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Teacher in Argentine Catholic school told students that “Hitler did some good”, blamed Jews for Holocaust

Denise Yanet Evequoz, a History teacher at a Catholic school in Buenos Aires, Argentina, allegedly taught her students that Hitler “did some good”, whilst spreading antisemitic canards to her students, ultimately blaming Jews for the Holocaust.

Evequoz teaches at the Jesus Maestro High School in Castelar in Western Buenos Aires.

“Jews took advantage of the people who needed money, they loaned the money and then they chased them to get their money back, always with interest. They had the money but they did not help Germany improve. They did not help the people to generate employment nor to create industries. This generated a certain hatred towards Jews” she taught in a lesson in 2015, audio of which has just been released.

“Hitler was demonized, treated like a demon, a kind of anti-Christ, but it was not so … He did good things, such as developing the transport industry, which was destroyed by war, restored employment and took Germany out of hunger”, she continued.

The Holocaust Museum of Buenos Aires released a statement in which it says that Evequoz “reproduces anti-Jewish prejudices, vindicates the figure of Hitler and the Nazi regime, and denies his criminal, totalitarian, and genocidal character”, urging the school to discipline her. She has been suspended, but it is not clear whether this is a permanent measure. She has also been reported to the Department of Education.

Evoquoz has refused to apologise for her comments.

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Neo-Nazi recruiting posters found near University of Omaha Nebraska, as neo-Nazi groups increasingly seek to recruit students

Antisemitic posters seemingly recruiting for neo-Nazi groups have been found near the University of Omaha Nebraska campus.

The posters, which urge the public to join a “Stormer book club” feature antisemitic caricatures of Jews, ask “why are Jews after our guns?” and show the Nazi “Jude” Star of David badge which was used to identify Jews during the Third Reich and the Holocaust alongside the name of prominent left wing Jewish politicians.

One of the posters also blamed Jews for “degeneracy”, 9-11, “white genocide” and mass immigration.

The name “Stormer book club” seems to be a reference to the Daily Stormer, a notorious neo-Nazi publication.

Last week we reported that neo-Nazi posters had been found at Duke University. Recruiting students has become an increasing priority for neo-Nazis across developed countries. Last year we reported similar tactics from Atomwaffen Division, one of whose members was caught allegedly in the preparatory stages of crafting a bomb with which he planned to carry out a terrorist attack.

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Syracuse fraternity suspended after members filmed pledging their hatred for Jewish, black and hispanic people

Syracuse University has suspended an engineering fraternity after shocking video emerged of members pledging their hatred for various ethnic minorities, with the University’s chancellor commenting that the behaviour displayed was “extremely racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, sexist, and hostile to people with disabilities”.

The fraternity, Theta Tau, was banned following protests by other students on Wednesday.

The video shows an initiation ceremony in which an initiate states “I solemnly swear to always have hatred in my heart” for “n****rs”, “k*kes” and “sp*cs” after having shouted “f*ck black people”.

The fraternity has claimed that it was merely a “satirical sketch”, commenting that it was intended to be satirical “of an uneducated, racist, homophobic, misogynist, sexist, ableist and intolerant person. The young man playing the part of this character nor the young man being roasted do not hold any of the horrible views espoused as a part of that sketch”, yet the video shows the crowd in riotous laughter, clearly enjoying the open expression of these despicable views.

The University is considering its legal and disciplinary options against those involved.

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Landmark bill to combat campus antisemitism passes in South Carolina

The South Carolina state legislature has passed a landmark bill designed to combat antisemitism on college campuses.

The legislation was approved on Friday by 37 votes to 4, having passed through the House of Representatives last month. Governor Henry McMaster has been supportive of the law, and has already committed himself to signing it.

Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law director for legal initiatives, Aviva Vogelstein, commented that “there has been an alarming increase in antisemitism nationwide, and particularly on our nation’s college campuses. This bill gives South Carolina the tools to protect Jewish students’ and all South Carolina students’ right to a learning environment free of unlawful discrimination. Just as two dozen states followed South Carolina’s lead on legislation condemning the movement to boycott certain countries, we are hoping this momentous step will result in another national wave to, once and for all, begin defeating rising antisemitism”.

The Bill incorporates the International Definition of Antisemitism into decision-making processes in Universities, and requires panels hearing complaints of antisemitism to take the International Definition into account when coming to a decision, an absolutely vital step in ensuring that institutions are properly equipped for dealing with the contemporary manifestations of antisemitism.

Against the backdrop of increasing antisemitism in Universities across the western world, measures like this are to be welcomed, both as a sign that those in power are serious about tackling the scourge of antisemitism, and as a genuine, practical measure that will ensure that fewer antisemites escape justice for a lack of correct procedures for identifying antisemitism.

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Trend continues of German Jewish students being bullied out of state schools

Yet another Jewish student at a Berlin school has been left traumatised after antisemitic bullying.

A primary school student at the Paul-Simmel-Grundschule was told by a classmate that she should be beaten and killed after she revealed the fact that she is Jewish, her father said.

“Our daughter was accosted by Muslim students because she does not believe in Allah” he said, before describing how she was surrounded by a group of Muslim students who chanted “Jew” at her.

These incidents reportedly form a pattern of antisemitic bullying which has seen her threatened on several previous occasions.

Josef Schuster, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said “if Jewish students can no longer go to school without fear of antisemitic abuse, there’s something wrong in this country”.

Last July we reported that teachers in Germany are increasingly concerned about antisemitism from Muslim students creating a hostile environment in schools. We also reported on several disturbing incidents of antisemitism, including a Jewish boy who was forced out of his school following 4 months of persistent antisemitic bullying. The antisemitism in German state schools has led to an explosion in applications to specialist Jewish schools, which provide a safe haven from the bullying, at least within school hours.

Writing in July, we warned that “unless the German government takes serious steps to ensuring that schools are tackling antisemitism, and giving assurances to teachers and parents that all complaints of antisemitism are taken seriously, regardless of the source, then the situation will be dire for Jewish students in the country”, emphasising that “action must be taken quickly before confidence is lost in the school system’s ability to protect Jewish students”. Whilst no such action has been forthcoming, finally German politicians seem to be ready to act on the national disgrace of widespread antisemitic bullying in schools. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who is currently on a state visit to Israel, condemned this latest incident, writing “when a child is threatened by antisemitism, it is both a shame and unbearable. We must stand against every form of antisemitism”.

The German Police Union has now demanded that it be provided with information on these incidents. Rainer Wendt, the Union’s head, has voiced concerns that the incidents are not being properly recorded, indicating a problem of a scale beyond what we have been able to report.

Only time will tell whether any meaningful action will be taken.

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Antisemitic incidents at US Colleges see increase of 89%

The Anti-Defamation League has reported that 2017 saw 204 antisemitic incidents on college campuses, up 89% from the previous year.

The ADL includes any incident that involves “harassment (where a Jewish person or group of people feel harassed by the perceived antisemitic words, spoken or written, or actions of someone else); vandalism (where property is damaged in a manner that indicates the presence of antisemitic animus or in a manner that victimizes Jews for their religious affiliation), and assault (where people’s bodies are targeted with violence accompanied by expressions of antisemitic animus)” in these figures.

Whilst ant-Israel activism on campus often leads to increased antisemitism, this increase may also be partly attributed to increased far-right activity on campuses. Neo-Nazi groups such as the Atomwaffen Division, who Everyday Antisemitism documented last year, have been actively recruiting on University campuses, as well as staging stunts to publicise their existence and ideas.

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Columbia Professor calls Zionists “master thieves” who “infiltrated” Women’s March

Hamid Dabashi, a professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, has claimed that Zionists “infiltrated” the Women’s March in a Facebook post.

Dabashi has likened the “infiltration” to a purported Zionist infiltration of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. Many American Jews were at the forefront of the movement, and Martin Luther King himself had many close friends in the Jewish community of his day. Whilst King himself could be described as a Zionist, describing Jewish involvement in the Civil Rights Movement as some sort of sinister infiltration by “Zionists” makes it quite clear that hen Dabashi says “Zionists”, he is actually referring to the Jewish community more widely. Beyond this, talk of “infiltration” is almost invariably the language of classic antisemitic conspiracy theories that paint Jews as dissembling and manipulative. According to the Definition of Antisemitism, “using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g. claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterise Israel or Israelis” is antisemitic.

The Zionist infiltration he was referring to was the appearance of Scarlet Johansson at Women’s March. He commented that Johansson is “deeply committed to the systemic theft of Palestine and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians”, a claim which in the current context is hyperbolic to the point of it resembling blood libel.

He goes on to call Zionists “master thieves”, even accusing Zionists of stealing Jewish culture.

He has previously described Zionists as “Gestapo appratchniks”. According to the Definition of Antisemitism, “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is antisemitic. He has also repeatedly defended terrorist organisation Hamas.

Columbia University has not commented.

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Professor at Moscow State University tries to make Jewish student remove yarmulke

Professor Vyacheslav Babourin, head of the Department of Economic and Social Geography, has reportedly attempted to pressure a Jewish student into removing his yarmulke.

Professor Babourin reportedly refused to allow the Jewish student to sit an examination unless he removed his ritual head covering in what has been described as “blatant antisemitism” by Jewish groups in Russia.

The Professor gave the student the choice of removing his yarmulke or leaving the examination room, citing a rule against wearing any headgear.

Barbourin defended his behaviour, saying “Like at any other institution of learning, the university has its charter, in which, among other things, the accepted form of clothing is defined. I quite reasonably pointed out to the young man that he violated the charter and that he should bring his clothing to the requirements of the university, and then he can take the exam. I do not care who he is—a Jew, a Muslim, Buddhist or Sikh, whoever. I am a professor at Moscow University. I follow the charter and orders of my university”.

Professor Sergei Dobrolyubov, the faculty’s dean, also defended Babourin.

Levi Boroda filed a complaint and was allowed to sit the exam later that day. The student posted about the incident on his Facebook account, writing:

“Moscow State University—the best college in the state?…Discrimination on the basis of nationality, a direct violation of Article 136 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, is punishable [by] imprisonment. It’s strange that the best university did not take this [fact] into the account. Can you help? Write #MoscowStateUniversity #Sadovnichiy #JewsinMSU #antisemitism”

Russian Jewish Congress President Yury Kanner commented:

“A university professor must know that a yarmulke is a ritual headgear. And if he does not know this, he must sweep streets, but not be a professor of the Moscow State University. Because this is a manifestation of anti-Semitism. [It] is criminally punishable in Russia. If this is framed into the internal charter of the university—this is the problem of the university”

 

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UC Berkeley faces calls from Jewish groups for blood libel Professor’s resignation

Hatem Bazian, a Professor at UC Berkeley specialising in diaspora studies and Islamic studies, is facing calls for his resignation following a series of antisemitic tweets which came to light recently.

Bazian allegedly tweeted a video which claimed that “Israeli soldiers killed young Palestinians for their organs”, a contemporary variation of antisemitic blood libel myths with no grounding in reality. According to the Definition of Antisemitism, “using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g. claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterise Israel or Israelis” is antisemitic.

In another tweet, he shared an image equating Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to the Holocaust. Such a comparison is so detached from reality that by making it, one must either deny the extent of genocide of Jews during the Holocaust or make claims amounting to blood libel about Israel. Additionally, according to the Definition of Antisemitism, “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is antisemitic.

In 2002 he insinuated that Jews control the University’s decision-making. At this time, he was a graduate student at the University.

Tikvah, a group for Jewish and Zionist students, has published an open letter sent to the University, which can be read here.

The University has said it is aware of the material and has stated that “it will not tolerate anti-Semitism, along with every other form of bias and discrimination”. It must now follow up these words with action against Bazian in order to ensure that Jewish students feel welcome on their campus.

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UC Berkeley apologises after students publish blood libel cartoon depicting Alan Dershowitz

The Chancellor of UC Berkeley has apologised after student newspaper the Daily Californian published an antisemitic cartoon depicting pro-Israel activist and celebrated lawyer Alan Dershowitz.

Dershowitz, a liberal supporting the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, spoke at the College, answering questions from a large audience.

The cartoon depicts Dershowitz grinning, with his head showing through a hole in a wall with an Israeli flag and images of happy children. The words “the liberal case for Israel”, the title of Dershowitz’s talk, are written on the wall. Behind the wall, he is depicted as trampling on a Palestinian man and holding up an Israeli soldier depicted as carrying out what is essentially an execution of an unarmed boy who lies in a pool of blood.

According to the Definition of Antisemitism, “Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g. claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterise Israel or Israelis” is antisemitic. The image unequivocally invokes blood libel in the implication that Israel, and perhaps Dershowitz personally, is responsible for cold-blooded killing, without any balance being provided. The image also presents Dershowitz as duplicitous and dishonest, as he attempts to influence political thinking, ideas which are often applied to Jews as a manifestation of antisemitism.

Reportedly, posters for the event were also vandalized with Swastikas. According to the Definition of Antisemitism, “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is Antisemitic.

The publication’s editors apologised, saying that they “have seen with sharp clarity the pain and anger caused… The criticism we have received reaffirms for us a need for a more critical editing eye, and a stronger understanding of the violent history and contemporary manifestations of antisemitism”.

 

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Rutgers Professor calls Judaism the “most racist religion” and blames Jews for the Armenian Genocide, cancer and pornography

Michael Chikindas, a Microbiology Professor at Rutgers University, has made a myriad of shamelessly antisemitic claims in a series of Facebook posts.

Chikindas peddled several antisemitic conspiracy theories, referencing “international fat Jewish pockets” and blaming Jews for everything from 9/11 to cancer.

He described “orthodox judaism” and Zionism as “the best of two forms of racism”, calling Judaism the “most racist religion in the world.

Disgracefully, he claimed that the Armenian Genocide, a Genocide so awful that many scholars compare it to the Holocaust, was “orchestrated by the Turkish Jews who pretended to be the Turks”.

He also said that Israel was aiming at the “extermination” of the Palestinians, bizarrely attributing its failure to do so to Israel’s thriving LGBT+ population, saying that it is “because of the number of the Jews of ‘alternative’ sexual orientation (25% of the Tel Aviv inhabitants are gay/lesbians and Israel has more of these than the Netherlands)”. Chikindas, apparently fixated on LGBT+ Jews, had previously posted that “Israel, the country of the Jews and for the Jews, has one of the highest percentage of gays in the world”.

Chikindas also shared a series of antisemitic conspiracy theories on his profile. One used the “happy merchant”, an antisemitic caricature of a Jew which is commonly used online by antisemites, and blames Jews for everything from “Hollywood” to the “cancer industry”. Another showed a caricature of a Jew being carried by America whilst saying “I am God’s chosen people, you filthy goyim”.

Sharing an article about a “global elite”, he wrote “These jewish motherf*****s do not control me. They can go and f**k each other in their fat a***s — you see, I really do not have anything to loose (sic), hence nothing to be controlled”.

Despite his Facebook profile providing a dozens of examples of blatant antisemitism, when interviewed by the Algemeiner, Chikindas predictably denied being antisemitic, claiming to have previously been married to a Jewish woman. Attempting to justify his claims of Jewish racism, he pointed to the Talmud. Antisemites frequently cite fabricated, mistranslated or otherwise misleadingly presented passages from the Talmud to attempt to portray Jews as inherently elitist to support Antisemitic conspiracy theories.

When pressed for comment, Rutgers University’s Neal Buccino stated that “Professor Michael Chikindas’ comments and posts on social media are antithetical to our university’s principles and values of respect for people of all backgrounds, including, among other groups, our large and vibrant Jewish community. Such comments do not represent the position of the University”, and whilst the University respects free speech, it aims for an “an environment free from discrimination, as articulated in our policy prohibiting discrimination”.

With respect to Chikindas’ future at the University, Buccino added “the university is reviewing this matter to determine if actions taken in the context of his role as a faculty member at Rutgers may have violated that policy”.

We will be watching the progression of this investigation with keen interest. Any outcome that does not remove Chikandas from contact with students would be to allow an antisemite a respected position from which he could influence students with his virulent antisemitic views.

