anniversary of Kristallnacht as “The day Germans made history.” The BÄRGIDA march included a speaker describing the German government as “well poisoners”. The 120-strong procession, holding Third Reich flags. included the Rykestraße Synagogue in its route, which was looted and vandalized 74 years prior.
Photo: Moabit
Source: RIAS
Additional details: Moabit, Spreemilieu, Volkssolidarität, Berliner Register and Berlin rechtsaußen
Translation by: Chloe Zeegen
An orthodox Jewish man has been stabbed outside a kosher pizzeria in Milan. The victim was stabbed four times, including in the face, although one account said he had been stabbed ten times. Witnesses say the attacker shouted “I will kill you” twice in Italian before knocking the victim to the ground and stabbing him. A passerby intervened and in the process the attacker’s mask slipped from his face. Some accounts said that he appeared to be of Arab descent. He then fled to a car in which two men were sitting and they sped away. The victim was rushed to hospital and is reportedly in a moderate condition.
The attack took place in the Jewish Quarter of Milan. The Milanese Jewish community numbers around 7,000 people, making it the second largest in Italy after Rome. One member of the community told Le Repubblica: “We are afraid that this is an attempt to mimic the attacks in Israel” where there has been a wave of stabbings of Jews by Palestinians.
Whilst some sources named the victims as 40-year-old Nathan Graff who was visiting his father-in-law from abroad, others, including the Jewish community of Rome, said that the man was a local resident who worked in a wine shop.
We have seen other incidents of Jews being stabbed outside Israel, most recently in Marseille and New York. In Marseille, police claimed that the attack was committed by a mentally disturbed drunk man, but this was later debunked by a court which dismissed his plea of insanity.
Photo: La Repubblica
Sources: Courier della Sera, La Repubblica and Times of Israel
Corinne Sjöberg, an Israeli ex-patriot who serves on the city council of Umeå in Sweden has told Ynet that she has met Jews who converted to Christianity to avoid antisemitism. She told the story of a Jewish boy who was forced to pull down his trousers at school in order to prove he was Jewish and was seriously traumatised. Sjöberg says her own daughter was harassed by a teacher, and it took a year until he was removed from his position. Sjöberg wears a Star of David necklace and carries sanitary wipes with her because people spit at her. This week the Jewish community was not invited to Umeå’s Kristallnacht memorial due to “safety” reasons.
Photo: Ynet
Source: New Antisemite/Ynet
The monument to the synagogue in Eisenach, Germany, has been desecrated with a swastika and antisemitic graffiti. It appears that the act was committed on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, which is when the synagogue was destroyed by the Nazis.
Source: CFCA
A trustee of the Ghulam Mustafa Trust has been allowed to continue to run the charity by the Charity Commission, despite having made a home video with instructions to stop the “f***ing Jews” from “tracking every photo” on Samsung smartphones, which he posted on the charity’s Facebook page.
Following Campaign Against Antisemitism’s complaint to the Charity Commission, the Commission visited the Ghulam Mustafa Trust and established that it was indeed a trustee who had made and posted the video. In spite of the vile antisemitic myth proposed in the video, that Jews use secret microchips in Samsung smartphones to track users’ photographs, the Charity Commission merely demanded that the video be removed from Facebook and that the charity improve its bureaucracy by:
Nick Britnell, writing on behalf of the Charity Commission in an e-mail to the Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Chairman, said: “The Commission did establish that the video had been made by one of the trustees of the Charity… The Commission assessed the content of the video as ‘wholly unacceptable’”. Yet the Commission did not remove the trustee from his position on the charity, instead opting only to impose “remedial regulatory action”.
The Charity Commission will be amongst the beneficiaries of tough new counter-extremism powers proposed by the Prime Minister and Home Secretary, but Campaign Against Antisemitism has expressed concern that even existing powers are not being implemented. David Cameron has spoken about how “ideas based on conspiracy that Jews exercise malevolent power” contribute towards dangerous extremism.
Campaign Against Antisemitism has referred the Charity Commission’s decision to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, which has jurisdiction in this matter and is also discussing the incident with the police.
The local Jewish community in the Swedish town of Umeå was not invited to the official Kristallnacht commemoration due to “safety” fears according to one source. However, an organiser from the Workers’ party told Swedish news site nt.se that: “In previous years, we have had a lot of Palestinian flags at these rallies, and even one banner where the Israeli flag was equated with a swastika. The Jewish community wasn’t invited because we assumed they might be uncomfortable around that sort of thing.” Members of the Jewish community speculated that the real reason might have been that the Kristallnacht memorial was transformed into a pro-refugee event rather than a memorial. The Jewish community had to hold its own memorial separately.
Source: Ynet
London’s Jewish Free School’s website has been hacked by a group calling itself the “Tunisian Fallaga Team”. A spokesperson from the school told Jewish News: “We are grateful for the speedy response of our web support team in rectifying this and ensuring the site was back online within minutes. Unfortunately attempts such as this are commonplace for many Jewish organisations who are forced to employ actions to mitigate against such nuisances.”
Image and source: Jewish News
The Polish government has promoted Antoni Macierewicz to the post of Minister of Defence despite his claim that the infamous antisemitic forgery “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” has merit.
During a call-in show in 2002 on Radio Maryja, an antisemitic radio network, a caller asked for Macierewicz’s thoughts about the Protocols, the document circulated by the Tsarist secret police that claim there is an international Jewish conspiracy to control the world.
Macierewicz replied that he had found the Protocols “interesting” and, while acknowledging the uncertainty about its authenticity, he added: “Experience shows that there are such groups in Jewish circles.”
Macierewicz is known for his support of conspiracy theories. In 2006, he claimed six Polish foreign ministers were Soviet agents, including two Jews and a World War II Polish Underground hero. He has often propounded a theory that Russia, Germany and members of the rival Polish Civic Platform Party conspired to cause the 2010 plane crash that killed prominent Law and Justice party members including President Lech Kaczynski. Polish and Russian government investigations blame pilot error for the crash.
An Anti-Defamation League study conducted this year suggests that Poland has one of the highest levels of antisemitism in Europe, with 37 per cent of Poles holding antisemitic views.
Source: Guardian
Photo: Media Wnet
A Member of the Scottish Parliament who shared an antisemitic image on Twitter has apologised and said that she did so “in error”.
Sandra White, the Scottish National Party MSP for Glasgow Kelvin, re-tweeted to her 6000-plus followers a cartoon showing piglets suckling from a pig bearing a Star of David and the word “Rothschild”.
The piglets were drawn to represent countries and institutions including Britain, Israel, Al-Qaeda and Mossad.
The image originated from an account in the name of Charles Frith, a regular source of antisemitic tweets and images.
Ms White apologised on Monday. A Scottish National Party spokesman told the JC: “This tweet was re-tweeted in error and has been removed from Sandra White’s account. Sandra apologises for any offence caused.”
The tweet also included an image of Rupert Murdoch as a puppet-master, controlling politicians including David Cameron and Ed Miliband.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has acknowledged the Scottish Jewish community’s concerns about antisemitism and denied in September that there was an “antisemitic culture in the Scottish Parliament”.
https://twitter.com/charlesfrith/status/641159144771203072
An Israeli-Arab MK, Haneen Zoabi, who has been accused of inciting terrorist stabbings against Jews in Israel has addressed a Dutch memorial for Kristallnacht, a pogrom across Germany and Austria during which Jews were murdered and beaten up and their property destroyed. Kristallnacht is often seen as the start of the Nazis’ Final Solution, and the Holocaust.
Zoabi told the event that Israel has adopted Nazi policy.
Responding to condemnation from the Dutch Jewish community for inviting her, organiser Ron van der Wieken said: “We just think it’s time to pay attention to the Palestinians. Too bad if it is seen as a provocation. Pretty stupid too. But apparently one sees Palestinians as a category of people that you can suppress.”
Source: Het Parool
A Jewish cemetery in Hanover, Germany, has been vandalised with painted swastikas, and the windows of the small prayer room at the site have been smashed. Local police are investigating.
Photo: CFCA
Source: CFCA/Hanover Zeitung
Following the revelation that former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis was paid €24,000 by an Italian television station for a 22-minute interview, a Greek newspaper has published an antisemitic caricature depicting Varoufakis as a stereotypical Jewish money lender.
Source: CFCA
Fifteen headstones have been toppled at a Jewish cemetery in Köthen, Germany, and the cemetery’s walls have been daubed with yellow paint. The vandalism is just the latest to befall the cemetery which has been targeted in the past. The damage in this attack is estimated to cost €5,000 to repair.
Photo: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung
Source: CFCA/Mitteldeutsche Zeitung
Nine headstones have been toppled at a Jewish cemetery in Oud-Beijerland, Netherlands. Police have appealed for information.
Photo: Dutch Police
Shomrim, London’s Jewish neighbourhood watch patrol, witnessed a burglary this afternoon and called the police. Whilst assisting the victim, a passerby shouted at Shomrim’s volunteers: “F***ing Jewish scum. Why do you keep calling them [the police], because he’s Muslim?”
The “Muslim” in question was the victim, who Shomrim and the Police were assisting, not arresting. The passerby was arrested on suspicion of a racially-aggravated public order offence.
#Shomrim observed a male shouting anti-Semitic abuse in #Hackney E5. Suspect arrested by #GDERTB @MPSHackney pic.twitter.com/76KsLSYsnb
— Shomrim (Stamford Hill) (@Shomrim) November 5, 2015
A member of the public found antisemitic graffiti in Polish on a wall in Norbury, London. On one part of the wall the graffiti said “RTS Jude,” an apparent reference to RTS Widzew Łódź SA, a football club. In Poland, football-related graffiti often uses the word “Jew” as an insult. On another wall graffiti saying “RTS Łódzka kurwa” was found above a Star of David, “RTS” apparently referring to the football team, with the remainder of the text meaning “Łódź whore.”
This is the second recent incident in London of antisemitic Polish graffiti relating to the same football club.
A man and woman have dressed for Hallowe’en as Adolf Hitler and Anne Frank, complete with a bag of ashes labelled “Mom Frank”.
A most atrocious #Halloween costume I've seen. Dressing up as a person who murdered millions & showing fake ashes… pic.twitter.com/UivbGsiQfF
— Shmuli Brown (@UniRabbi) November 1, 2015
A shop in Harkány, Hungary, has been vandalised with antisemitic graffiti. Vandals smashed the windows and defaced the shop with neo-Nazi symbols.
Discussing the purchase of the headquarters of the National Amateur League, Italian football association president Carlo Tavecchio allegedly said: “Bought from that Jew, Anticoli.” He now says that he is being blackmailed and has no recollection of making the remark.
Nine graves at the Jewish cemetery in Bielsko-Biala, Poland, have been desecrated by vandals who toppled nine headstones. The graves targeted included that of prominent local architect Karol Korn, who was responsible for the design of many of Bielsko-Biala’s prominent buildings. His grave had been recently rebuilt in 2009, after the Nazis stole the original headstone during the Second World War.
Photo: TVP Katowice
Source: CFCA/Forum Żydów Polskich
A Jewish cemetery in Sfântu Gheorghe, Romania, has been vandalised. Local police have identified four youths aged 14 to 20 as suspects. The investigation continues.