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Australian neo-Nazis target schools with antisemitic propaganda calling for people to “reject Jewish poison”

Around 60 antisemitic and anti-immigrant posters were plastered on several schools in Melbourne, Australia.

The posters encouraged the public to join neo-Nazi groups and to “reject Jewish poison”, showing a stereotypical antisemitic image of a Jew as a puppet-master directing “multiculturalism” and “degeneracy”, a classic antisemitic conspiracy theory.

Images like this are a clear illustration of how, despite the fact that general anti-immigration and white supremacist ideas are central to the far right’s ideology, Jews are often singled out as the root cause of the “problems” they identify. Here, Jewish domination is portrayed as steering other things they object to.

The neo-Nazi group Antipodean Resistance claimed responsibility for the posters. On their website, the group describe “substance abuse” and “homosexuality” as “irresponsible distractions laid before us by Jews and globalist elites”.

Their website is explicitly neo-Nazi, calling for National Socialism in Australia, and is littered with Nazi imagery, including the Swastika, pagan images associated with neo-Nazism, and the skull image used as a logo by Nazi groups like Combat 18. They claim to be the “Hitlers you’ve been waiting for”.

The Victoria State Education Minister, James Merlino, condemned the posters, stating “these sort of vile and disgusting comments and posters are not acceptable in the community and those individuals that placed them should be ashamed of themselves”.

 

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Study shows German teachers concerned that radical Islam is leading to growing antisemitism in schools

A small study into the impact of Salafism, an ideology within Sunni Islam that has often been identified as a source of radicalism, upon schools in Berlin, has found that the ideology may be leading to increased antisemitism and homophobia.

The research from American Jewish Committee, which surveyed a small number of teachers, found that many were concerned about increasing amounts of antisemitic abuse, with the word “Jew” being frequently used as an insult.  However, it is important to note that the study only asks the teachers whether they have perceived an increase in antisemitism

The word “Jew” is not just being used to refer to Jewish students, but is reportedly being turned into a catch-all slur used to target women, homosexuals and secular Muslims.

Deidre Berger of the AJC said that the research illustrated that the problem was no longer limited to a few incidents. Several months ago, we reported that a Jewish boy was forced out of his Berlin school following several months of antisemitic bullying, and we suggested at the time that the evidence pointed to a growing and widespread problem of antisemitism in German schools.

Ahmad Mansour, a Psychologist, said that the problem was not limited to just the use of the word Jew, saying “it’s also about conspiracy theories and about an interpretation of Islam in which all Jews are considered enemies”.  Others have claimed that Antisemitism is extremely prevalent within Salafism.

Unless the German government takes serious steps to ensuring that schools are tackling antisemitism, and giving assurances to teachers and parents that all complaints of antisemitism are taken seriously, regardless of the source, then the situation will be dire for Jewish students in the country. With many parents already withdrawing their children and placing them in Jewish schools, action must be taken quickly before confidence is lost in the school system’s ability to protect Jewish students.

 

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Canadian school textbook names Israel among countries that kidnap children to use as child soldiers

The Toronto Sun reported on 10 July that Bnai Brith of Canada have asked the publishers Nelson to withdraw copies of Canada and the Global Community. This Grade 6 textbook, aimed at children aged eleven or twelve, lists Israel along with Afghanistan, Colombia, Iraq, Libya and Yemen as one of the countries which sends children into armed conflict.

 

“They (the child soldiers) are used as fighters, messengers and spies,” claim authors Mary Cairo and Luciana Soncin. “Most child soldiers are kidnapped from their homes and forced to fight … some children volunteer to fight because they feel pressure from peers.”

The accusation that a group of Jews are responsible for kidnapping children will seem eerily reminiscent of medieval blood libel, when Christians often used Jews as a scapegoat for the disappearance or deaths of children, among other things. The inaccuracy is so glaring that it seems difficult to see how it could arise through an innocent error.

The textbook was shown to Michael Mostyn, the CEO of B’nai Brith Canada by the parent of a child whose class were using Canada and the Global Community as a text book.

The factual error was reported to publisher Nelson Canada by Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in March this year and the publisher swiftly notified the Education Ministry, issuing a replacement page for the book in sticker format.

Mr Mostyn praised Nelson’s response but found that, as of June 2017, most schools were continuing to teach with the original text, instead of using the corrected sticker pages. He feels that, as the book has been in use for three years, the schools should correct the record to make it plain that Israel is not using child soldiers and that every Ontario school should have the correct version in place by the new school term on 5 September.

The front cover of the textbook

A spokesman for the Education Ministry has assured B’nai Brith they are fully engaged with the situation and that all schools involved have been notified.

It is unlikely that the schools will have a chance to respond before the new term begins. B’nai Brith is asking parents to let them know whether or not the corrected version has been implented at their children’s schools.

Luciana Soncin was the principal of Toronto Catholic District School Board from 1998 to 2006. She has co-authored with Mary Cairo, an administrative coordinator in Vaughan, Ontario, a social studies Catholic resource called ‘Many Gifts,’ for elementary schools, also published by Nelson Canada, as well as a series of history books.

It is to be hoped that these are not marred by any other damaging inaccuracies.

 

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Antisemitic canards find at a home at California State University, Fresno, as Academics from across America sign petition repeating antisemitic myth

Academic and support staff at California State University, Fresno, have made antisemitic comments alleging that Jewish staff members obstructed the hiring of a Middle Eastern academic.

CSUF were in the process of hiring a staff member to fill a Professorship named after Edward Said, an academic of Palestinian origin who was a pioneer in Postcolonial theory and who wrote critically of Zionism and Israel. Last year, the search was narrowed to four applicants of Middle Eastern heritage, none of whom were offered the positions.

Allegations emerged among CSUF staff that none were hired due to interference from Jewish faculty. Joe Parks, responsible for equal opportunities on the hiring committee, claimed that “the search was cancelled because when the finalists came to campus, the Jewish faculty complained”, elsewhere claiming that the “Jewish community was responsible”.

A dean of the School, Vida Samiian, claiming that “the administration carried out the vicious and discriminatory attacks launched by Israel advocacy groups against the search committee and the four finalists who were of Middle Eastern and Palestinian ethnicity”, going on to single out Canary Mission. Despite these comments, no evidence has been offered, nor is any apparent, that any pro-Israel groups were involved in the decision at all. Samiian has a long record of anti-Israel activism, which has included inviting the incendiary historian Ilan Pappé to speak at the campus.

Dozens academics from across the United States seemed to jump on this bangwagon, signing a petition, in the form of a letter from faculty members, which claimed that “Israel advocacy groups launched a campaign to cancel the search altogether” and that the process had been influenced by “discriminatory agendas”. This is the language of the antisemitic canard which paints Jews as dissembling and using their influence to subvert processes in their own favour, despite the clear lack of evidence for such a claim. An archived version of this petition, including its signatories, can be viewed here.

Despite the claims of interference from Jewish faculty and groups, senior staff at the University have denied this, citing procedural improprieties for the decision not to hire anyone. Senior staff also explicitly stated that no external groups were allowed to influence the decision.

The idea that Jews or Jewish groups are behind the scenes influencing decisions to prevent political opponents from securing an academic position is a long-standing antisemitic canard. Antisemites often accuse Jews as dissembling and conspiratorial, and when such claims are made without evidence, and despite assurances from the University, they are nothing more than an antisemitic conspiracy theory alleging that Jews conspired to harm academic life at the University.

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Jewish students in Austria seeking legal action against student leaders who mocked Holocaust

Benjamin Hess, President of the Union of Jewish Austrian University Students, the main representative group for Jewish students in Austria, has revealed that the organisation will be seeking legal action after two secret groups were revealed to have contained worrying antisemitic rhetoric.

The Facebook group “FVJUS Men’s Collective” and the Whatsapp group “Badass warlords” both contained antisemitism. They included pictures of a pile of ashes captioned “Leaked Anne Frank nudes!” and a picture of Hitler with the caption “Hey. I just met you and this is crazy, but here’s your number…So Auschwitz, maybe?”

There is also a picture of Hitler with the caption “you can’t be racist if there is no other race”, clearly making light of the attempts to exterminate non-“Aryans”.

A gallery of some of the content, which also includes misogynistic and Islamophobic rhetoric, can be viewed here.

Benjamin Hess said that the content should be “prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law”.

Most worryingly, many of the group’s participants were student leaders, notably student leaders of the Conservative Austrian People’s Party at the University of Vienna, where Hess is a student. The CAPP are a centre-right party in Austria, but many of the nation’s future leaders will come through the ranks of the University of Vienna.

Following student elections, Hess said that he was “shocked” that the people in question had not lost their seats as a result of their bigoted discourse. Despite a demonstration involving 200 people, the University of Vienna seems to have taken no serious action against the culprits. It is however very encouraging to see people turn out to show solidarity with Jewish students.

Hess commented that “this scandal goes beyond just the students, because it is known that participation in the students’ union and the Conservative student party is the first step to a larger career. These people go on to be the country’s leaders”.

Whilst the content in the group may have been made without malicious intent, it demonstrates a lack of concern for rising antisemitism and the experiences of Jewish and other minority students. More worrying is the failure of the University to take disciplinary action and the re-election of the students involved, both of which communicate to all involved that antisemitism is an acceptable part of academic life.

 

 

 

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Jewish school’s Holocaust play interrupted by shouts of “Heil Hitler” from audience

Children from the King David Victory Park School, Johannesburg, South Africa, had their performance of a play about the Holocaust interrupt by chants of “Heil Hitler” from students from another school.

Middle School students from the School were performing a one act version of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, a story about a Jewish boy who died in a concentration camp, at a festival at Waterstone College.

One student told a local news source that “they were chanting ‘Heil Hitler, Heil Hitler.’ I was shocked and disgusted. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing”.

Not only did they interrupt the performance to shout this, but reportedly they did so as the scene depicting the child being led to the gas chamber was occurring. They also chanted “Bruno Bruno”, the name of the son of the concentration camp commandant.

The students apparently shouted other antisemitic abuse at the Jewish students as they packed up early to leave the festival. The main culprits are thought to be from Edenvale High School. King David School’s head of drama Renos Spanoudes has also claimed that a member of staff from Edenvale has played down the seriousness of the incident, but apparently some students from the school have expressed their shock at their peers’ behaviour.

Wendy Kahn,from the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, says that her organisation is seeking an audience with Edenvale to discuss the incident, commenting:

“From time to time antisemitic incidents of this nature occur during interschool events, both in the cultural and sporting arenas…We have in the past been involved in addressing these incidents. We do not believe that this is an indication of an upsurge in antisemitism”

The headmaster of Edenvale High School has refused to comment.

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Principal forced to apologise after Jewish students targeted with antisemitic social media posts at Missouri High School

The Principal of Parkway Central High School in Missouri has written a letter to parents after students of the school were found to have been hosting antisemitic content on their Facebook pages.

Jewish students told the press that they felt hurt, angry, and personally attacked, with some of the posts being targeted against individual Jewish students. However, the exact nature of the antisemitic posts has been kept from the media, so we are unable to report on exactly what is said or just how serious the incident is.

The Principal Tim McCarthy said that the posts were “unacceptable and antithetical to the values we share as a school community”. He contacted the Anti-Defamation League who have been communicating with the school since the incident, which occurred last week.

Both of the two Parkway Central students who were involved have written apologies, but there has been no mention of formal punishment. There were also posts from people outside the School, and it is unknown what action will be taken against them.

The Principal’s full letter to parents can be read below:

PCH Community,

 
Regretfully, I am sending this email to share with you information regarding an incident that transpired within the Central High community via social media last week.  As some may already know, two Central High students posted anti-Semitic images and messages on social media.  The posts were viewed by a significant number of Central High students, causing many students to feel offended, outraged, hurt, and, for some, targeted.  The posts are unacceptable and antithetical to the values we share as a school community.  Thankfully, several students brought the posts to the attention of school administrators, which allowed us to address the offensive posts directly with the students responsible and their parents.
 
Please know that your student’s safety, both physical and emotional, is always our priority.  As a school, we have addressed the incident with both students and their parents; each student, I believe, has accepted responsibility for the harm they have caused.  In an effort to repair that harm, each student sent to me a letter of apology and asked that I communicate to you their sincere remorse.  As you deem appropriate as a parent, please consider talking with your student about the incident, as well as the apology offered by both students.  We will continue to talk with students in the building to monitor the situation as we move forward.  If you have questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me directly.
 
From my perspective, an incident such as this is upsetting on multiple levels.  Yet, as is so often the case in difficult situations, I was reassured by the positive actions of so many of our students.  A countless number of Central High students recognized the posts were wrong and many followed up with an adult in the school to let us know what was happening and to share their feelings of concern and hurt.  The commitment our students demonstrated to treating people with respect and dignity, as well as their expectation to be treated with that same respect and dignity by others, starts at home and we deeply appreciate your work as parents.  As a school community, we will continue our work of creating a culture and climate that reflects these values.
 
Sincerely,
 
Tim McCarthy
 
Principal, PCH”
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Canada: 12-year-old pupil at elite school victim of a “serious” antisemitic incident

Upper Canada College, a Canadian private school which has educated several prominent Canadian politicians and has been described as having an “illustrious history”, has had to reassure parents after a “serious” antisemitic incident took place, which has led to the police being involved.

Whilst the information available is quite sparse, a 12-year-old Jewish student apparently had antisemitic slurs and symbols. Whilst the school has emphasised that the incident was a “serious” one, it is not known if this represents one incident in a pattern of antisemitic bullying or is a one off, or whether there were other elements to the incident.

The school called a meeting with all the students in the lower years and communicated to them just how serious an antisemitic incident of any nature is.

The school issued a letter to parents saying:

“I write to inform you of a serious incident that occurred yesterday at the Prep…a student in Grade 7 returned to his locker at the end of the day to find it vandalized with antisemitic symbols and messaging. As soon as we became aware of the situation the College began an investigation.”

“We have attempted to progress the investigation swiftly, involving all the appropriate parties, including the police”

Whilst the police were involved, they have since said that despite the incident being serious, it should not be a criminal matter. Several Jewish groups have offered their support to the school in providing education relating to Jewish issues. The school’s response appears to have been an excellent one, in swiftly involving the police, communicating with parents, and having a frank, serious, but open discussion with pupils in an attempt to reassert their shared values.

 

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Neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division attempting to recruit students on American campuses

Pictures have emerged on social media of recruitment posters for a neo-Nazi group, which were found on the University of Pennsylvania’s campus.

The group, Atomwaffen Division, has been a rising force in extremist politics and has been targeting US University campuses. In February they plastered posters over the University of Washington’s campus, which we only became aware of when we researched the group having seen these latest pictures.

The stunt at Washington was videoed, showing several people with covered faces plastering the neo-Nazi posters over the campus at night. The group has been glorified by the Daily Stormer, the neo-Nazi news publication, for following the example of National Action, which was proscribed as a terrorist organisation following action by Campaign Against Antisemitism, in publicising their recruitment stunts on YouTube.

The recruitment posters say “how is a diploma going to help you in the race war? Join your local Nazis! The Atomwaffen Division” and features a Swastika and a pointing hand.

The group claims that it has started its recruitment in response to the growth of “communists”, Black Lives Matter, and “Jewish interests” and calls for a “National Socialist revolution”.

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NY Students asked to argue in favour of the Holocaust for assignment

Students in a school in Oswego participating in a course called “Principles of Literary Representation”, which apparently allows them to study College-level classes, were left shocked when asked to argue in favour of the Nazi’s extermination of the Jews.

The assignment was framed as a representation of the Wannsee Conference, in which the idea of the “final solution”, the total extermination of all Europe’s Jews at the hands of the Nazis, was first fully conceived.

The assignment was presented as a “top secret” memorandum, asking students to write an internal note either in favour or against the extermination of the European Jewry in its totality, with students being assigned to argue either for or against. They were directed to use “at least 3…critical sources” to support their argument. Two students were left feeling “disturbed” and “weird” by the request and apparently contacted the ADL.