Source: CFCA
Facebook user Kehlmann Hans-Jörn wrote on Freedom Party of Austria MP Susanne Winter’s Facebook page: “The Zionist money Jews are the global problem. Europe, and in particular Germany, are now getting what they deserve from Zionist Jews, particularly rich Zionist Jews in the USA, for the century-long persecution of Jews in Europe. According to the Zionists, Europe, particularly Germany, should be cut off as economic competitors to the US.”
Winter responded: “It is great. You took the words right out of my mouth. There are a lot of things that I am not allowed to write. Therefore I’m even more pleased with courageous, independent people.”
After an outcry, Winter apparently deleted the comments and posted: “For me antisemitic ideas have always been repugnant and I don’t support these ideas… I apologise for letting the statements of this visitor to remain on my page instead of immediately deleting them. Yes, that was a mistake, but every person makes mistakes.”
The far-right Austrian Unzensuriert website has claimed that “the Rothschilds”, used as a euphemism for Jewish financial power, is behind what it calls the “asylum industry”.
https://twitter.com/mikehickey88/status/660813847549317120
Theodore Herzl High School in Moldova has been defaced with a swastika and antisemitic slur. Police are investigating.
Photo: Actualitati.md
Bouts, a popular nightclub in Kensington, London has been ordered to close for two weeks following a brawl which erupted into the street after customers were subjected to antisemitic abuse.
Video footage showed between fifteen and twenty people engaged in a fight during which one person was thrown across the bonnet of a taxi with such force that it was dented, whilst an assailant shouted “f***ing Jews”. The club has reportedly told journalists that the fight began after a customer made an antisemitic remark towards a group of Jewish people and was asked to leave.
When the club reopens, it will be required to exclude anybody younger than 21 and must close by 2am every night. Six men and a woman, all aged between 18 and 21, were arrested and issued with fixed penalty notices.
Media accounts of the incident seem to indicate that racially-aggravated offences occurred, making the use of fixed penalty notices by the police inexplicably lenient.
A 28-year-old Jewish man has reportedly been subjected to antisemitic abuse and spat at whilst leaving Schönleinstraße underground station in Berlin.
Source: Berlin Hayom
A church in Wezep has been sprayed with the message “Nee AZC” meaning “No asylum-seeker centre” above the Jewish Star of David.
Vanvond info bijeenkomst AZC #Wezep in kerk Noorderlicht. Lokale 'beschaving' was vannacht alvast aan de deur. pic.twitter.com/BB7WVzz9c4
— Bert-Jan Dokter (@bjdokter) September 24, 2015
A man who shouted antisemitic abuse at passersby and distributed antisemitic flyers has been arrested. Shomrim, the Jewish neighbourhood watch patrol observed the man and followed him until police arrived to make an arrest.
Photo: Shomrim
After being hired by the Republic of Turkey to investigate the activities of the Gülen Movement, Jewish lawyer Robert Amsterdam has been targeted for antisemitic abuse by Gülenist supporters. Gülenist supporters have reportedly issued death threats to the firm. Sıddık Filiz, a Gülenist supporter, said “The money comes from the nation, while the lawyer they hired is a Jew, and their target is to close down Gülen schools”
Photo: YouTube
Labour MP Sir Gerald Kaufman has reportedly claimed that “Jewish money, Jewish donations” dictate government policy on Israel. Kaufman was speaking at a meeting of the “Palestine Return Council” which was attended by other MPs, as well as by the blogger David Collier, who has posted an account of Kaufman’s speech.
Speaking after Martin Linton MP, Kaufman is reported to have said: “It’s Jewish money, Jewish donations, to the conservative party as in the general election in May, support from the Jewish Chronicle, all of those things, bias the conservatives. There is now a big group of conservative members of Parliament, who are pro-Israel whatever government does and they are not interested in what Israel, in what the Israeli government does.”
Kaufman had reportedly begun his speech by claiming that half of the antisemitic stabbings in Israel (which has recently seen Jews stabbed, axed, run over and shot in the streets), were “fabricated”.
The globally-recognised EUMC definition of antisemitism clearly states that it is antisemitic to make “mendacious, dehumanising, demonising, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.”
Campaign Against Antisemitism has issued a call to action.
Police in Birmingham are treating as a hate crime the discovery of “a number of antisemitic posters” including one of Adolf Hitler captioned “Hitler was right” at the University of Birmingham.
The posters were discovered by Students’ Guild Education Officer Izzy Lenga who tweeted: “For those who don’t think antisemitism is a serious issue, these were plastered over campus on Tues”.
We immediately contacted the police who have confirmed that they have now removed a number of antisemitic posters found on campus at the University of Birmingham. This is a worrying and disturbing thing to see at a British university at a time when the number of recorded antisemitic incidents is rising, and when Jewish people are actively being targeted and killed in Europe and beyond. We have heard from a Jewish student organisation that they’ve had students express their discomfort and alarm at seeing a poster of Hitler suggesting support for Nazism. The reaction of the police and university must be serious and tough in order to reassure Jews and non-Jews alike that this will not be tolerated. The perpetrators of his hate crime must be found and brought to justice with zero tolerance.
West Midlands Police told Campaign Against Antisemitism that the posters have now been removed and will be forensically examined to try and identify who was responsible. Officers will also be trawling CCTV and speaking to students and staff from the university as part of their investigation.
Sergeant David Cotter from West Midlands Police told Campaign Against Antisemitism: “We take reports of hate crime extremely seriously and are working closely with the university to make it a safe place for everyone who works and studies there. This kind of behaviour is offensive and completely unacceptable and our investigation to identify those responsible is already progressing.”
Deborah Walker, Head of Communications at the University of Birmingham told Campaign Against Antisemitism: “We unreservedly condemn racist graffiti on campus. We have reported the matter to West Midlands Police and are working with them to identify those involved. Our University is a community of 150 nations and we are proud to be situated in a vibrant multi-cultural city. Discrimination of any kind will not be tolerated. We are therefore actively working with a range of groups to bring people together and ensure that our university is a place where diversity is celebrated and everyone plays their part in creating a vibrant and welcoming community.”
If anyone has any information about who is responsible for the posters they should call Sergeant Cotter from Birmingham South Police on 101.
And for those who dont think anti Semitism is a serious issue, these were plastered over campus on Tues #NUSzones15 pic.twitter.com/TTcGuplNiN
— Izzy Lenga (@izzyjengalenga) October 29, 2015
Fans at a football match in the Netherlands have reportedly sung antisemitic slurs at their opponents and one fan allegedly held up a sign saying “JHK” meaning “Joden hebben kanker” meaning “Jews have cancer”, a common Dutch antisemitic insult. The Vitesse football club has condemned the sign and promised to investigate.
JHK op tribune van Vitesse. Niet duidelijk op foto. Stijlvol Vitesse #vitaja pic.twitter.com/qpaMn6NuHI
— MENSUS🤺 (@mensus) October 25, 2015
A player for Askö Wölfnitz has drawn the number 88 on each sock. The number is commonly used by neo-Nazis to mean “Heil Hitler”, as the letter ‘H’ is the eighth letter of the alphabet, so 88 means “HH” or “Heil Hitler”. The player is reported to have said that it is a Chinese lucky number. However other reports say that he beat his chest with his fist and then raised his arm in a Nazi salute. Austrian football bodies are considering the case.
Photo: Peter Rustia/Kleine Zeitung
A non-Jewish man has been punched in the face at the Hallesches Tor stop on the Berlin underground after answering “yes” to a stranger who demanded to know whether he was Jewish. Police are investigating. The man was left bruised but refused medical treatment.
Update: The victim was a man, not a woman. Thanks to Chloe for improving our German translation skills!
A swastika has been scrawled on the memorial plaque commemorating the spot where a synagogue once stood. The swastika clearly visible despite an attempt to remove it.
A swastika and the German words for “Jews are” have been found written on the wall of a Budapest apartment building. It appears that the vandal was interrupted before the sentence was finished.
Photo: Forum Against Antisemitism
An intern at the French consulate in New York has been dismissed after her online tirade against Jewish people came to light. Writing on Facebook, Amira Jumaa had said of the brutal stabbing of Jews in Israel: “Yes you Jews deserve these lessons,” continuing: “You don’t belong anywhere in this world — that‘s why you guys are scums and rats and discriminated against wherever you are.” When another Facebook user remonstrated with her, she retorted: “First of all you dispersed rat, I am not an immigrant from France. I am from Kuwait so my country can buy you and your parents and put you in ovens,” presumably referring to the crematoria used by the Nazis to dispose of the corpses of Jews murdered in the concentration camps. Jumaa’s university, Sciences Po in Paris, has yet to comment.
Residents of Heathland Road in London’s Stamford Hill neighbourhood have found graffiti threatening “Death to da Jew”. Police are investigating at the behest of Shomrim, the Jewish neighbourhood watch patrol.
#StamfordHill residents shocked to find #AntiSemitic graffiti on Heathland Road #N16. @MPSHackney investigating pic.twitter.com/qHte5IRCQi
— Shomrim (Stamford Hill) (@Shomrim) October 27, 2015
Local paper Ham & High has published a letter by John McPartin demanding that the UK Jewish Film Festival not be permitted in the borough. Writing in response to an article in the paper about the UK Jewish Film Festival, McPartin refers to the festival as the “Israeli Film Festival” possibly because he is confused, or perhaps because he wants to make the bigoted suggestion of banning a Jewish cultural event seem more acceptable. If you would like to respond with your own letter, please send it to [email protected].
Hat tip: North London Friends of Israel and Mandy Blumenthal
According to witness testimony, there was a history of antisemitism at a school which was at the centre of the Trojan Horse affair, a scandal in which the staff at a number of British schools was infiltrated by Islamic extremists. Speaking to a disciplinary hearing for the teachers involved, a woman identified only as “Witness A” reportedly said that she had “heard both pupils and staff use antisemitic language”.
Speaking by video link, the witness clarified: “For example, pupils would say to staff or other pupils ‘you Jew boy’, which was considered a derogatory term. At that time Lindsey [Clark, the former headteacher] had heard about a member of staff calling a pupil a ‘Jew boy’ and around the same time she had become aware of an increase in antisemitic graffiti in pupils’ books.”
The antisemitism at Rockwood Academy, then called Park View School, was not addressed, according to the witness.
Photo: Google
Three Jews, including a rabbi, have been attacked on their way to synagogue in Marseille, France. A woman in her fifties was reportedly seriously injured after being stabbed twice in the stomach, although her injuries are said not to be life-threatening.
The attack took place yesterday morning at 07:30 as the rabbi and two congregants walked to their synagogue. They came under attack by a knife-wielding man who was reportedly shouting antisemitic abuse and heavily drunk. The woman was stabbed twice before one of the other congregants apparently rushed to defend her, suffering a knife wound himself.
The victims reportedly fled to another nearby synagogue where they were protected by the synagogue’s security team.
When local police arrived, the attacker, described as being of Moroccan or Algerian descent, continued to shout antisemitic abuse at the officers. The attacker was reportedly already known to the police as he is said to have a history of mental illness and violence.
The French National Bureau for Vigilance Against Antisemitism (BNVCA) has voiced concern that the antisemitic stabbing of Jews in Israel may encourage similar attacks against Jews outside Israel. The BNVCA repeated its warning in the wake of the attack.
A “Refugees welcome” sticker at Potsdam University has been defaced with a scrawl saying “alle außen juden”, meaning “all except Jews”.