Whilst the assignment does say that it is not aimed at making them sympathetic to the Nazis, it demonstrates such a remarkable lack of judgement on the part of teaching staff that it is hard to imagine how the decision to set this assignment was made. This sort of material risks leading students to the darkest depths of the internet, where neo-Nazi websites prey on impressionable minds by twisting sparse, out-of-context prima facie facts into the most disgraceful antisemitic narratives, many of which are indeed the narratives that Hitler relied upon to make the extermination of two thirds of Europe’s Jews possible.

The assignment says that its aim was merely to expand “your point of view by going outside your comfort zone and training your brain to logistically find the evidence necessary to prove a point, even if it is existentially and philosophically against what you believe”. However, the effect of this is to present the extermination of Jews as if it is an open question, as opposed to the ultimate evil in human history, for which no conceivable justification could ever be presented.

The school district is currently investigating.

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Germany: Jewish boy forced out of school after 4 months of antisemitic bullying, violent attacks

A British-Jewish family in Berlin has been forced to pull their 14-year-old son out of his school after he was subjected to months of antisemitic bullying.

The boy was sent to Friedenauer Gemeinschaftsschule, a school they were attracted to initially because of its diverse pupils, many of whom are from an Arab or Turkish background. However, when the son mentioned he was Jewish, one pupil said to him “Listen, you are a cool dude but I can’t be friends with you, Jews are all murderers”.

The mother said that verbal abuse quickly escalated into physical violence, and this month “he was attacked and almost strangled, and the guy pulled a toy gun on him that looked like a real gun. And the whole crowd of kids laughed. He was completely shaken”.

The mother had approached the Headteacher of the school, asking whether he could bring in an organisation to educate the children about antisemitism, as well as other forms of xenophobia and racism, but despite him appearing open to the idea, no action was taken. The mother’s parents are Holocaust survivors who have spoken at the school.

There have been indications for over a decade that antisemitism was driving Jewish students out of state schools and to Jewish schools, with Deidre Berger suggesting in 2015 that more and more Jewish students were attending Jewish schools for fear of antisemitism and in 2006, Der Spiegel running a report on Jewish schoolchildren who had been pushed out of secular schools by antisemitism.

According to the JC, the Moses Mendelssohn Jewish High School in Berlin receives 6 to 10 applications each year from Jewish students who have similarly been forced out of other schools by antisemitism, indicating a huge problem in the city’s schools. Aaron Eckstaedt, the school’s headteacher, says that parents are often concerned with the lack of formal response from those schools, and that the complaints are often centred around students of an Arab or Turkish background.

It is not known whether these incidents are being investigated by the police.

 

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“Israel Genocide State” graffiti on Jewish school in Brazil

CFCA has reported that antisemitic graffiti was found on a Jewish school in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

The words “Israel Genocide State” and “Free Palestine” were spraypainted on school property.

According to the Definition of Antisemitism, “holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel” is antisemitic. The fact that somebody would take out their political frustrations on a Jewish school of all places is extremely worrying. Whatever one thinks about the Israel-Palestine conflict, it should not be taken out on an institution which has as its sole aim educating Jewish children.

Porto Alegre has had a Jewish community since the early Nineteenth Century, and is currently home to over 15,000 Jews.

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“Here’s a Jew, let’s burn her” shouted at schoolgirl as antisemitism erupts in California school

Carlmont High School in Belmont, California, finds itself in the midst of an antisemitism epidemic, following several reports of antisemitic incidents.

There were reports of students openly chanting “kill the Jews” in the school’s stadium, which apparently happened earlier in March, but which has only just come to our attention. This in itself is obviously extremely shocking, being a brazen display of incitement to violence which goes beyond mere playground bullying in its scale and severity.

There were also reports of antisemitic graffiti, including the words “toasted Jew” being written on school property.

As a result of the escalating incidents, the school’s Principal Ralph Crame met with around 20 parents and students to discuss the situation. When one mother was walking to the meeting with her daughter, it is alleged that a group of students shouted “here’s a jew, let’s burn her” at the girl. This seems to point to the possibility that these students heard about the meeting and decided to turn up to further abuse Jewish students. This betrays a deep, underlying antisemitic attitude in parts of the student body.

The school has said that further incidents would be considered under the “harassment, bullying, or hate crimes and will be dealt with accordingly under District policies and the Education Code”, but initial reports suggest that the police have been unwilling to see the events as hate incidents.

Below: antisemitic graffiti found at the school

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Over 100 Swastika leaflets left at Chabad student center in Virginia Tech

Over a hundred leaflets with hand drawn Swastikas were left at the Chabad Jewish student centre at Virginia tech.

The leaflets were left on Saturday afternoon and were discovered by Rabbi Zvi Yaakov Zwiebel, one of the directors of the centre, the day after the centre announced that it would be hosting Holocaust survivor Rabbi Nissen Mangel in April. Rabbi Mangel will be giving a memorial lecture to Professor Liviu Librescu, a Holocaust survivor who was shot on the campus with 31 others at a mass shooting on the campus.

Rabbi Zwiebel described the leaflets as a “disgusting act of hate”, saying that the incident is “surprising seeing as it is the first such act since Chabad on Campus at Virginia Tech was opened more than eight years ago”, continuing to say “we appreciate Virginia Tech President Timothy Sands, who quickly tweeted his support for the Jewish community, and we are in touch with the administration as they proactively respond to this incident”.

A rally in support of Jewish students and the centre is due to take place tonight (Monday 20th), which is extremely encouraging, as Jewish students are often left feeling isolated and without support when there is an antisemitic incident. We also welcome the apparent swift response of the police.

 

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Antisemitic posters at University of Illinois call to end “Jewish privilege”

The World Union of Jewish Students have expressed their disgust over antisemitic posters found at the University of Illinois.

The posters claim that “ending white privilege…starts with ending Jewish privilege”, and details various ways in which Jews allegedly dominate social and economic elites, citing Pew Research.

The poster depicts a social pyramid, where the “one percent” at the top are depicted with Stars of David on their chests.

Regardless of the veracity of any of the research cited, which has clearly been twisted to suggest that dues have an undue position in society, the posters clearly and unabashedly play on antisemitic conspiracy theories of Jews dominating the business world and politics, a harmful canard which is perhaps most famously illustrated by the hoax “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, which became a common feature in Nazi propaganda as well as in much antisemitic rhetoric since.

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“Anti-Zionist” students call Israelis “rodents”, tell a Jewish student to “go back to Palestine”

Members of Students for Justice in Palestine attending a multicultural event at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology intentionally covered up the sole Israeli flag with an Algerian one.

When they went to their Facebook page to brag about the incident, they allegedly referred to Israeli Jews as “rodents”. Describing Jews as vermin was a mainstay of Nazi propaganda, which frequently depicted Jews as rodents. According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g. claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterise Israel or Israelis” is antisemitic.

A Jewish student was then told to “go back to Palestine”. Given that these people are actively campaigning against Israel, telling a Jew to “go back to Palestine” seems bizarre, but it is antisemitic nonetheless.

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Fascist graffiti found at University of Birmingham bar

Fascist graffiti has been found outside the toilets of Beorma Bar, a student bar in Birmingham.

The graffiti has been attributed to the neo-Nazi group National Action, which was proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the Government following action by Campaign Against Antisemitism.

The graffiti targeted various ethnic and sexual minorities, as well as the disabled.

The graffiti said “PURE WHITES ONLY” and “NO BLACKS, NO CRIPS, NO FAGS” under the National Action logo and flanked by a Swastika.

Graffiti saying “‘Lock up all CRAZY PSYCHOS + subhumans” was also found during Holocaust Memorial Week in January and another was found referring to “dirty faggots”.

President of the Guild of Students, Ellie Keiller, said that they were “horrified” and that they “stand, with students, fundamentally in opposition to the rhetoric of the graffiti and against all forms of hate and discrimination”.

The guild later released a further statement, saying “We would like to reassure students that we are doing all we can in response to these incidents, including immediately reporting all cases to both police and campus security and working with them to identify those involved. Further to this, we urge anyone with any information regarding these incidents to come forward”

Apparently in previous incidents, the police have simply recorded the graffiti which has then been painted over. No arrests appear to have been reported.

The University of Birmingham has the largest Jewish Society in the United Kingdom

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Holocaust survivor’s visit to NY school followed by appearance of Swastika graffiti

A week after Holocaust survivor Judy Altmann’s appearance at a New York school, the occasion was marred by the appearance of Swastika graffiti in the school’s bathroom.

Mrs Altmann visited  John Jay High School in Cross River two weeks ago. On Monday, a week after her visit, a Swastika was found scrawled in the bathroom.

One student, Sophe Eberhardt, found the appearance of the graffiti particularly disheartening, saying “It’s a subject that’s really, really dark…after everything they showed us, prejudice and racism still exist at our school”.

Despite the fact that a teenage student can tell that the graffiti represents the presence of antisemitism in the school, the Superintendent has written off the incident as simply being the result of “disruptive” pupils. This is perhaps not surprising, as it is unlikely that an official responsible for the school system would want to concede that there is a possibility that there are antisemitic beliefs being harboured by students. However, the fact that the students could hear Mrs Altmann’s story – which would have included her  recounting going through the infamous gates at Auschwitz, seeing people she knew being selected for extermination in the gas chambers, and being liberated whilst infected with Typhus and close to death – and yet still go on to etch the symbol of Nazism in the school bathroom.

In any case, it is wrong to assume that Swastika graffiti is merely the result of “disruptive” pupils, but when set against the context of rising antisemitism and the visit of a Holocaust survivor, it is far too permissive to assume that this is merely a case of misbehaviour. This is even more so the case as similar graffiti was found on the school’s property last year.

The Superintendent nonetheless said that the school was redoubling its efforts to find the perpetrators.

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Pre-school teacher in Texas suspended for saying “not enough” Jews were killed in the Holocaust

A Muslim pre-school teacher in Texas has been suspended from teaching in light of an investigation into her twitter activities, in which she encouraged her friend and social media followers to “kill some Jews! <3” and to “Kiss the Palestine ground”, promulgating both her anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist stances online.

We previously covered Nancy Salem’s antisemitic comments when we documented several instances of antisemitism among students and alumni of University of Texas, Arlington. However, it has since emerged that Salem has since found employment as a teacher.

Nancy Salem, a teacher at The Children’s Courtyard in South Arlington, was one of 24 anti-Israel activists exposed by the university of Texas watchdog group Canary Mission for broadcasting such racist and violent thought. Among other sentiments, she posted a series of despicably antisemitic statements, including: “How many Jews died in the Holocaust? Not enough… HAHAHAHA.”

Children look to their teachers as sources of inspiration and knowledge, and it is clear from her radical stances this individual is not fit for that purpose, and as such should be permanently discharged as soon as possible. Unfortunately, this is a case where an individual has been allowed to have their deeply antisemitic views flourish, apparently unchallenged, throughout their University career, and is not unsurprisingly importing these views into the wider world, which sadly in this case has involved contact with children.

Parents at the school are outrage, and some are calling for her immediate dismissal.

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Police investigate as Muslim and Anti-Zionist students in Texas call for another Holocaust, spout blood libel

The district attorney’s office in Houston, Texas, in cooperation with the Houston police, is currently trying to determine if antisemitic comments that were posted to Twitter, by thirteen past and current students at the University of Houston (UH), constitutes a hate crime.

The Canary Mission, an anonymous online antisemitic watchdog, collected all of the tweets in their report, Kill All The Jews. Members of the UH chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the Muslim Student Association (MSA), and students associated with the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS), along with unaffiliated individuals, were responsible for the posts, which go back as far as 2012.

Of paramount concern are tweets by UH students that both incite violence and promote violence against Jews:

“I am gonna throw rocks at yahood [Jews] this summer and no one is stopping me.” – Tarek Abdoh, April, 2015

“Yall don’t understand I want to beat a zionist bitch up so bad.” – Noor Radwan, July, 2016

“Hitler should have killed them [the Jews] all” – Amal Tabal, November, 2012

“If you could press one button to kill all zionists, but it would also kill every Jew out there, would you press it? – Noor Radwam, October, 2015

“Palestine will be the 2nd Holocaust for the Yahood [Jews].” – Rawen Saleh, March, 2013

“I mean it when I say I wish Hitler finished them off in the holocaust. I know there’s a difference between Jews and Zionists.” – Mahmoud Eissa, July, 2014

“@HitlerDictator  Versace. Versace. [Italian fashion designer]    F**k bitches bake Jews that’s the life of a Nazi” – Zain Dharani, August, 2013

As was to be expected, the report included a tweet that put forth a classic blood libel. In November, Noor Radwan tweeted: “A Jewish rabbi has admitted to using human child meat as a filler in McDonalds meat. They allegedly drug teens, and kill them for their meat, THE TRUTH ABOUT MCDONALD’S & MISSING CHILDREN.”

When a UH student can actually present such an outrageous blood libel as a fact, then, Houston, you’ve got a problem.

No one would agree more than Kenneth L. Marcus, president and general counsel for the Washington D.C. based Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, According to Marcus: “Whether the university can punish the speech or not, they have an obligation to address the underlying problem”. Marcus told the Jewish-Herald: “The legal restrictions might tell them [the University of Houston] how they can deal with it, but the fact is they need to deal with it and they need [to] deal with it firmly.”

Although the tweets are currently under review by the Dean of  the Student’s Office, it is troubling that tweets that promote violence and bigotry are not automatically in violation of the UH Code of Conduct.

A tweet by Mamoon Hindi in August, 2015 is a typical example:”It’s not music you f****ing fag. Candyass Brit, fish n’ chips motherf****ker. Zionist f***k face douchebag.”

Obviously, it is no surprise that Hitler is the star of so many of the tweets: “Hitler mah n***ga”;”Hitler said he left some Jews alive so the world would know why he killed em”; “Hitler died too soon, really”.

Lee Wunsch, of the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston (JFGH), told The Algemeiner that celebrating the mass murder of Jews with “violent tweets”, the calls for a Third Intifada–murdering Jews as “resistance” against Israel–praise for both Hitler and Hamas terrorists, whose goal is the wholesale slaughter of Israeli Jews–had the organization’s “full attention”.

When the Canary Mission report was released to the public, Rabbi Kenny Weiss, executive director of Houston Hillel, told the Jewish-Herald: “Houston Hillel takes very seriously any inflammatory comments directed at Jews”. As a result, Rabbi Weiss contacted both the UH  campus police, the greater Houston police department, the UH Office of Legal Affairs, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and the Houston office of the Jewish Federation.

Dayan Gross, the ADL Southwest Regional Director told The Algemeiner: “While ADL respects freedom of speech, we reserve the right to make sure people see hateful speech for what it is and counter it”. Gross, who filed a complaint with the Houston police, is closely monitoring the situation.

The UH Legal Affairs office told the Jewish-Herald that “we take any matter involving the safety and welfare of our university community very seriously”. The vice-chancellor of Legal Affairs, Dona Hamilton Cornell, stated: “UH is safe for all students, Jews included.”

However, UH Jewish students have criticized the administration for failing to condemn the students who threatened the personal safety of Jews.

It is a given that if hateful tweets had targeted UH African-American students and the posts had: a) promoted lynchings and physical assaults against blacks  b) celebrated the KKK and slavery, instead of Hitler and the Holocaust, and c) used vile language like, “F***ing N***er”, rather than “Zionist c**t”, then, without question, a national media firestorm would have been ignited. And the University of Houston would have told the press that such toxic behavior will be met with swift punishment.

But when the tweets, in question, called for the beating and stoning of Jews, the University of Houston would only call the tweets, “repugnant” speech.

“I want my university to show that it legitimately cares about its diverse population and not just certain student groups,” Tatiana Uklist, the founder of the UH chapter of Students Supporting Israel, told the Jewish-Herald.

However, vice-chancellor Cornell feels that the university has created a level playing field because it fosters an environment where diverse beliefs are “welcomed”.

And that means welcoming the beliefs of a Palestinian woman named Rasmea Yousef Odeh, who just happens to be a terrorist who was convicted of murdering Jews.

Despite vigorous protest from Jewish students, administrators allowed the UH chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, which, according to Kenneth L. Marcus, is “a hate organization and must be addressed as such”, to hold a spring fundraiser in Odeh’s honor.

UH dismissed complaints from Jewish students that the fundraiser was a safety threat. Instead the administration called it a “speech-related political disagreement”. Odeh was imprisoned in Israel for murdering two Jewish college students, from Hebrew University, in a 1969 supermarket bomb attack in Jerusalem.

Odeh, who came to America, after being released by Israel in a prisoner exchange, is facing deportation due to immigration fraud.

It would, of course, be unthinkable for any college campus in the United States of America to hold a fundraiser for Dylann Roof, who murdered nine African-Americans, while they prayed in a South Carolina church on June 17, 2015.

And it is precisely because the University of Houston has whitewashed the issues surrounding violence and Jews, that many Jewish students now feel that they are subject to a dangerous double standard, which puts them at risk.

But whether or not the Houston District Attorney’s office ultimately labels the tweets an actual hate crime or a non-criminal hate incident is really a moot point. Because labelling the tweets doesn’t alter the original intent of the UH tweets: the demonization and outright hatred of Jews.

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Muslim and “anti-Zionist” students in Texas glorify the Holocaust, call to “kill some Jews”

The Canary Mission, an group which monitors extremist activity on US campuses, has released a dossier on antisemitic social media comment being circulated by students at the University of Texas, Arlington.

The messages include calls to “kill some Jews”, calls to “stuff Jews in the oven”, and included many references to the Holocaust and antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Among the authors of the tweets is Ismail Said Aboukar, a member of Students for Justice in Palestine and the Muslim Students’ Association, who wrote that “Jesus is going to slay the Jews” and made multiple references to Jews controlling world business, as well as writing “the world would be soooo much better without the Jews man”.

Nancy Salem, another SJP member and BDS supporter, asked a friend to “kiss the Palestine ground” for her and to “kill some Jews”.

She also asked “How many Jews died in the Holocaust?”, answering for herself – “not enough”.

The Canary Mission identified 24 students making blatantly antisemitic comments at the University, with 19 being affiliated with Students for Justice in Palestine and 12 being affiliated with the Muslim Students’ Association.

This serves to highlight the growth of Islamic antisemitism, and its connection to anti-Zionist politics, on University campuses, in a situation which is quickly making Jewish students feel unwelcome at Universities across North America and Europe.

 

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University of Bristol lecturer pens article accusing “government elites” of “manipulating” the Holocaust

An anonymous letter from a University of Bristol student has been published on Epigram, addressed to one of the student’s lecturers, which criticises an antisemitic article penned by the academic.

The student says that the academic’s article was published in a magazine which “regularly (and proudly) publishes pieces by Holocaust deniers, ‘Jewish lobby’ conspiracy theorists, and 9/11 truthers”.

The article accused “government elites” of “manipulating” the Holocaust, and claiming that we are discouraged from “critical […] thinking” about the Holocaust.

This is umabiguously the language of Holocaust denial. Searching for these words together on Google will yield a plethora of Holocaust denial sites claiming that either Israel or the Western Powers fabricated or exaggerated the Holocaust, or that the Holocaust is “manipulated” to generate sympathy of Jews or for Israel. Both of these positions are antisemitic according to the International Definition of Antisemitism, and it is very hard to see anything else to which such comments could refer.

Given that he apparently begins the article by writing about how, in the student’s words, “criticism of Israel is unfairly stifled by charges of antisemitism”, it seems clear that he means to associate these “government elites” with the state of Israel.

He also claimed that we should stop “privileging” the Holocaust.

The anonymous student laments the fact that her lecturer cannot understand that “‘privilege’ and ‘Holocaust’ don’t belong in the same sentence”.

The lecturer is likely referring to the perception that the Holocaust is commemorated more than other genocides. This is a belief espoused by Labour antisemite Jacqui Walker, who said during Labour Party Conference: “wouldn’t it be wonderful if Holocaust day was open to all peoples who’ve experienced Holocaust“. However, as was pointed out then, and must be pointed out now, charities such as the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust do indeed educate about all genocides. Sadly, such comments are rarely bona fide attempts to further understanding of other genocides, and are often used to devalue and belittle the Jewish experience of the Holocaust. Additionally, the comments must be read alongside his other statements which hint at Holocaust denial, and in light of this can only be seen as antisemitic.

He also allegedly compares Israel to Nazi Germany, a comparison which is antisemitic according to the International Definition of Antisemitism.

In the University’s response to the letter, they concede that Epigram verified all quotes from the anonymous piece

The University writes that it “believes that freedom of expression and academic freedom are at the heart of its mission. Our approach is to enable and promote free speech and encourage debate of all kinds. This means that there must be an atmosphere of free and open discussion. It also means that occasionally academics will put forward a view that is contrary to the views of others.”

“However, where there are serious concerns about public disorder or the direct incitement of violence or hatred, or where a student feels that they are subject to unacceptable behaviour they should raise this with their personal tutor, warden or Just Ask”

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Minnesota Jewish student has “Nazis rule”, image of concentration camp drawn inside his dorm

Avi Shaver, a Jewish student attending the University of Minnesota, returned to his dorm room on Wednesday to find a Swastika and a picture of a concentration camp drawn on his bedroom door, as well as the words “Nazis rule”.

It appears that the vandal somehow got into his shared dorm and drew it on his bedroom door.

The incident is not only clearly antisemitic, but extremely unsettling given that the culprit has demonstrated he is able to reach Shaver where he sleeps. The incident could thus also constitute intimidation.

Both the University and the Police are investigating.

There have apparently been several similar, but less serious incidents at the University in the last year.

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German Muslim students refuse to commemorate Holocaust, with one writing “Free Palestine” in response

Pupils at a school in Gelsenkirchen in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany refused to participate in an International Holocaust Remembrance Day event, it has been reported.

The event was part of a global commemoration in which people took photographs of themselves with a sign saying “I Remember” or “We Remember”.

Some students allowed themselves to be photographed with the remembrance signs but declined to permit the photographs to be displayed on the internet. According to the newspaper Der Westen, several asked: “Why always the Jews?”, stating that there are other problems in the world.

“Some Muslim students said they would not participate in the event,” said Florian Beer, a teacher at the school, who added that it often hosts events that leave an “aftertaste of antisemitism”.

An unidentified student also wrote on a blackboard: “F*** Israel, free Palestine”. If there could be any doubt that this refusal to participate in a Holocaust commemoration event was motivated by antisemitism, instead being an ill-conceived attempt at having a universalistic approach to education about genocide, then this action must surely cast that aside.

School director Günter Jahn said he was pleased by the opposition to the remembrance event, stating: “It is important that there is criticism. That is the basis for a discussion.”

The Weiterbildungskolleg Emscher-Lippe school has 500 students, 40 per cent of whom are from a migrant background, and is in Gelsenkirchen, in the northern part of the Ruhr region.

Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Jerusalem office, told the Jerusalem Post: “Muslim students are greatest in need of Holocaust education, so it would be unfortunate if they were excused from those activities.

“Given that Holocaust consciousness is a central idea of civic identity in the Federal Republic, it is doubly important for families that come from countries with deep antisemitic traditions and no knowledge of the Holocaust and the destruction of European Jewry.”

The number of antisemitic attacks reported in Germany doubled from 2015 to 2016, according to a Diaspora Affairs Ministry report. The actual number of attacks may be higher because of disagreement over how to identify contemporary antisemitism in the Federal Republic.

Last year we reported that Muslim students in Canada had blocked a Holocaust Education Week motion.

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75% of US Jewish students have experienced antisemitism, with many now hiding their Jewish identity

Fear of antisemitism is causing European and American Jewish students to hide their religious identities, with many afraid to openly support Israel, students have told the Knesset’s Committee for Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs.

In January, students from around the globe, came to Jerusalem to speak to the Israeli legislature about the frequent hostilities and the social isolation that they experience because university administrators refuse to confront antisemitism.

The Committee found that Jewish students at Universities across North America and Europe are hiding their Jewish identity following increasing hostility linked to anti-Israel activism, with many refraining from wearing kippot or anything else that would identify them as Jewish.

Students told the committee that BDS has contributed to a worsening campus experience for Jewish students, with Boycotts being incorporated into policy by various Universities and Student Unions. Olga Deutsch, Head of Europe Desk, NGO Monitor, is hopeful that, as a result of new European laws, BDS will lose its influence.

If these new laws do prove to be effective, it will certainly bring relief to the countless European Jewish students and professors, who are worried that BDS, often with antisemitic undertones and often tied up with Islamism, is becoming the norm on campus.

Baroness Ruth Deech, the first ever appointed UK higher education adjudicator, told The Telegraph that “many universities are in receipt or are chasing large donations of money from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states and so on, and maybe they are frightened of offending them. I don’t know why they [the universities] aren’t doing anything about it [antisemitism], it really is a bad situation.”

Enter  the “Jewni”, universities like Birmingham and Leeds, where Jews feel that it is safe to enroll because of the presence of so many Jewish students. But, with the rise of European antisemitism–a Knesset report revealed that 40% of European citizens are antisemitic–it is now an acceptable tactic to harass Jews. Consequently, Jewish UK students now use one critical measurement to classify universities–how safe is the environment for Jews.

Baroness Deech would, undoubtedly, understand the anxieties of Jewish students. Deech believes that pervasive antisemitism has turned far too many UK universities into no-go zones for Jewish students.

The Knesset committee, which is headed by MK (Member of Knesset), Likud, Avraham Neguise, wanted to know how antisemitism plays out in the daily life of students. The committee learned that some students are too frightened to wear yamulkes in public. Students also admitted that, out of fear, they refrain from expressing pro-Israel opinions, especially in classrooms that are ruled by anti-Israel professors.

Neguise believes that since it is “no longer polite and fashionable to hate Jews as they are, the hatred is disguised as criticism of the Jewish state”.

According to the The Diaspora Affairs report, 75% of Jewish American students have been exposed to antisemitism. In an extreme example, The Washington Post said that in Ohio, at Oberlin College, a female Jewish student, who had hung an Israeli flag in her dorm window, discovered shattered glass all over her bed and floor. A brick had been thrown through the window.

Isabel Storch Sherrell, who is also an Oberlin College student, told the Washington Post that, on multiple occasions, she heard students, “POC [people of color] peers and Jewish white hipsters”, refer to the Holocaust as “white on white crime”.

It is particularly contentious that the extreme Left classifies all Jews as white. Therefore, because of the theory of “white privilege”, the suffering of Jewish students is not considered to be relevant. This leftist mindset, which completely discounts Jewish people of color, plays to racism, and shows the inherent flaws in analyses of prejudices based on preconceived notions of “privilege”.

In an article for The Atlantic, reporter Emma Green said that as far as the extreme Left is concerned, Jews are “part of a white-majority establishment that seeks to dominate people of color”. This, of course,  promotes the stereotype of the evil racist white European (Ashkenazi) Jew, who is out to destroy the always innocent Palestinian person of color.

Juda Stone, of The Jewish Agency, told the Knesset that he believes that when students are afraid of antisemitism, it “leads them to escape their own Jewish identity”. Of course, this is something that the Jewish community can not allow.

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Hackers blamed for antisemitic print-outs at US university

White supremacist hackers are suspected to be behind an incident in which computer printers at an American university started producing antisemitic fliers.

The incident at Vanderbilt University in Nashville on January 16 appears similar to a spate of occurrences last year at universities nationwide including Princeton, when a hacker caused printers to churn out fliers bearing swastikas and antisemitic text.

On that occasion the Daily Stormer neo-Nazi website claimed credit for producing the material, which spoke of “the Jews destroying your country through mass immigration and degeneracy” and asked people to “Join us in the struggle for white supremacy”.

University spokeswoman Princine Lewis said the new incident happened “in a handful of offices on campus” and campus police were investigating.

“Currently it is an open investigation,” she wrote in an email to the Tennessean newspaper. “However, this most recent incident appears similar to incidents in March 2016 in which an outside source was able to access networked printers at several universities around the country.”

Ari Dubin, leader of Vanderbilt’s Hillel society, said: “Hillel takes all antisemitic incidents seriously and we are outraged by this despicable act. We are grateful for the rapid response of Vanderbilt University and the VUPD. We support their efforts to stop these kinds of hacking attacks from occurring in the future.”

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Expel professor for being a “bitter Jew” demands Goldsmiths student

Campaign Against Antisemitism has been sent a photograph of a board at Goldsmiths, University of London, which suggested that a Jewish lecturer who is an expert in antisemitism should be fired for being a “bitter Jew”.

The comment was scrawled on a suggestion board which asks: ”What do you think teaching and learning should look like in 2022?” But for one student the campus only needed one improvement. They wrote: ”No more David Hirsh, no more Zionism — a bitter Jew“ appended by a smiley face.

David Hirsh is a lecturer of Sociology at Goldsmiths, and is known for writing about antisemitism, and for highlighting the link between anti-Israel student activists and antisemitism.

Describing a lecturer as being a “bitter Jew” and calling for them to lose their job is inherently antisemitic.

Last year the Student Union of Goldsmiths reported “repeated instances” of antisemitic graffiti, including swastikas. One piece read: “Goldsmiths it’s the symbol of world Jewry!”

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Journalist’s hard-hitting exposé is scathing of festering antisemitism at SOAS, but will SOAS finally act?

A hard-hitting feature by Rosamund Urwin in London’s Evening Standard has exposed to London’s public the sad truth that most British Jews have long known: that SOAS, the School of Oriental and African Studies, might just as well be named the School of Antisemitism.

Noting SOAS students’ reputation for championing civil rights, and its proud tradition of nurturing future activists from 133 countries around the world, Urwin calls out the festering antisemitism that stains SOAS’s image with hypocrisy. Urwin is scathing in her analysis, pointing out that SOAS Students’ Union has a People of Colour Officer, two Anti-Racism Officers and an Equality and Liberation Co-President.

Urwin calls out the festering antisemitism that stains SOAS’s image with hypocrisy.

In December the cross-bench peer Baroness Deech told the Daily Telegraph’s Education Editor, Camilla Turner, that “amongst Jewish students there is gradually a feeling that there are certain universities that you should avoid — definitely SOAS”.

Incidents at SOAS have been causing serious concern, and those concerns centre around the activities of SOAS Palestine Society. Urwin notes that the Palestine Society is a dominant force on campus: “The Israel-Palestine conflict dominates discussion of global affairs at many universities but nowhere more so than at SOAS. In 2015 the union held a referendum where it voted to boycott Israel. And last year, it held an Israeli Apartheid Week ‘to raise awareness of Israel’s apartheid policies over the Palestinian people’.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism can reveal that the Palestine Society receives more funding than all but two of the 187 other non-sport societies at SOAS, receiving approximately 8% of the funds spent on non-sport societies every year.

It seems unlikely that the current leaders of the Palestine Society will face any consequences for arranging an antisemitic lecture on their campus.

In November, Campaign Against Antisemitism filed a complaint over an antisemitic event lecture organised by SOAS Palestine Society and the response we received showed little urgency. SOAS told us that the Students’ Union — a separate body — had investigated and was now in discussions with the Charity Commission. We found that the Students’ Union had declared the event not to have been antisemitic and that is what they told the Charity Commission. We wrote to the Charity Commission to set the record straight, but now it seems that nobody at SOAS intends to do anything to right this wrong until the Charity Commission has investigated, which is likely to take until after the protagonists have graduated and left SOAS for good. It seems unlikely that the current leaders of the Palestine Society will face any consequences for arranging an antisemitic lecture on their campus.

Shortly after the antisemitic lecture, in response to criticism, the Palestine Society planned a new event. SOAS’s Jewish students discovered that the Palestine Society planned to hold an event defining antisemitism, telling Jews what they are allowed to find offensive, and attempting to justify certain forms of Jew-hatred. It is hard to imagine SOAS inviting a speaker to tell black or gay students that they are no longer allowed to be offended by certain types of racism or homophobia — such an event would trigger a national outcry. In this case, there was only a Jewish outcry, and Palestine Society was quietly pressed to cancel the event, which they did.