Photo: Documenting Antisemitism
Headstones at the Jewish cemetery in Šafov, Czech Republic, have been knocked over in an all-too-familiar graveyard vandalisation.
Photo: Deník
The main Jewish cemetery in Athens has been desecrated with swastikas neo-Nazi graffiti. One of the cemetery’s walls was sprayed with “F*** Jews” and a swastika. Another was sprayed with a swastika, the German word “Raus” (get out), and the letters “C18”. C18 is neo-Nazi group Combat 18, the one and the eight referring to the first and eighth letters of the alphabet, Adolf Hitler’s initials. Combat 18 Hellas posted pictures on their website and claimed responsibility for what it called the “beautiful artistic intervention at the Jewish cemetery.”
Photo: Ενάντια στον αντισημιτισμό
Memorial stones set into the pavement in Dresden, Germany, have been gouged out. The stones commemorated Jewish victims of the Nazis.
Photo: Dresden Fernsehen
Four men described as being of “Asian” appearance have been arrested in London after chasing Jewish pedestrians, shouting abuse at them about Palestinians and kicking one of them. Shomrim, the Jewish neighbourhood watch patrol, followed the men and called the police, who came and arrested them.
A man who shouted “Hitler is going to kill you all Jews” whilst pointing to a tattoo of a Nazi eagle on his chest has been arrested in north London. His outburst was witnessed by volunteers from the Shomrim Jewish neighbourhood watch patrol who called police to arrest him.
Maltese Social Solidarity Minister Michael Farrugia said that “everyone has the right to their personal opinion” after an adviser, Charlie Azzopardi, wrote on his personal Facebook page: “The Jews are the real terrorists. Wherever they go, there is bloodshed and war”. Columnist Mark-Anthony Falzon filed a complaint with the National Commission for the Promotion of Equality, saying that Azzopardi’s comments were irreconcilable with the brief of the Social Solidarity Ministry: “Azzopardi’s role as consultant to the ministry is no longer tenable and I call on the minister to sack him.”
Photo: YouTube
Graves in the Jewish cemetery of Hohenems have been vandalised with swastikas. Local police are investigating.
Councillor Janusz Kapuscinski contributed a joke to a discussion about naming a road to a waste incinerator, suggesting that it be named after Oświęcim, the town where Auschwitz was built. The disgusting joke reportedly met with laughter and approval.
Kensington and Chelsea councillor Benazir Lasharie has been suspended from the Labour party after an online rant in which she reportedly posted a video entitled: “ISIS: Israeli Secret Intelligence Service”. She commented on the social network saying: “Many people know about who was behind 9/11 and also who is behind ISIS. I’ve nothing against Jews..just sharing it.” She then added “I’ve heard some compelling evidence about ISIS being originated from Zionists!”
Dimitri’s Giannakopoulos, the president of the Hellenic Association of Pharmaceutical Companies, told the Greek Parliament that 11,000 Greek jobs would be lost if a bill opening the country up to inexpensive generic pharmaceuticals was passed. He claimed that the bill had been brought into existence through the efforts of Jewish pressure groups seeking to further the interests of Israeli pharmaceutical companies. Nikos Nikolopoulos, an MP from the Independent Greeks party echoed the accusation.
A London man has allegedly been subjected to a tirade of abuse by a neighbour, who called him a “f***ing Jewish c***”. The incident has been reported to the police.
A demonstrator against Israel in London prepared her own placard proposing that “Thieving, murdering ‘Israelis’ go home to Poland, Germany, USA”.
Photo: Eylon Aslan-Levy
https://twitter.com/EylonALevy/status/655392223903797248
Facebook user “Gucci Khan” posted a video complaining about perceived injustices in Israel, ranting: “When is the day going to come when someone is going to do something about Israel, because what I think: you should kick them back into Germany and see what happens over there, because you know what Hitler did”
Watch the extract below or click for the full video
Yesterday evening I attended the Zionist Federation demonstration at the Palestinian mission in London to protest the incitement to violence and murder against Israelis and to express solidarity with Israel at this difficult time. I posted tweets from the event and have received a number of antisemitic tweets in response.
@davidberens @ZionistFed go back to your Russia and Europe and get scattered around earth corrupting everything around you like you should
— Dead at Night (@_deadchicken) October 13, 2015
A French Jewish professor has been assaulted and issued with a death threat outside his home in the suburbs of Paris. Samuel Mayol, the director of a technical university was attacked whilst walking his dog on the evening of 9th October. A man approached and hit Mayol’s head against a wall three times causing concussion and cuts, telling Mayol that he will be killed. The attack appears to be the latest act in a campaign of intimidation targeting Mayol.
An Eastern European man shouted “You f***ing Jewish c***s” at Jewish passersby in north London and was followed by volunteers from Shomrim, the Jewish neighbourhood watch patrol until police arrested him.
Two women were subjected to antisemitic abuse and threats in a London street. Shomrim, the Jewish neighbourhood watch patrol, responded to the incident and police are now understood to be investigating.
A group described as “young Asian men” in a car in north London shouted antisemitic abuse at the driver of a school bus whilst children were on board. Shomrim, the Jewish neighbourhood watch patrol, responded to the incident and police are now understood to be investigating.
British Transport Police have issued CCTV images showing five men sought for questioning following antisemitic chanting on a train travelling between Watford Junction and Milton Keynes.
PC Michael Botterill said in a statement: “A man, who boarded the train at Watford Junction, took his seat in the first class carriage. A group of West Ham fans were already seated and, as the train pulled away, they began to sing antisemitic songs. The man, quite rightly, took offence to these vile songs and challenged the group over their language. However, they refused to stop and continued with their chanting.”