“Some students tell me they are too scared to wear the star of David, or speak Hebrew”

Intimidation of Jewish students at SOAS is not difficult, mainly because the Jewish student population is small: Urwin discovered a 2016 Freedom of Information request which found that only 39 of the 5,900 students at SOAS admitted to being Jewish on their signup forms, and Avrahum Sanger, President of SOAS Jewish Society says that only about seven are active in Jewish life on campus, such that it is. “Some students tell me they are too scared to wear the star of David, or speak Hebrew, and Israeli students don’t want to attend Jewish events because they’re afraid of being singled out,” Sanger tells Urwin. He continues: “Even I feel uneasy when I go into the student union. And yet someone from the student union told me that the anti-racism officers didn’t have a mandate to address antisemitism as it wasn’t in their manifesto. Anyway, the only form of antisemitism people think of here is Hitler.”

It is no surprise. Graffiti found at SOAS in April last year threatened “BDS or else”, referring to the campaign to sever all ties with Israel. But Israel is the place from which Judaism originates and where half of the world’s Jewish population lives. Since its establishment it has been the one country that offers persecuted Jews from around the world unconditional safe haven. It is the religious and cultural heart of Judaism. To tell Jews that they will be treated as pariahs unless they renounce all connection to Israel and Israelis is antisemitic. Yet not only is that what SOAS’ few Jewish students are expected to do according to their Students’ Union, this graffiti appears to be threatening violence if they fail to comply. Few incidents are recorded in graffiti however, and we hear of too many incidents in which Jewish students are told, for example: “Why don’t you and your family f*** off to Israel?”

It is sobering to imagine for a moment that you are a Jewish student returning from lectures, and you stumble upon a vigil held for terrorist thugs who killed Jews for being Jews at the behest of genocidal antisemitic terrorist organisations like Hamas.

The influence of extremism on campus is also clear, though rarely highlighted. One such glimpse came in November 2015, when the Palestine Society organised a “vigil” commemorating the deaths of 72 Palestinian “martyrs” despite the fact that some of the “martyrs” were Islamist terrorists who had been killed attempting to murder Israeli Jews for being Jews, and who had declared allegiance to terrorist groups proscribed under EU and British terrorism laws. The absurd coverage of the resulting controversy in SOAS Spirit, a student newspaper, shows the nature of discourse on campus. It is sobering to imagine for a moment that you are a Jewish student returning from lectures, and you stumble upon a vigil held for terrorist thugs who killed Jews for being Jews at the behest of genocidal antisemitic terrorist organisations like Hamas.

Sanger feels that the situation is desperate. He revealed to Urwin that he has proposed an emergency motion at the Students’ Union, calling for equality for Jewish students. Having to propose such a motion at a major British university in 2017 should be the stuff of nightmares, not reality. Sanger’s motion highlights the disappearance of kosher provision and the withdrawal of a Jewish prayer area. He also wants the Students’ Union to appoint a Jewish Officer to work with the Anti-Racism Officers and to help to organise a workshop on antisemitism in Freshers’ Week.

Campaign Against Antisemitism continues to pursue its complaints with SOAS and the Charity Commission. We are extremely grateful to Rosamund Urwin for her coverage of this issue, and to Avrahum Sanger for his bravery in standing up to antisemitism at SOAS.

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Nazi parade in Taiwanese school

Images have emerged of a school in Taiwan which has engaged in Nazi role playing with teachers and students.

The shocking images were revealed by the Daily Mail, and show students and teachers in Nazi uniforms, students performing Nazi salutes and teachers riding in cardboard tanks.

German and Israeli officials have both condemned the school involved.

The images appear to have been taken during a history lesson, but the school’s statement admits that the children did not really understand what the symbols represented. This means that there could have been little to no educational value derived from such an exercise, which is instead merely a gratuitous and grossly offensive display of Nazi imagery.

Israeli Representative to Taiwan Asher Yarden wrote on his Facebook page “We strongly condemn this tasteless occurrence and call on the Taiwanese authorities, in all levels, to initiate educational programs which would introduce the meaning of the Holocaust and teach its history and universal meaning”.

The Presidential Office gave a statement expressing its regret at the images:

“We feel it is extremely disrespectful to the Jewish people who had been victims of the oppression perpetrated during wars, but more importantly, it highlighted ignorance about history”

“The responsibility of an education facility is to teach students that peace and diversity did not come easily. The freedom of thinking should be based on justice and respect, rather than misconduct”.

“‘Education authorities should require the school to shoulder responsibility by seriously reflecting on the incident, understand and improve education in related fields of study and apologize to the countries it offended”

However, to many, merely requesting the school seriously reflect on the incident will seem insufficient, given the shocking nature of the images.

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After Oberlin Professor fired for antisemitism, Jewish academic targeted with “Gas Jews” graffiti

After a lengthy nine month investigation, Joy Karega, a non-tenured assistant professor at Oberlin College, has been fired over antisemitic Facebook posts.

Karega was hired in 2014 to teach rhetoric and compositon classes at the prestigious private Ohio liberal arts college that comes with a $200,000 four year price tag, In November, 2015,  Karega wrote on her now deleted Facebook page: “I promise you, ISIS is not a jihadist, Islamic terrorist organization. It’s a CIA and Mossad operation.” Karega blamed the Paris magazine, Charlie Hebdo, terrorist attack on the CIA and Mossad, Israeli intelligence.

In January 2015 she accused Israel, the “same people behind the massacre in Gaza”, of shooting down Malaysian Airline flight No.17 over Ukraine. A 2015 inquiry came to the conclusion that a Russian-made missile probably caused the tragic crash.

An article in The Tower also revealed that in January, 2015, Karega shared an antisemitic image of an ISIS terrorist disguised as the Israeli president, Benjamin Netanyahu. The acronym, JSIL, a slur that compares Israel to ISIS, was drawn on Netanyahu’s arm along with a picture of the Star of David.

The text on the graphic implied that the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists were murdered in order to erode French support of the Palestinians. Karaga posted on Facebook: “This ain’t hard. They unleashed Mossad on France and it’s clear why”.

Karega also posted an unflattering photo of banker Jacob Rothschild and accused him of “controlling your news, the media, your oil, and your government”. Besides being a ridiculous comment, this antisemitic remark plays into the age old stereotype of the greedy, evil Jew, who wants to control the world in order to reap all of the advantages, while leaving everyone else to suffer.

On her Facebook page in March 2015, Karega  provided a link to a video of Louis Farrakhan, the controversial Nation of Islam leader. In the video, Farrakhan states:”It is now becoming apparent that there were many Israeli and Zionist Jews in key roles in the 9/11 attack.” In a post accompanying the link, Karega wrote, “Farrakhan is truth-telling in this video”.

Oberlin’s president, Martin Krislov, who is Jewish, ignited a national firestorm when he refused to condemn Karega’s posts. In a statement released to the press, Krislov said: “Oberlin College respects the rights of its faculty, students, staff and alumni to express their personal views.”

In sharp contrast to Krislov’s response, the Oberlin Board of Trustees in March called Karega’s statements “abhorrent” and “antisemitic”. The Board asked the school to “challenge the assertion that there is any justification for these repugnant postings.” 

 In a seeming nod of approval, a member of Stormfront, the white supremacist neo-Nazi website, was pleasantly surprised that the school protected Karega :”I am amazed that she posted the same stuff we do and [that] she wasn’t fired on the spot.”

Melissa Landa, president of the Oberlin chapter of Alums For Campus Fairness (ACF), a national college network that fights antisemitsm, would not disagree. It was their chapter, in fact, that was responsible for bringing Karega’s Facebook posts to the administration’s attention.

Landa issued a statement in April that Jewish students experience a “persistent hostile campus atmosphere”. Reporter Emily Shire of The Daily Beast spoke to a group of Jewish Oberlin students who said that they feel “increasingly threatened’ and were “dismissive of complaints of antisemitism.”

Ultimately, public pressure lead to Karega being put on paid leave in August. She was barred from campus while the school investigated her case. Karega refused to apologize and accused Oberlin of “pandering to the dictates of a handful of vocal and wealthy religious zealots.” On her Facebook page, Karega thanked writer, Kevin Barrett, a contributor to Veterans Today, which the Southern Poverty Law Center believes is “squarely in neo-Nazi terroritory”.

As a result of the controversy generated by the Karega scandal, President Marvin Krislov announced in September that he would be leaving Oberlin effective June 30, 2017.

On November 15, after bitter debate, Professor Joy Karega was fired by the Board of Trustees for “failing to meet the academic standards that Oberlin requires of its faculty” and for “failing to demonstrate intellectual honesty.”

Karega responded to her dismissal by accusing Oberlin of having a “discriminatory and biased approach”. She plans to file a lawsuit against Oberlin, as well as file a complaint with the Equal Opportunity Employment Board.

Two days after Karega’s firing, Benjamin Kuperman, the chairman of Oberlin’s computer science department, called police at 3:40 a.m. when he discovered, after hearing noise, that his front porch had been vandalized. Decorative seashells had been smashed, and placed behind a mezuzah that was on the door frame, was a note made from a piece of ripped white paper, with glued on cut letters, that said “GAS JEWS DIE”

Kuperman told police that he had no conflicts with friends, neighbors, Oberlin students or faculty members. The police, who are investigating, have classified the incident as a hate crime. Whether or not there is a link between the vandalism and Karega’s firing is unknown.

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Neo-Nazi asks for directions to Hillel at Northwestern University, shouts “Sieg Heil” at Jewish lecturer

A Jewish lecturer at Northwestern University, in Evanston, Illinois, has been targeted with antisemitic abuse as he walked near to campus.

The lecturer, who teaches Jewish Studies, was walking at around 5:30pm when a black SUV pulled up to him. A man leaned out of the passenger seat and asked where the Hillel building was. The lecturer pointed to it. The man then asked if he was Jewish. When the lecturer said he was, the man performed a Nazi salute and shouted “Sieg Heil”.

It is extremely worrying that these individuals were trying to locate the Hillel building, and such a request for information being immediately followed by a Nazi salute could easily be construed as an act of intimidation against Jews in the area.

The University has increased patrols around the area for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately CCTV footage is too dark to identify the man or the vehicle, but the police seem to be investigating.

 

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Tennessee students: “may Allah annihilate the Jewish dogs”, “we need a new Hitler”,

The Canary Mission, a group which monitors antisemitic and other extremist activity on American University campuses, has exposed various Muslim students at Universities in Tennessee as having posted virulent antisemitic statements online.

Canary Mission had previously revealed a “cesspool” of antisemitism at Knoxville, University of Tennessee.

In a new investigation, Dana Swaies, who had previously been an organiser for the Muslim Students Association, and who studies at Middle State University Tennessee, was found to have posted a number of antisemitic statements on his Twitter. One tweet in Arabic read “may Allah annihilate the Jewish dogs”. Responding to a rocket attack on Israeli territory he tweeted “Palestine is our land and the Jews are our dog!!! May Allah annihilate you!”.

Dareen Ahmad, another member of the MSA at Middle State called for a “new Hitler” who he hoped would wipe out Israel.

Following the kidnapping of Israeli’s in 2014, Ahmad wrote “May Allah annihilate them…May Allah defeat them. Dogs,” and “May Allah annihilate you [Jews], Allah willing!”.

He also wrote that the “yahood” (Jews) are stopping Palestinians from returning home.

A freshman at Memphis University, Nadeen Elayan, called Jews “pussies” for mourning the murder of three Jewish boys by terrorists.

Mohamed Khalil, a sophomore at Memphis, wrote “fuck the Jews, may Allah annihilate them”.

Nadine Taha also accused “Zionists” of committing Genocide of Palestinians, directly comparing it to Nazi Germany, which is antisemitic according to the International Definition of Antisemitism.

Comments such as these demonstrate two things all-too-clearly. Firstly, they are indicative of a horrible environment for Jewish students on University campuses, who are being asked to co-exist with people literally and openly calling for their extermination, who often can do so with impunity. Secondly, they illustrate the extent to which anti-Israel discourse has crossed over a line into unambiguous and dangerous antisemitism, much of which amounts to incitement. Such a situation is intolerable for Jewish students, and Universities must start address antisemitism on their campuses before social media barrages like these turn into incidents of physical violence.

These are just a small selection of the comments from Muslim students in Tennessee.

 

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Canada: Muslim students and SJP block Holocaust Education Week, intimidate Jewish student attempting to attend vote

Students from the Muslim Student Association and Students for Justice in Palestine have blocked a student motion which would allow for a week of Holocaust education on campus at Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada.

According to reports received by Campaign Against Antisemitism and Everyday Antisemitism, a motion which aimed to institute a Holocaust Education Week was blocked by the groups.

Not only did the groups oppose the motion, but they also attempted to prevent others attending, essentially preventing Jewish students from having their voices heard. According to a report from a Muslim student*, who condemned the MSA and SJP, members from the two groups blocked hallways and seemingly intimidated Jewish students attempting to attend the meeting, telling one that she wasn’t welcome.

In the Facebook post from the Muslim student, she decries the antisemitism in the Muslim community, saying “we’re literally a step away from Holocaust denial”. She put up a video shortly after, in which she says explicitly “they intimidated Jewish students”.

This is an incredibly worrying event. The attempt by Students for Justice in Palestine to block Holocaust education is sadly not surprising, but it is disgraceful and blatantly antisemitic nonetheless. For an organisation which claims to merely campaign against Israeli policy to then prevent students from learning about the Holocaust, an event which convinced many of the need for a Jewish state, and which predates the existence of Israel, is clearly antisemitic, and a cynical attempt to delegitimise the state of Israel by ‘going after’ the collective Jewish experience of persecution of the worst kind. The fact that Muslim students, who may themselves be worried about rising Islamophobia, have blocked such a motion is equally dismaying.

Not only is the intimidation of Jewish students on University campuses clearly on the rise, but there is also cause for concern in that a University campus, a space reserved for education and to develop those within it, now finds itself unable to undertake a educational program examining one of the defining events of human history. The Holocaust, the attempt to systematically eradicate the entire Jewish people, as well as homosexuals, the disabled, Socialists, Romani people, and others, based on the pseudo-scientific ideas of racial supremacy, and through the use of modern technology to turn genocide into an exercise in efficiency, was a uniquely evil event in history. The ability to confront events like the Holocaust and to attempt to understand how mankind could be driven to such a horrifying moral depth is at the heart of why education is valuable. These are issues which any educated person must be able to consider, and they are issues which do not simply vanish by virtue of discussion about them having been silenced. Students at this University are now being cheated out of a hugely important learning opportunity by antisemitic campus activism, and unfortunately Jewish students must now be feeling incredibly isolated and vulnerable.

We await to see what action the University will take. As of yet, it seems that no official statement has been released by the University.

 

*the student in question does not attend Ryerson, but we have since corroborated the facts of the story with students who were present.

 

 

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Canadian student’s dorm room vandalized with word “Jew” and a Swastika

According to an online report from a Canadian lawyer, somebody carved the word “Jew” and a swastika on the door of a Canadian Jewish student’s dorm room on the night of the American election.
The man said that a daughter’s friend had suffered the incident, and indicated that he would release more information at some point, but presumably cannot do so at the moment for safety concerns or due to a police investigation.
Whilst he believes the incident to have been related directly to the election, this is of course far from self-explanatory. Intimidation of Jewish students on campus is all-too-common and comes just as often from the far-left as it does from the far right
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Jewish, LGBT, non-white students targeted with Swastikas in their dorms, NY.

Dorm Rooms in the Kerrey Hall residential building were vandalized with Swastikas over the weekends.

Kerrey Hall houses students at the New School, NY.

Several students woke over the weekend to find that the doors of their dorm rooms had been vandalized with Swastika graffiti. It appears that the vandals have deliberately targeted Jewish, LGBT and non-white students.

The School’s President circulated the following statement to students by email:

“I have just learned of the defacement of four dormitory doors on our campus with a symbol intended to threaten and express hatred toward some of our students because of their identities.  Our community standards are very strong and hate crimes are unacceptable at The New School.The New School is committed to tolerance, respect, and diversity.  Any form of expression that denigrates members of our community based on their race, ethnicity, religion, sexual or gender identity, or political beliefs is completely abhorrent and antithetical to our core values. We take any such instance seriously, investigate swiftly, and take appropriate action to ensure the security and safety of all our students”

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has also said “Hate speech is reprehensible, and has no place in NYC. To the affected, we stand with you. To the perpetrators, we are better than this“.

Though it appears as if the School has taken the incident seriously, it is unknown whether the police have become involved. This is just one in a string of incidents that have victimised Jewish students, a trend which inevitably has started to target other minority students too. It is indicative of an environment on University campuses, both in the USA and elsewhere, in which Jewish students no longer feel safe.

Whilst some news sources have tried to link the incident to the election of Donald Trump, which in some areas has indeed led to flare ups of antisemitic incidents, there appears to be little evidence to substantiate this claim in this case. Instead, it fits clearly into the trend of campus intimidation against Jewish students, both from the far-left and far-right.

 

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After Trump victory, child tells classmates that now “all the Jews have to leave this country”

The day after Trump was elected President of the United States, a student at Burns Park Elementary school in Ann Harbor, Michigan reportedly said that “Now that Trump is president, all the Jews have to leave this country”.

This is one of a number of reports of alleged antisemitic activity that have occurred as a result of Trump’s victory.

The Principal of the school appears to be taking the issue seriously, and has circulated a short letter to the students and parents which calls for calm in the light of unrealistic claims about Trump’s presidency, as well as restating the school’s commitment to ensuring that nobody is excluded.

We will be reporting on any further information relating to this incident.

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Female student subjected to antisemitic abuse after turning down advances of non-Jewish man

A female student, who is in the process of converting to Judaism, at the Community College of Philadelphia has submitted a complaint to Drexel University after being subjected to antisemitic abuse by someone thought to be one of their students.

The student’s online dating profile stated that she ideally “would prefer a Jewish partner”.

After she rejected his advances, he expressed his displeasure that she would prefer to have a Jewish partner, saying “not my fault I’m not Jewish”.

Naturally, the exchange should have ended there, but she was shortly after contacted by another profile, which was fake.

She strongly suspects that the same person was behind this new profile, which was made under the username “ImWantJewNeed”.

The profile’s summary included “I’m a nice Jew guy looking for ladies that want to see my draddle” (s.i.c), “living my life as if I was the only Jew alive”, and listed its favourite media as “how to be a Jew 101 and ijewradio” and under the “you should message me if” section wrote “your (s.i.c) looking for a practicing Jew”, a clear reference to the earlier exchange.

She was contacted by the profile, when he made references to money and generally entirely focused on her Jewish identity.

Though she took the unwelcome conversation with good humour, even asking him “how was your Shabbos?”,  harassing a Jewish (or a soon-to-be Jewish) woman online because she doesn’t want to go out with you, and fixating on her Jewish identity, is clearly antisemitic. It is also worrying that this individual is apparently unwilling to accept a woman’s right to say no to his advances.

The student has reported the incident to the boy’s university, who appear to be taking the incident seriously. We will be advising her as the complaint is taken forward.

 

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Academic with ties to antisemitic extremism one of Trump’s prominent academic supporters

Dr. Boyd Cathey, a North Carolina archivist, who is an active member of The Institute Of The Historical Review, the world’s leading Holocaust denial organization, is one of the chief organizers of a “Scholars for Trump” list.

The international definition of antisemitism clearly states that “Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust)” is antisemitic.

The list of more than 50 scholars, some from such prestigious American universities as Yale, Duke, and Emory, was created with the aim of boosting Donald Trump’s intellectual profile. The Daily Caller stated that the academics wanted to challenge the idea that Trump supporters were “limited to the badly educated and the ill-informed’.

A comment from the signed statement revealed that “those who have attached their signatories are accredited scholars, mostly with PHDs, who are endorsing Trump as a credible candidate for the presidency and as the only barrier now standing between us and Heaven [forbid] the election of Hillary Clinton”.

In an article in the Daily Caller, Cathey, along with his associates, Dr. Paul Gottfried and   Dr. Walter Block, explained that “we are fully aware that signing this statement will not bring the signatory the same professional rewards as speaking at a conference on why Trump is a ‘fascist’ or on why he reminds one of the late German Fuhrer”.

An article in the Forward states that Cathey is aware of his dark reputation. Cathey explained that “dealing with Wagner, Judaism, and Germany, whether reasonable or not, would probably get me exiled even deeper into the realms of the prejudiced unwashed”.

The Southern Poverty Law Center lists Cathey as having had a long and troubling relationship with extremists and extremism, with links to not only to Holocaust denial, but also the neo-Confederate Movement (post American Civil War) and ‘radical traditionalist Catholicism’. He has ties to Catholic groups who were excised from the Catholic Church for having rejected attempts to reconcile and normalise relations with Judaism.

Cathey is also a supporter of the controversial retired California State University, Long Beach, psychology professor, Kevin MacDonald. MacDonald, an American who’s a member of the White Nationalist Party, believes that Jews, because of their genetic make-up, have an innate drive to bring down Western society.

A spokesperson for the Trump campaign did not respond to questions from the press about the Cathey’s scholars list.

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Antisemitic “Juden” graffiti targets Jewish students in Virginia

Antisemitic grafitti was found on Sunday near student accommodation in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The word “Juden” was spray painted outside the GrandMarc apartment complex, above a Star of David. “Juden” means Jew in German, and its use alongside the Star of David is overtly reminiscent of the forced labelling of Jews with Star of David badges with the word “Jude” were used. The symbolism was also used to mark Jewish homes and businesses.

The apartment complex houses many Jews who attend the University of Virginia. Several students interviewed expressed how they were worried about being targeted because of their religion for the first time

The Student Council and the Jewish Leadership council said that the graffiti was intended to “intimidate Jewish students and make them feel uncomfortable in their community”. Such public displays of antisemitism take away safe areas for Jews, and turn home neighbourhoods into spaces where one can be subjected to prejudice and intimidation.

The Police are currently investigating. Jewish students who were interview have voiced their approval of the University who, despite the incident having taken place off University property, have been proactive in investigating and in providing services to report incidents such as this.

 

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President of UJS tells President of NUS to fight antisemitism or step down

Writing in The Times, the President of the Union of Jewish Students, Josh Seitler, has called on the President of the National Union of Students, Malia Bouattia, to fight antisemitism head on, or step down. In a scathing article, Seitler told Bouattia: “you have failed to act and so I am forced to say that the time for action is fast running out; it’s time to act now or it might be time for you to step down.”

Bouattia has previously called Birmingham University a “Zionist outpost in higher education” because it has “the largest Jsoc [Jewish student society] in the country.” She has railed against “Zionist-led media outlets”, defended Palestinian terrorism as “resistance” and voted against condemning ISIS. When called on by Campaign Against Antisemitism and countless student leaders to retract her comments, she penned anarticle in The Guardian claiming that her accusers were simply sexists and racists. Bouattia then drew further condemnation in July when sheused her casting vote to strip Jewish students of their ability to elect their own representative. Student leaders have even gone so far as to write open letters expressing embarrassment and apologising to Jewish students for the actions of Bouattia and the National Union of Students.

The House of Commons Home Affairs Committee’s report into the rise of antisemitism in the UK released two weeks ago said that Bouattia “does not appear to take sufficiently seriously the issue of antisemitism on campus, and has responded to Jewish students’ concerns about her previous language with defensiveness and an apparent unwillingness to listen to their concerns…Referring to Birmingham University as a ‘Zionist outpost’ (and similar comments) smacks of outright racism.” In response, members of the National Union of Students’ Executive Committee joined an open letter claiming that the Home Affairs Committee was on a mission to “delegitimise NUS, and discredit Malia Bouattia”.

Bouattia continues to rebut both criticism and attempts at dialogue, including from Campaign Against Antisemitism.

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“Gas the Kikes” graffiti and other racist language at Duke University

A local news source has reported that antisemitic and racist graffiti was found on the Duke University campus ahead of an NAACP event.

The graffiti read “Gas the Kikes”. Such a statement is not just merely antisemitic, but could easily be considered an act of incitement. Using the imagery of the Holocaust to target and incite Jews is an unambiguous call for genocide.

Other graffiti included “F*ck N*ggers”.

Alec Greenwald, who works with the Duke chapter of NAACP, told the press “as we were waiting for the other student groups to trickle in, my kids wanted to read some of the messages that were on the tunnel. As we walked through the tunnel, we arrived at 3 derogatory messages targeting various identity groups. After having a conversation with my kids about the messages, I suggested to the student groups that we focus on that portion of the wall to paint over“.

The identity of the perpetrator is currently unknown, but the police are investigating.

A Duke University NAACP Representative commented:

The hate speech covering the graffiti wall was unfortunate, but perhaps more unfortunate was that the existence of the slurs was genuinely unsurprising to many of the students present. Racism and homophobia are not relics of an ancient and forgotten America—or Duke, for that matter—that has since been cleansed of imperfection with time. They are instead inevitable in the experience of many of the students on this campus. Extreme examples such as this only serve to remind us of the work that remains to be done in ensuring that members of our community feel safe during their earned pursuit of academic excellence.”

 

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Posters at U.C. Berkeley accuse “Jewish bullies” of controlling speech

A controversial suspended course at the University of California, Berkeley that emphasized the “decolonization” of Israel, and focused on exploring strategies that could potentially harm Israel’s right to exist, has been reinstated.

Antisemitic posters were posted on the campus as a reaction to the Jewish community’s condemnation of the course, “Palestine: A Settler Colonial Analysis”.  In an open letter to Chancellor Dirks, 43 Jewish educational and Jewish civil rights organizations protested the course’s content. A Jewish watchdog, The Amcha Initiative–“amcha” is the Hebrew word for “your community”– charged that the course promoted “a classic example of anti-semitic anti-Zionism”.

The antisemitic posters that appeared on the campus charged that the Jewish organizations had censored free speech. One poster said, “Jewish bullies smash free speech at CAL and are pledged $38 billion dollars. Attention Non-Jews: PAY UP and SHUT UP!” The $38 billion dollars refers to American military aid to Israel.

Criticism of Israel is not automatically antisemitism, but a poster that demonizes Jews for pointing out when such criticism becomes disproportionate and non-constructive, is without question antisemitic. Similarly, the idea that Gentiles must “pay up” by honoring Jewish bribes, not only promotes age-old antisemitic Jewish conspiracy theories, but also inflames antisemitism by promoting the idea that Jews are on a quest to rule over non-Jews.

Another poster called out the 43 Jewish organizations for censoring coursework. In addition, the poster wrongfully accused Israeli government officials of being “advocates for a foreign state” who want to take control of UC Berkeley. The poster asked, “Should we allow these outside groups and [Israel] to “control our freedom of speech and academic expression?”

It is both unreasonable and antisemitic to think that the state of Israel and American Jewish organizations have the power to not only censor, but also control public universities, a sentiment which is underlined by the belief of overarching Jewish control of world affairs.

The UC Berkeley administration removed the posters declaring that they “violated our Principles of Community, as well as the Regents’ Principles Against Intolerance”.

However, the course itself was reinstated after Paul Hadweh, the course facilitator, verified that he had made changes to the syllabus. In an interview with the anti-Israel website, The Electronic Intifada, Hadweh admitted that the changes were simply “cosmetic”.

Aviva Slomich, the international campus director of CAMERA on CAMPUS (The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America)  believes that UC Berkeley is offering a class “that is so explicit in undermining the Jews historical ties to the land of Israel and Israel’s right to exist”, [that] the school is perpetuating an antisemitic atmosphere on campus”. This is a clear example of rhetoric that is unhelpful and not even-handed in the way it approaches issues, combined with the whitewashing of alternative opinions, eventually leads to openly antisemitic discourse.

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UK: antisemitic, white supremacist slogans at Exeter University party

972 has reported that antisemitic and white supremacist slogans were visible on students’ t-shirts at an off-campus event in Exeter, attended by University of Exeter students. The University of Exeter is one of the UK’s top institutions.

A social event of the Snow Sports society at the Timepiece nightclub on Tuesday night saw various students with white t-shirts, which they and other students wrote on.

One slogan written on a t-shirt read “The Holocaust was a good time”. Another read “Don’t speak to me if you’re not white”.

There were also two students with Swastikas on their t-shirts.

Lauren Fry, head of the Snow Sports Society commented:

“Comments like these are not tolerated within our club,” she said. “Unfortunately, as only eight committee members, we can not be responsible for everything written by other students, especially when there is over 1,000 people. Timepiece were asking people to leave or change if they were seen in the venue with any abusive slogans on their t- shirts. As far as I’m aware no complaints were made. We apologise if we offended any one and we feel appropriate action was taken on the night to deal with these type of slogans if they were seen on anyone at our social. Snowsports has a zero tolerance policy for these actions and we will be contacting our members in due course to express this”

And a University of Exeter spokesman added:

“The university does not tolerate racist or bigoted behaviour in any form. This is the first we knew of this and shall be launching a full investigation”.

The prolific Jewish issues blogger “Elder of Ziyon” criticised 972’s coverage of this story, which lamented not simply the fact that a clear-cut antisemitic incident had occurred, but instead felt the need to emphasise that they “directly affect national conversation on racism, anti-Semitism and Israel-Palestine”. Antisemitic incidents are not bad because they make pro-Palestinian discourse look bad, or because they may make people more receptive to the concerns of Zionists. They are bad in their own right and need no further qualification of this fact.

Elder of Ziyon writes:

“But Reimer apparently is upset about antisemites who also hate Israel, because they make all Israel-haters look like antisemites.

As a result, a story about antisemitism must be contextualized to say ‘hey, we Israel bashers are against antisemitism too! Not only because it is deplorable, but also because it makes us look bad!'”

This news comes amidst concerns of rising antisemitism on University campuses, particularly following the election of Malia Bouattia as head of the National Union of Students (NUS) and the subsequent decision to strip Jewish students of the right to elect their own representatives. There have been several high profile cases of antisemitism and intimidation of Jewish students on UK campuses, including the resignation of the head of Oxford University Labour Club amidst concerns of a culture of antisemitism both there and on other campuses and the disruption of a pro-Israel event, involving the assault of a Jewish student at King’s College London. Recently, a Jewish student was awarded over a thousand pounds in compensation after being subjected to two years of antisemitic abuse at the University of York. A report by Lesley Klaff at Sheffield Hallam University states that Jewish students “frequently complain of anti-Semitic harassment”, which is subsequently only handled by the Student Unions, with University officials often unwilling to take solid action.

Last year it was reported that Jewish students were selecting their University choices not based upon where they felt they would have the best education, or find the courses that interested them the most, but instead were making these important choices on the grounds of where they are least likely to encounter antisemitism. In light of this, and in light of the myriad of other worrying events that have affected Jewish students in the UK, incidents such as this only cement the fact that antisemitism is becoming increasingly normalised and Jewish students are becoming increasingly marginalised on University campuses.

 

 

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New York girl forced out of high school by antisemitic abuse

A Father in New York has described how his daughter was forced out of her school by antisemitic abuse, stemming from political disagreements.

Marco Greenberg says that his daughter faced abuse after saying that “Religion in the extreme can cause violence and war. Just look at radical Islam”.

One student allegedly replied to this statement by saying “I’m going to rearrange your face”.

However, many comments focused on the girl’s Jewish identity, with her receiving comments like You white privileged Jewish bitch”, “Zionism is racism”, and “we’re not your Arab slaves”.

Greenberg said that the school failed to take his daughter’s complaints seriously, claiming that the principal simply “admonished our daughter for being ‘very opinionated’ and refused to take any concrete action…meaning free ad hominem attacks or threats of physical assault”.

The situation escalated even when the girl tried to contextualise her remarks by pointing out that radical Islam targets peaceful Muslims more than non-Muslims. Eventually, she was forced to move school following the harassment.

 

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NY: Man tells Jewish museum staff “The Nazis didn’t kill enough of you”

The NYPD is currently investigating a call that was made to the Jewish Museum in Manhattan.

The museum, on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, is the oldest museum of its kind.

On Tuesday night, a man called the museum and repeatedly said “The Nazis didn’t kill enough of you”.

The call was reported to the police, and the hate crime unit is currently investigating. They believe an individual from New Jersey is behind the call and are pursuing the case.