Police received reports from several other witnesses to the behaviour of the men, who are believed to have left the train at Northampton. The train was the 19:03 service from Watford Junction to Birmingham New Street on Saturday 15th August, the day West Ham played Leicester City at Upton Park.
PC Botterill continued: “This sort of casual racism has gone unchallenged for too long. We know the vast majority of football fans are decent people, but for those who continue to make life unpleasant for the travelling public, our message is clear: we will not tolerate your yobbish behaviour. I think the men in the pictures we are issuing today, have information about this incident. Please let us know who they are.”
Do you recognise these men? If so, please contact British Transport Police on 0800 40 50 40, or text 61016, quoting reference MSUB/B4 of 12/10/2015. Information can also be passed anonymously to the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
Shomrim, the Jewish neighbourhood watch patrol has reported that a man shouted “We need to kill all the Jews” at a Jewish man leaving a synagogue in a London neighbourhood with a large Jewish population. He then broke the man’s car window.
A man has been arrested after Jewish neighbourhood patrol group Shomrim saw him shouting antisemitic abuse at passersby, including children. At one point he shouted “Kill the f***ing Jews”. Shomrim volunteers followed him until police officers arrived to arrest him.
Jewish delegates to the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester have reportedly been subjected to antisemitic abuse by anti-Conservative protesters. Stephen Woods, Chairman of the Conservative Sale East and Wythenshawe Association, told the Jewish News: “The abuse we had to endure was despicable, with a number of protestors screaming ‘Jewish Tory scum, get back to Auschwitz.’ I have never heard such vile language. The whole incident left us all shaken up.” The Conservative Party is also known as the “Tory” party.
Graffiti praising a far-right Swedish party has been discovered in Stockholm. The graffiti was sprayed on Fruängens library and included a swastika and the German phrase “Juden raus”, meaning “Jews out”.
Photo: Stockholm Direkt
Fans of FSV Union Fürstenwalde reportedly started shouting “Jew Berlin” at a rival club which they had just beaten in a match. One account of the incident said that fans also abused a member of staff, shouting “You Jew”.
A man has assaulted a girl at a youth centre’s Oktoberfest celebration in Adelsberg. As a group of five or six children standing by the bratwurst stand introduced themselves to each other, a 31-year-old man standing nearby aggressively approached them. He grabbed a 16-year-old girl by the hair and asked what the origin of her name was, shouting “You Jew!” Witnesses restrained the man so that the girl could escape. She has now filed a police report.
Photo: Google
The Hungarian Free Press reports that Géza Szőcs, a Romanian poet appointed Hungary’s Secretary of State for Culture in 2010, has spoken at Göteborg Book Fair. The HFP article said that a small protest was held at the book fair over Szőcs’s past promotion of antisemitic writers and a fellow panellist voiced her dismay at having to share a platform with Szőcs.
As Hungarian Secretary of State for Culture, HFP said that Szőcs made antisemitic writers part of the required public school curriculum. He reportedly visited and praised Albert Wass, a convicted Nazi war criminal whose writings included a short story in which Jews were portrayed as a plague of rats invading the home of a good farmer.
Szőcs also apparently participated in attempts to rebury Hungarian fascist ideologue József Nyirő who called for Hungary to be “cleansed of Jewish and cosmopolitan influences.” The attendance of top Hungarian politicians at a ceremony for Nyirő prompted Elie Wiesel to return an award he had been given by the Hungarian government.
In yet another arson attack on Jewish sites in Ukraine, arsonists set fire to a prayer room at a Jewish cemetery in Colomye, Prykarpattia. Police were first on the scene and extinguished the fire. The local Jewish community has offered a reward for information leading to an arrest.
Arsenal fans at a football match against Tottenham Hotspur played at White Hart Lane reportedly chanted “Back to Auschwitz you go” in the middle of a police escort. Whilst the police have reportedly taken action against vandals at the match, no action has apparently been taken against the “handful” of fans chanting antisemitic abuse.
About a dozen Arsenal fans singing about Auschwitz bang in the middle of police escort. Police ignore it… @metpoliceuk @kickitout
— James Maw (@JamesTMaw) September 23, 2015
A Greek minister, Dimitris Kammenos, has been forced to resign hours after being appointed. The announcement that the Independent Greeks party member would join the government sparked an outcry over antisemitic tweets sent from his official Twitter account, which has now been closed. One tweet on the anniversary of 9/11 said “And let’s not forget that among the 2,500 Jews working at the Twin Towers not one went to work that day.” Kammenos has also been accused of denigrating the Holocaust by comparing the EU to the Nazis on several occasions and claiming that Greece was going through an “economic Holocaust”.
An antisemitic letter was sent to the Institute for Jewish Adult Education in Vienna calling for the reopening of the gas chambers. Many of the six million European Jews murdered by the Nazis were killed using gas.
Photo: Forum gegen Antisemitismus
Munich’s famous Haus der Kunst has been defaced with swastikas and other antisemitic graffiti. The graffiti was included four swastikas scrawled at the entrance as the gallery was opening an exhibition critical of Nazi-era art and examining the building’s own origins as part of the Nazi propaganda machine.
The official programme for the BBC’s flagship Proms summer music festival contained an antisemitic caricature.
Leopold Auer was a famous Hungarian Jewish violinist to whom numerous pieces of music were dedicated, including a piece by Tchaikovsky. The BBC Proms programme included Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto and to illustrate it, the BBC used a caricature of Auer — Tchaikovsky dedicated his Violin Concerto to Auer but changed it to Brodsky after Auer suggested revisions. The caricature featured Auer as a ghoulish figure with an enormous hooked nose.
The caricature used may well have been licensed from the Lebrecht Library, which lists the drawing as an “antisemitic caricature”. If the BBC did indeed purchase the rights to use the image from the Lebrecht collection, it is hard to imagine that they could have missed the description of the caricature.