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50 Jewish students threatened in Antisemitic Instagram post

A 17-year-old male student in Sunnyvale, California, has been arrested after he was alleged to have sent antisemitic threats to Jewish students.

The student, who has not been identified because of his age, allegedly made the threats to at least two Jewish students at Fremont High School in Sunnyvale and Homestead High School in Cupertino, but it is thought he may have targeted up to 50.

The mother of one of the students took a screenshot of the threat, which was made from an account called “Jewslaughter”.

The message reads “Jews disgust me, I’ll fucking kill you. I got connections to the aryan brotherhood gang. You and the rest of your people are dead”.

The message also features a swastika.

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Neo-Nazi threatens Jewish and Muslim students at Spartanburg High Schools

DUNCAN, SC (WSPA) – The Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office has been investigating threats made against both Jewish and Muslim students at Byrnes High School.

Some of the threats included photos of the suspect wearing a gas mask, with a Nazi Iron Cross, and holding a swastika knife. They were made over Facebook.

The student who received the threats immediately reported them to the police. He had been communicating with the suspect on Facebook for some time before the latter’s posts suddenly became threatening.

Deputies say they are working to identify the person behind the threats, and Spartanburg County District Five says law enforcement will be patrolling the school throughout the weekend, performing random sweeps of the campus before students return.

The Superintendent of Spartanburg District 5 released a statement aiming to reassure parents and the wider community. He said they were taking these threats extremely seriously and doing everything possible to secure the campuses for the safety of the students and staff.

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French Jews pushed out of public schools by Antisemitism

Haaretz has reported that French Jews are being pushed out of the French schooling system by a culture of prevalent antisemtism.

One Jewish parent said that, despite having been educated in a French public school some years prior, the situation is now so bad that “anti-Semitic bullying means it would be too damaging for any Jewish kid you put there”.

Thirty years ago the majority of French Jews sent their children to public schools. The figure is now at only one third. In Paris, which has the largest population of Jews in France, almost all the children attend either private schools or Jewish schools.

French Jews have cited a “bad atmosphere of harassment, insults and assaults” for the change, as well as the growth of Jewish education that has gone along with increasing religious observance.

Whilst the incidents are usually ‘only’ instances of general bullying, some have involved serious intimidation, physical violence and death threats. Other incidents have included spraying a Jewish student with deodorant to ‘simulate’ a gas chamber, and a Jewish student being corned by classmates and being threatened with stabbing.

These incidents go alongside a steep increase in antisemitism in France generally, which has seen 20,000 French Jews leave for Israel in the past 4 years.

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Antisemitic abuse on Passau University campus, Germany

RIAS Nationwide Incident report: from Passau, Lower Bavaria, (south eastern Germany), 8th June 2016.

Two students were subject to antisemitic verbal abuse on Passau University campus.

On 8th June, at approximately 6pm, the two students were verbally abused by three men calling them “Dirty Jews”. Neither of the students was wearing any obvious ‘Jewish’ or ‘Israeli’ symbols, but the three men said that their targets looked like “typical Jews”.

The three men sat, with bare torsos, on a bench and were most likely inebriated. The reporter noted the three men singing an antisemitic song.

From their various and visible tattoos, it could be deduced that the men were associated with the extreme Right.

The antisemitic remarks were widely heard, but there was no immediate reaction from the other campus residents.

With thanks to RIAS – Recherche- und Informationsstelle Antisemitismus. The Foundation for Research and Information (office) on Antisemitism.

Writer comment: Unfortunately, many people can be subject to unwanted approaches and remarks from drunken people on a night out or at other times in our daily lives. Even good-humoured interactions can feel intimidating. We are most often able to shrug it off, move along and forget about it. Indeed, it is often safer not to react, especially if you feel threatened.

However, targeted, habitual and dogged insults during one’s daily life, (in this case two students wandering on their campus), can eventually chip away at a person’s confidence and lead to them feeling unsafe. This is especially so, if you are in a space which is familiar to you, a place of work, a place which is essentially your home.

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Official at Islamic University calls for “final solution”

A senior administrator at the Islamic University in Lecce, Italy, has called for a “final solution”

On his Facebook page, Raphael Villani wrote “there needs to be a final solution for Zionists” and that “the real Jews are the victims of Zionists”.

The Israeli Embassy in Italy discovered the comments, which have since been removed.

Calling for a final solution, the language used by the Nazis to describe the systematic extermination of the European Jewry, is clearly antisemitic, and is also a possibly a case of incitement. His assertion that Zionists are not “real Jews” contradicts many surveys and polls which show that large proportions of religious Jews identify as Zionists. It is thus a tool used to strip Jews who disagree with his position of their voice and their identities, attempting to portray the minority of Jews who agree with his position as “real” Jews, and the rest as not.

Given that in America, as an example, 90% of Orthodox Jews, 88% of Conservative Jews, and 70% of Reform Jews count themselves as Zionists, calling for a “final solution for Zionists” is nothing short of advocating genocide.

 

 

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Students for Justice in Palestine compiling lists of Jewish students and their addresses

The Pro-Palestinian student organisation Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) has been accused of compiling lists of Jewish students at New York University, among others, according to a report by Israel Radio.

A report about Students for Justice in Palestine’s activities were presented to the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee on Tuesday, at a meeting aimed at addressing the effects of BDS movements on US campuses, Knesset member Anat Berko (Likud) told the radio station.

The committee heard evidence that the pro-Palestinian group were collecting the personal information of Jewish students at several US Universities, including New York University. If the report is true, then it represents the systematic singling-out of Jewish students for no other reason than the fact that they are Jewish, and given that addresses are being collected the list borders on intimidation.

There is evidence to suggest that Jewish students are currently the most persecuted minority on American campuses.

In 2014, SJP posted mock eviction notices through the doors of Jewish students.

The Zionist Organisation of America considers Students for Justice in Palestine a “hate group”.

Whilst SJP’s central organisation denies knowledge of the alleged list, they acknowledged that each branch has its own practices and policies. The NYU branch has not been available for comment.

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Belgian school “proud” of Iran Holocaust cartoon competition teacher

A Catholic high school in Belgium has  allegedly said it is “proud” of an outgoing teacher who received a cash prize at the Iranian Holocaust Cartoon competition.

Luc Descheemaeker, who has just retired from the Sint-Jozefs Institute high school, was awarded and accepted a “special prize” at the Second International Cartoon Contest. His submission included the words “Arbeit Macht Frei”, which were originally cast above the entrance to Auschwitz, over a wall with barbed wire, meant to resemble the Israeli West Bank Barrier and drawing a comparison between Israeli policy and the Holocaust. Such a comparison is considered antisemitic under the EUMC working definition of antisemitism.

UNESCO has condemned the competition as an attempt at “at a mockery of the genocide of the Jewish people, a tragic page of humanity’s history”.

In a (presumably sarcastic) letter from a Belgian-Jewish organisation which asked whether the school was “proud” of their teacher’s participation in such an event, a faculty member replied “We are indeed very proud to have Luc associated with our school. His talent is of great value for the artistic education of our students!”

When the school was asked more directly about the award, school director Paul Vanthournout said that the “consideration of it as anti-Semitic is exaggerated”, this despite the fact that the cartoon clearly falls foul of the EUMC definition of antisemitism. He also worryingly mentioned that Descheemaeker had been in charge of some Holocaust education in the school.

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Whistleblower: German University teaching antisemitic content

Dr. Rebecca Seidler was asked to teach on a course at HAWK University in Germany on the “situation of young people in Palestine”. However, she went to the press after finding many of the course materials to be antisemitic.

She claimed that the materials were solely concerned with portraying Israel negatively, as opposed to trying to help the students develop a better understanding of the social issues.

Shockingly, she claims that the course materials contained allegations that Israel harvested the organs of Palestinians, a claim that has been described by the ADL as blood libel. There were also articles that had been taken from conspiracy theory blogs, and very few of the materials seemed to come from academic sources

Emmanuel Nahshon, a spokesman for the Israel’s Foreign Ministry, described the course as a “hatred factory”.

The University has denied antisemitism, but Dr. Seidler believes that her concerns have not been taken seriously, as she was dismissed as being “oversensitive” when she complained to the University.

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German children attending “Nazi youth camps” in Sweden

The Express has revealed footage purporting to show German children attending a summer camp run by far-right groups in Sweden.

The footage shows children in the woods dressed in uniforms with Sturmvogel logo. Sturmvogel is a far-right group founded in 1987 and apparently has links to Nazism and Holocaust denial. They also have links to the banned groups Wiking-Jugend and Heimattreue Deutsche Jugend.

The camps are structured in a quasi-militaristic manner, with children expected to stand in silence and salute the flag until they are dismissed.

The group holds its camps in Sweden to avoid German counter-extremism laws.

Andrea Ropke, a German expert on the far right, notes that the children are sent to the camps by their parents: “Nationalist youth education is very important to them and the camps are an important part of the business”.

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Leaked report into Oxford University Labour Club antisemitism seems designed to be unremarkable

The Labour Party’s inquiry into allegations of antisemitism in the Oxford University Labour Club has today been leaked. Carried out by Baroness Jan Royall, the report was commissioned after Alex Chalmers, Co-Chair of the club, resigned in February 2016 stating rampant levels of antisemitism as his reason for doing so. The incident brought antisemitism in the Labour Party into the public spotlight, and Campaign Against Antisemitism met Baroness Royall to assist her inquiry.

The full version of Baroness Royall’s report was originally kept secret, with only the executive summary being published in May. It was then expected to be published in full alongside the wider-ranging Chakrabarti Inquiry report into antisemitism in the Labour Party last month, but instead Baroness Royall was brought into the Chakrabarti Inquiry as a Co-Vice Chair, perhaps as a means of keeping her quiet. Baroness Royall’s report remained unpublished and the report issued by the Chakrabarti Inquiry was a total whitewash. The JC has now published a leaked copy of Baroness Royall’s full report.

Baroness Royall finds “no evidence that the Club is itself institutionally antisemitic” but notes a “cultural problem in which behaviour and language that would once have been intolerable is now tolerated. Some Jewish members do not feel comfortable attending the meetings, let alone participating.”

Looking at the wider issue of antisemitism, she also explains that “a pervading discourse now is that Jews are neither weak, nor poor, neither workers, nor have-nots. In short, Jews cannot be victims and cannot be discriminated against.” She goes on to say that “being anti-Zionist…is often used deliberately as a tool of antisemitism”.

Baroness Royall further notes “an environment in which Jews cannot debate, or feel safe to do so, unless their every remark is prefaced by a criticism of the Israeli government”. While she explains that a clear definition of what is antisemitic “can provide useful tools for helping consider what may, or may not, constitute antisemitic discourse” and urges the Chakrabarti Inquiry “to consider this carefully”, the Chakrabarti enquiry conspicuously avoided defining antisemitism.

The full text of Baroness Royall’s report does not change Campaign Against Antisemitism’s opinion following the publication of the partial report. The full report tells us nothing new, except that Baroness Royall thinks that Alex Chalmers was wrong when he resigned as Co-Chair of Oxford University Labour Club over rampant institutional antisemitism.

The leaking of Baroness Royall’s report has revealed that it too fails to identify individuals who are guilty of antisemitism within the Labour Party. It now seems that this reluctance to name those responsible may be a reflection of Labour’s inner conflicts.

The Young Labour conference at Scarborough followed shortly after Young Labour’s own suppressed investigation. It became clear at that Scarborough conference that some of the individuals alleged to be guilty of antisemitism at Oxford are the same young politicians with important roles in Momentum, the movement that help engineer the election of Jeremy Corbyn.

The fact that they are under suspicion lends greater urgency to the task of providing transparency on this issue, which the Labour party refuses to do.

Yet again, it seems that the needs for political expediency outranks the desire of the Labour Party’s leadership to confront the antisemitism in its ranks.

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Antisemitic Drinking Game Played in Princeton

A group of students at a Princeton High School have reportedly played ‘Jews vs Nazis’ beer pong

A local news source reported that the underage students played the game, a variant of the popular drinking game, in a basement, photos of which later drew attention online. However, this appears not to be an isolated incident, but rather a general trend, as various websites seem to host rules for the ‘game’. At least one of the sites hosting rules for the game also describes Holocaust education as ‘ideological’ with ‘commercial aspects’ and openly espouses various forms of Holocaust denial. Disturbingly, the rules incorporate an ‘Anne Frank cup’ which is hidden by the ‘Jews’ team, and a rule that allows the ‘Nazis’ team to send one of the opposing players ‘to Auschwitz’. Whilst any antisemitic intentions of the students involved are yet to be established, making light of the systematic slaughter of 6 million Jews in such a way must be taken seriously regardless of the motives.
The Schools Superintendent for the area has confirmed that the incident is being investigated and has also been in touch with a local Rabbi with a view to improving Holocaust education in the area.

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Education Everyday Antisemitism Politics West Midlands Ξ E-mail

UK Jewish students raise concerns over candidate for national student president

This week, hundreds of students from British universities, signed a letter questioning statements made by Malia Bouattia, a candidate for the presidency of the National Union of Students in the UK.

Bouattia has referred to Birmingham University as a “Zionist outpost”  and referred to the fact that it has the “largest [Jewish Society] in the country” when describing the challenges she was facing at the time. These views have offended Jewish students and divided the national student body. For Jewish students, the prospect of the President of the National Union of Students (NUS) holding such views about Jewish students is quite obviously disconcerting. Should a person who uses such rhetoric become the President of NUS, it is likely that this would create a deep rift between NUS and Jewish students.

Just recently, Bouattia explained at an event at SOAS that the government’s Prevent counter-extremism strategy is the product of a so called “Zionist lobby”.

Bouattia’s response to the letter denounced the allegations as “false”. The President of Birmingham’s Jewish Society has answered.

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Education Everyday Antisemitism London Vandalism Ξ E-mail

Graffiti at SOAS University of London threatens opponents of BDS

On 6th April, Israel’s new ambassador to the UK, Mark Regev, visited London’s School of Oriental and African Studies and met with the University’s Director, Valerie Amos. The following day, Jewish students noticed red and black graffiti scattered across campus. In bold red, the phrase “BDS or else” could not have been mistaken. BDS refers to a campaign to boycott, divest from or place sanctions on Israel.

The graffiti stood out amongst most other anti-Israel incidents SOAS is infamous for because of its sinister undertone. “Or else” enforces the message of harmful or violent consequences, which Jewish students on campus feel threatened by.

Avrahum Sanger, a student at SOAS commented, “The actions and graffiti on campus yesterday at SOAS further contribute to the fear Israeli and Jewish students face at SOAS. Already students are afraid to speak Hebrew on campus, wear Jewish items of clothing or identify as Israeli or Jewish and further demonisation only serves to alienate both groups further.”

SOAS has not made any comment on the incident and the graffiti has yet to be removed.

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Education Everyday Antisemitism Indiana Vandalism Ξ E-mail

Swastikas found at University of Indianapolis and Purdue University

Two American universities reported finding objects on campus marked with swastikas earlier this month.

At the University of Indianapolis one was scratched into a statue of Chinese artist Au Ho-nien, prompting the university’s president, Robert L. Manuel,  to e-mail a warning on 8th March reminding students that “UIndy has not and will never tolerate such behaviour,” and it showed the university was not “immune to intolerance and hate”.

And on 7th March at Purdue University a swastika and antisemitic slur were found on a whiteboard in the American Studies program at College of Liberal Arts.

Liberal Arts dean David Reingold sent an e-mail to staff and the faculty stating: “This type of hateful expression is repulsive and outside of the bounds of civil discourse. It has no place in the College of Liberal Arts and Purdue University.”

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Canada Education Everyday Antisemitism Facebook Twitter Verbal Abuse Ξ E-mail

Antisemitic social media posts celebrate adoption of boycott motion in Quebec

Last week the Student Society of McGill University in Montreal Québec voted to boycott Israel. Within an hour of the vote, antisemitic posts and messages appeared on social media.

800 members of the university’s 30,000 students took part in the SSMU vote to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.

Simon Paranski, a student at the university stated, “Within an hour of the BDS vote passing, there were posts on social media about Zionist Jew-boys and insulting people of the Jewish faith,” said Paranski.