In response to Twitter users who demanded answers, the BBC said: “We use a range of caricatures and illustrations in our concert programmes and wanted one of Leopold Auer. We’re sorry to anyone who was offended by the image choice — this was never our intention.”
Campaign Against Antisemitism has issued a call to action.
A room for changing babies’ nappies in a remote village on the outskirts of Lynton, Devonshire has reportedly been “covered” with antisemitic graffiti for the third time in two years. The graffiti included swastikas and slogans such as “No Jews on the moor”. Local police have appealed for witnesses.
Photo: North Devon Journal
Jewish cultural festival posters in Budapest have been defaced with “Go to the gas chambers” and other antisemitic slogans. Every face shown on the posters was marked with a swastika.
A man has reportedly been detailed by police after executing a Nazi salute and shouting “Sieg Heil” outside the Budapest Great Synagogue.
Residents of the French city of Perpignan have launched a legal bid to block the construction of a new synagogue. The residents are objecting on various grounds, including that the synagogue is likely to be a target for terrorists and therefore a risk to the area. The old synagogue had become dilapidated and the Jewish community hopes to build a new, more secure synagogue closer to the city centre.
Photo: Michel Clementz
Antisemitic vandals targeted the menorah at Babyn Yar, the site the Nazis murdered over 33,000 in 1941 Jews. This is the sixth such attack on the site, taking place on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.
Tyres were placed around the monument, doused with an inflammable substance and set alight. The flames were noticed and put out by the guard watching over the Ukrainian Orthodox Church nearby.
Photo: Euro-Asian Jewish Congress
Several dozen far-right Ukrainians stormed a tent encampment of ultra-Orthodox Jewish visitors in Uman, Ukraine over the weekend, destroying equipment and dismantling parts of the camp. A police force was dispatched to the area, but according to witnesses, the officers failed to intervene.
“On Shabbat, when they knew we wouldn’t be able to respond or activate the communication device, they simply knocked down the fence, pushed the light poles and security cameras and caused damage estimated at half a million dollars,” Eliezer Kirshboim, chairman and director of the Jewish association in Uman told Yedioth Ahronoth. “We are approaching the High Holidays, and this disrupts all our work arrangements.”
Photo: Russia Today
A textbook for children in the final stage of their school education before university makes various claims that the publishers have refused to correct. ThiemeMeulenhoff’s textbook entitled “Theme Workbook – The Middle East” contains assertions that:
“The British government was in urgent need of money during World War I…Jewish bankers were prepared to offer favourable loan terms if the government made a gesture toward the Jewish People.”
The publisher has refused to change this passage and various others.
Photo: Carolyn Yeager
An anti-Israel demonstration outside Downing Street on Wednesday predictably degenerated as antisemitic slurs were hurled at a mostly Jewish crowd gathered to honour the Israeli Prime Minister’s visit. Police made seven arrests but this lady went unpunished for calling for the annihilation of six million Jews. Sussex Friends of Israel identified her as Pamela Hardyment who is a well-known face at anti-Israel demonstrations.
Video: Israel Advocacy Movement
A young Parisian named only as Ruben has been beaten up by a gang of three men in the Montreuil neighbourhood of Paris.
According to BNVCA, the French national antisemitism helpline, Ruben was at Robespierre Métro station at 17:00 on Tuesday when he was accosted by a tall man aged 25-30 of African ethnicity.
The man asked Ruben for a lighter and to state his religion. Out of fear, Ruben said he was a Moroccan Muslim, but the man punched him in the face, saying “No, you’re not Muslim. Everyone from Mayer [a local vocational school] is Jewish. You’re nothing but a dirty Jew.”
The man was then joined by two other men of African ethnicity, their identities concealed by hoods. Ruben was left with bruises over his face and body requiring hospital treatment.
An anti-Israel demonstration outside Downing Street today predictably degenerated as antisemitic slurs were hurled at a mostly Jewish crowd gathered to honour the Israeli Prime Minister’s visit. Police made at least one arrest and took away this man who made antisemitic comments.
Video: Zionist Federation
A teenager in Bilbao has been assaulted by neo-Nazis on his way home. The neo-Nazis carved a swastika into his arm and the number 88, used by far-right groups as a code for “Heil Hitler”, the letter ‘h’ being the eighth letter of the alphabet. The thugs then viciously beat the teenager.
The local political party’s spokesman said: “We are facing a serious incident which has caused alarm among neighbours. We are witnessing an increase in activity from a far-right cell which has been spreading hate and fear in the area.” Local police have questioned a man identified by the victim.
John Dillon, a council worker in Dublin has admitted sending ten antisemitic e-mails to former Irish Justice Minister Alan Shatter over a five week period. In the e-mails, Dillon called Shatter a “perfidious Jew” and “Yiddish whore”, telling him to “f*** off back to the West Bank Zionist a**hole”.
Shatter said of the e-mails: “I got them because I am Jewish, no matter how much of a hard neck you have, persistence of that nature is upsetting and distressing…For any Jewish person to receive this is upsetting, when it’s persistent and ongoing you don’t know what the next step is going to be for this person.”
At the time of his arrest, Dillon claimed that he was exercising his right to free speech and that it was a “political matter” but he has since apologised for the messages, saying he sent them because he was “depressed”.
Photo: Irish Sun
@Dannythefink we are living under a satanic/freemason/ashkeni jewish/illuminati elite ruling system as well u know
— alex petriou (@alexspex) April 16, 2015
The Nirvana beauty product stall in West 12 Shopping Centre decorated its signage with a swastika inside a Star of David. The sign was removed following a complaint by Campaign Against Antisemitism. There has been no explanation from the stall’s management.
Four Jewish boys aged 17, 18, 18 and 20 have reportedly been badly beaten in an antisemitic attack at a tram stop in Manchester. The four Jewish boys were approached by three thugs who started verbally and physically assaulting them on Saturday night at around 23:30. The worst affected was the youngest boy, who was knocked unconscious and has been hospitalised with suspected bleeding to his brain.
Greater Manchester Police are treating the incident as an antisemitic hate crime and seeking suspects for grievous bodily harm with intent. Forensics teams remained at the site until Monday morning.
Anyone with information should contact Greater Manchester Police on 101 or Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555111.
Samuel and Diana Blog, an elderly couple who survived the Holocaust were badly beaten during an antisemitic burglary at their home in Amsterdam. Two men, described as middle-aged and of Moroccan descent, entered their home posing as policemen. They shouted: “Dirty Jews, from now on your property is ours.” They brutally beat the elderly couple, tied them up and drugged Diana. Diana’s father was a diamond cutter who had left her a collection of jewellery. The thieves took all of it at gunpoint, threatening to cut off Diana’s fingers when she struggled to remove her rings. The men told Diana: “You dirty Jews. You shouldn’t wear it. You’ve worn it for too long already, now it’s ours.” After they had robbed the couple, the thieves continued to beat them.
Diana, who survived the Auschwitz concentration camp said it was worse than the beatings she received from the Nazis. The couple had been living independently before the attack, but now Diana says she endures crippling pain, and Samuel was blinded. “Those bastards have destroyed our lives,” Samuel said. “I have severe pain. I’m completely broken inside,” Diana added. They will now spend the remainder of their lives wheelchair-bound in hospital.
Their son, Emanuel, is sure that his parents were targeted due to their religion because their home has a large mezuzah on the door, and the attackers continued to beat his parents even after they had stolen everything. He has offered a €12,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.
A Jewish man wearing a kippah (Jewish skullcap) was hurrying down the road in Edgware. Someone doing their gardening called out “Late for the showers?” and laughed. During the Holocaust, Jews were murdered in gas chambers at concentration camps in rooms that had been made to look like communal showers.
The president of an EU labour movement has reportedly been named in a complaint to police following an antisemitic assault at a café near EU headquarters in Brussels. According to the complaint, the EU official, Stefan Gersh, was holding a metal plaque bearing the name “Mussolini”. Another EU official — who is not Jewish — confronted him, saying that Mussolini was “still a dictator”. Gersh allegedly then said: “Dirty Jewess … Hitler should have exterminated all Jews, just like Jews today are exterminating Palestinians.” It is alleged that Gersh then hit her with the plaque, and when others at the café interceded he shouted: “All you Jews should have been killed.”
Norwegian bank DNB issued a credit card featuring the centuries-old antisemitic caricature of a hook-nosed Jew, wearing a kippah and a prayer shawl, rejoicing against the backdrop of gold coins, symbolising obsession with money. Following a complaint, the bank issued an apology: “We have been notified about a picture of a Visa card issued by us, with an anti-Semitic drawing of a Jew and found out that this was produced due to a system we have where clients can upload their own pictures and get them printed on their card. We have, however, strict guidelines for what kind of pictures that are allowed, and this control is manual. Unfortunately, our manual controls have failed in this particular case, and we are deeply sorry for that. This card should never have been printed. We will contact the client, block the card and issue a new neutral card to the customer. Please note that this is not a mass produced card, and the picture has been deleted from our system. We are very sorry for this, and hope you can convey our answer if you get questions about this.”
Channel 5 has announced the participation of Nazi sympathiser in its latest series of Big Brother. “Tila Tequila” (real name Thien Thanh Thi Nguyen) claims to be “Hitler Reborn” and is a virulent antisemite. She has written a blog entitled: “Why I Sympathize With Hitler Part 1: True History Unveiled” and posted a picture of herself on Facebook holding a gun, wearing a swastika armband and Nazi uniform hat, standing in front of Auschwitz concentration camp. Campaign Against Antisemitism has launched a petition to have her removed from Big Brother and has written about her history of antisemitism.
Dutch paper De Telegraaf reported that a man has offered €10,000 to anyone willing to kill his Jewish neighbour. Dutch police are investigating as the threat reportedly follows a series of antisemitic posts made by the man in connection with a longstanding quarrel with Gabriela Hirschberg. His Facebook followers are quoted as having offered to find a “final solution” in reference to the Nazi term for the extermination of European Jews.
Spanish state radio broadcast a programme called “From the Inferno — The Jewish People: Propagator of the Satan Cult”. The show was more than 30 minutes long and was dedcated to antisemitic conspiracy myths. Presenters quoted from the 1962 book “Plot Against the Church” which linked demonology and the Satanic cult to Jews.
Twitter user Susan John-Richards claims that “Zionists created Hitler and decades after you still use him”. Her Twitter profile says “Who are the real planners behind our puppet politicians in this world? They Take our votes and serve their lords!!” In 2010 Susan John-Richards stood as an independent councillor for Tooting after leaving the Conservative Party in 2009.
https://twitter.com/SJRTooting/status/636031675860975616
RIAS have received a report that a man was seen urinating against a Holocaust memorial in Berlin, Germany, over the summer.
The man, said to be white, in his 30s, with short, shaved hair, was seen desecrating the memorial on a busy street, during the day.
The Deportationsmahnmal Putlitzbrücke memorial, commemorates the site of a train station in Moabit, where over 32,000 Jews were transported from Berlin to concentration camps during the Holocaust.
Since its unveiling in 1987, the monument has been subjected to repeated acts of vandalism. In 1992, it was badly damaged in an explosives attack and had to be rebuilt.
Source: Recherche- und Informationsstelle Antisemitismus, Wikipedia