“People reached out to us that they were personally harassed, verbally harassed on the street after the votes. Some people were on the phone with their parents that they were upset, and people hurled insults at them. It was really scary because it happened so quickly, and it was such a huge escalation.”

Vice president of the Centre for Israel and Jewish affairs, Luciano Del Negro, said they have been in touch with some students, “It is not a resolution on campus which changes absolutely anything and what we feared has come to pass. How is it that Jewish students have been insulted, disparaged, have been made to feel unsafe on campus,” he said.

On Thursday McGill University issued a statement “It is important for a university community to be built on mutually respectful dialogue. Students can report abuse or violations of their student rights to their faculty’s disciplinary officer. All complaints are taken seriously and investigated. We have not received any complaints related to this matter so far.”

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Education Everyday Antisemitism South Carolina

15-year-old South Carolina schoolgirl writes Holocaust denial essay and gets top grade

A young schoolgirl in South Carolina has written a report entitled “Holohoax” for a school project. Her teacher encouraged the young girl by not only giving her an A grade for the project but also conducting a short interview with her about the report and posting it online.

In one passage, she wrote: “The Jews show pictures of hair and clothing of women and children, claiming that they were used for soap and rugs after their owners being stripped of them and brutally killed. However, the truth lies in the fact that ‘The Germans were against typhus, which was the real reason for shaving heads, fumigating buildings, and cremating corpses.’”

She added: “Also, there is no proof of the gassed Jews except for allegations made by hired phony witnesses. According to the Red Cross, ‘Though six million Jews supposedly died in the gas chambers, not one body has ever been autopsied and found to have died of gas poisoning.’”

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Education Everyday Antisemitism Netherlands Ξ E-mail

Report finds rampant antisemitism in Dutch schools

A report written by a Dutch Jewish journalist, Margalith Kleijwegt, at the request of the Dutch Ministry of Education, found that there is rampant antisemitism within Dutch schools, especially amongst Muslim students.

The report, entitled “Two Worlds, Two Realities – How do you deal with it as a teacher?” gave many examples of antisemitism within the classroom, as recounted by teachers. In one example a student stood up and threatened to “gun down all Jews” with a rifle. In another example, in Amsterdam a female student of Moroccan descent stood up and pronounced: “If I had a Kalashnikov [assault rifle], I’d gun down all the Jews.”

The report found that some teachers feel they have no influence over students who have deep-seated prejudices against other students especially against Jews.

Kleijwegt wrote in the report, “Antisemitic behaviour is a recurrent problem in some schools. Some see it as a provocation [by pupils], others fear it goes deeper: that pupils receive anti-Jewish attitudes at home.”

Source: Arutz 7

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Education Everyday Antisemitism New York Ξ E-mail

New York’s Vassar college faculty sponsor and defends blood libel lecture

On 3rd February, several academic departments of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York sponsored a lecture by Rutgers Professor Jasbir K. Puar titled “Inhumanist Biopolitics:  How Palestine Matters,” which constituted a conspiratorial reformulation of the blood libel.

At the outset of the public lecture, a Vassar professor requested that audience members not record Puar’s remarks, curiously stating that it would be  “unseemly” to do so.

In fact, it was Puar’s remarks which were not only unseemly, but resonant of the most repugnant of anti-Semitic tropes.

Without any factual support, Puar accused Israel of a wide ranging conspiracy to use “asphyxiating” “biopolitical” means to exercise control over Palestinians. As one audience member reported: “She labeled Israel an apartheid state that uses its world-renowned reproductive technology to control population demographics by collecting genetic data to identify who is Jewish and specifically targeting Palestinian procreative organs. Paradoxically, she bragged that the Palestinian birthrate is triple that of the Jewish Israelis.”

In a transparent reformulation of the blood libel, Puar went on to “speculate” that the Israeli government has repeatedly executed young terror suspects, possibly while they were in ambulances, and then “harvested” their organs. She also asserted that Israel is embarked on a “eugenic” conspiracy to utilise medical and other technologies systematically to “stunt” and “maim” young Palestinians.

No member of the audience, including the many faculty members present, challenged the accuracy of Puar’s unsupported, conspiratorial allegations. At the conclusion of the lecture, an audience member asked a former head of Vassar’s Jewish Studies Program, which was among the sponsors of the lecture, if he accepted the accuracy of Puar’s contentions.  He responded: “You prove to me that anything she said wasn’t true.”

In the wake of reports of Puar’s lecture, Vassar’s President vaguely acknowledged that “Some found at least parts of [Puar’s] talk offensive to Jews in particular,” but did not acknowledge that it was bigoted. To the contrary, she went on to suggest that blame is properly assigned to “online publications” and “social media” that have (accurately) reported on Puar’s speech and other anti-Jewish activities on campus, including the posting of anonymous antisemitic messages and the use of a Nazi propaganda poster by a purported Palestinian human rights group.

Sources: ObserverLegal Insurrection

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Education Everyday Antisemitism Politics South East of England Ξ E-mail

Rampant antisemitism exposed at Oxford University Labour Club

The Co-Chair of the Oxford University Labour Club, Alex Chalmers, has resigned after the club voted to embrace “Israel Apartheid Week”.

Chalmers wrote about his resignation in a hard-hitting Facebook post, saying: “Whether it be members of the Executive throwing around the term ‘Zio’ (a term for Jews usually confined to websites run by the Ku Klux Klan) with casual abandon, senior members of the club expressing their ‘solidarity’ with Hamas and explicitly defending their tactics of indiscriminately murdering civilians, or a former Co-Chair claiming that ‘most accusations of antisemitism are just the Zionists crying wolf’, a large proportion of both OULC and the student left in Oxford more generally have some kind of problem with Jews. The decision of the club to endorse a movement with a history of targeting and harassing Jewish students and inviting antisemitic speakers to campuses, despite the concerns of Jewish students, illustrates how uneven and insincere much of the active membership is when it comes to liberation.”

Oxford University Labour Club is a member organisation of Labour Students, which said that they were “deeply troubled” and that they “unequivocally condemn any form of antisemitism”. Without offering any specifics, Labour Students promised to investigate and take action.

Since Chalmers announced his resignation, Oxford Jewish Society has published further allegations in a Facebook post of their own, shedding further light on the rampant antisemitism at the heart of the Labour Club.

According to Oxford Jewish Society:

  • Members of the Labour Club’s committee have been known to sing the song “Rockets over Tel Aviv” and have specifically expressed support for Hamas’ tactic of launching indiscriminate attacks against Israel’s Jewish citizens.
  • One Labour Club member stated specifically that it was “not antisemitic” to allege the existence of a “New York – Tel Aviv axis” that rigs elections, and said that “we should be aware of the influence wielded over elections by high net-worth Jewish individuals”. He also stated that it was “not antisemitic” to allege the existence of an international Jewish conspiracy, even though he did not endorse the idea himself.
  • One Labour Club committee member stated that all Jews should be expected to publicly denounce Zionism and the State of Israel, and that nobody should associate with any Jew who fails to do so.
  • Several individuals, some who have been on the Labour Club committee, repeatedly used the word “Zio” (a word normally only found on neo-Nazi websites) to refer to Jewish students.
  • Several Labour Club members have alleged that US foreign policy is under the control of the “Zionist Lobby” and when asked if by “Zionist” they simply meant “Jewish” they did not answer.
  • One member of the Labour Club was formally disciplined by their College for organising a group of students to harass a Jewish student and to shout “filthy Zionist” whenever they saw her.
  • In a public discussion on the Labour Club’s Facebook group, one member argued that Hamas was justified in its policy of killing Jewish civilians and claimed that all Jews were legitimate targets. Several other members, including two former Labour Club co-chairs and one then on committee, defended the member as making “a legitimate point clumsily expressed”.
  • Two Labour Club members argued that Jenny Tonge, a peer expelled from the Liberal Democrats over antisemitism, should be encouraged to join the Labour Party.

A spokesman for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “Jewish people should feel comfortable in any political party. Many of the pivotal figures in Labour have been Jewish, but we have also received increasing reports from Jewish Labour supporters who no longer feel welcome in their party. It has been more than three months since Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn responded to an antisemitic outburst by Labour MP Sir Gerald Kaufman by voicing ‘deep concern’ and assuring us that he was ‘implacably opposed to racism’ before deciding to take no disciplinary action whatsoever against the MP. We call for the Labour Party and Oxford University to investigate this matter fully and take the strongest possible action to demonstrate to Jewish students that antisemitism will not continue to be tolerated. Where the law has been broken, this matter must be referred to the police; these students are supposed to be amongst our nation’s brightest and cannot be excused.”

https://twitter.com/JoeMiles94/status/699727568988196865

Source: Campaign Against Antisemitism

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Education Everyday Antisemitism Posters Sweden Ξ E-mail

Holocaust denial flyers distributed outside Swedish school on Holocaust Remembrance Day

Outside a public high school in Hudiksvall, Sweden, Holocaust denial flyers were handed out for Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Source: CFCA

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Australia Education Everyday Antisemitism Facebook Ξ E-mail

Australian White Student Union declares “We will consider it a success when Jewish people no longer exist”

Facebook has removed “The Macquarie University White Student Union Page”,  after it was reported by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry for antisemitic comments, including: “We will consider it a success when Jewish people no longer exist and all that remains is a vibrant, multicultural and diverse populace.”

In December, the Facebook group’s administrator posted a photo of Israeli tennis player Dudi Sela holding an Israeli flag at the Australian Open, writing: “The flag is racist…How dare he fly it so proudly in Australia, a country which stands for diversity, tolerance and vibrancy.”

The White Student Union is not officially registered with Macquarie University and a spokesperson from the university said: “It has been created by a third-party community group, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Macquarie University.”

Source: JP Updates

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Education Everyday Antisemitism Netherlands Ξ E-mail

Dutch pupil tells teacher: “I’d gun down all the Jews”

Teachers in Dutch schools feel powerless to counter violently antisemitic attitudes among their students, according to a new report commissioned by the Netherlands’ Ministry of Education.

Entitled “Two Worlds, Two Realities – How Do You Deal with It as a Teacher?”, the 55-page document has been created by Dutch-Jewish journalist Margalith Kleijwegt based on her visits to schools across the country and interviews with teachers since last January.

The report found strongly antisemitic views to be especially prevalent among Muslim students, with cited evidence including an incident at a high school in Amsterdam. A female teacher there told Kleijwegt how a female student of Moroccan descent stood up and said: “If I had a Kalashnikov [assault rifle], I’d gun down all the Jews.”

The teacher is quoted as saying: “I wasn’t getting there. I asked her to imagine a 5-year-old Jewish girl who lives here. What would she have to do with Israel’s policies? Unfortunately, there was no place for empathy. The pupil didn’t care about that girl. She had only one message: The Jews should die.”

Kleijwegt concluded: “Anti-Semitic behaviour is a recurrent problem in some schools. Some see it as a provocation [by pupils], others fear it goes deeper: That pupils receive anti-Jewish attitudes at home.”

Dutch Education Minister Jet Bussemaker commented that the report “shows a reality that is inconvenient and sometimes painful” but which must be addressed “in accordance to democratic values”.

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Education Everyday Antisemitism New York Ξ E-mail

Video shown to New York schoolchildren says Jews are “extremists” who “got what they deserved”

A video produced by Study.com that was shown to three classes of schoolchildren in Rockland, New York, claimed that historic persecution of Jews was a result of their bad behaviour. The video at one point showed a table comparing Jews with Christians, decrying Jews as “violent religious extremists” who “got what they deserved”.

Clarkstown South High School stopped showing the video after complaints. The school district called the video “demeaning and historically inaccurate” and promised to review guidelines.

Study.com issued a statement saying, “We apologise that the video seemed offensive. That was certainly not what we intended.”

Source: CFCA/CBS2

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Education Everyday Antisemitism South East of England Ξ E-mail

Ha’aretz correspondent allegedly tells UK students “Elders of Zion” planned “colonisation”

Israeli journalist Amira Hass has reportedly told students at the University of Kent that the “Elders of Zion” planned “colonial” hegemony over Palestinians. Blogger David Collier attended a conference entitled “Israel and the Palestinians: Colonialism and Prospects for Justice” which was a joint event by University of Kent and the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. Hass is married to a Palestinian and has lived in Ramallah since 1997. She is well known for her uncompromising attacks on Israel.

Writing in his blog, Collier recalled: “I tried to make sense of what I was hearing. Hass was discussing a hidden agenda, a secret group of Jews, plotting and planning beyond the reach of Israeli democracy – by extension, this secret group were to blame for the ‘war crimes’, for the death of innocent Palestinian children. Hass was spinning tales of a Jewish cabal, of shady secretive control, of unworldly plots and sinister deeds. A road that leads to dead children. Hass was resurrecting a classic historic antisemitic blood libel in a British university.”

He then quotes Hass as saying: “And I ask myself did the Elders of Zion really sit together at the beginning of the seventies and then during the nineties, and plan, and have all these military orders, all these changes?”

The “Elders of Zion” refers to a fictitious Jewish cabal that supposedly controls world affairs to the detriment of mankind and forms the basis for most antisemitic conspiracy myths.

Source: David Collier

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Education Everyday Antisemitism Germany Verbal Abuse Ξ E-mail

Teachers indifferent to use of “Jew” as an insult in German schools, especially amongst Muslim pupils

German news platform Hessenschau has reported that “Jew” has become a common insult amongst pupils in schools across German.

One teacher and educational scientist, Türkan Kanbicak, notes that “You Jew”, “You spastic” and sexist insults are very common. She remarks that, while she determinedly challenges all such incidences, many of her colleagues appear indifferent and say nothing.

Arif Arslaner, founder of Kubi, an organisation that provides social work to seven schools in Frankfurt an Main, says the insults are particularly prevalent amounst Muslim students. He advises that it is important to distinguish between ideological hatred and students “merely” parroting hateful rhetoric to be provocative.

He notes the difference between Muslim and non-Muslim students is that the latter are less open, rather than less hateful. Kanbicak supports this view, noting that amongst students from more traditional German backgrounds, outright antisemitism is taboo and is more likely to be cloaked as criticism around Israel.

Source: Hessenschau

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Education Everyday Antisemitism Germany Politics Posters Ξ E-mail

Antisemitic campaign posters at Berlin university declare “Capitalist pigs are not kosher”

RIAS have reported antisemitic posters used in a campaign in student elections at the Freie Universität, one of Berlin’s major universities.

The left wing group “Liste 15/Tierbabys und Klassenkampf” [List 15/Baby Animals and Class War] posted up campaign posters featuring a piglet drinking from a Starbucks cup, together with the slogan “Kapitalistenschweinchen sind nicht koscher” [“Capitalist pigs are not kosher”].

The word “kosher” is used to denote food prepared in accordance with Jewish law. It has also found wider use in common parlance to describe legitimacy or genuineness.

Conflating Jews with capitalism, and leveraging anti-capitalist sentiment against the Jewish people, is a centuries-old phenomenon. Contributing factors include culturally ingrained resentment stemming from Christian and Muslim communities, who borrowed from Jews, both because their scriptures prevented them borrowing within their religions and because they had banned Jews from almost all other lines of business. Other factors include Marxist contempt of Jews (Marx wrote: “What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical need, self-interest. What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is the worldly God? Money.”) and Soviet courtship of militant Islam throughout the 20th Century, which sought to mobilise Arab nationalism and radical Islamism in its fight against the West.

Dehumanising Jews by depicting them as pigs has an equally lengthy legacy. Judensau (German for “Jew-sow”), is a derogatory and dehumanising image of Jews that appeared from around the 13th century in Germany. Its popularity has lasted over 600 years and was revived by the Nazis.

Starbucks, whose Chairman and CEO is Jewish, has long been the focus of anti-Israel campaigners. In 2006, 2009, 2010 and 2014 there were several calls to boycott Starbucks for ‘supporting Israel’.

RIAS report that, following criticism within the student group itself, List 15 withdrew its campaign material.

Sources: Recherche- und Informationsstelle AntisemitismusAntisemitism and the American Far Left, Wikipedia, “On the Jewish Question” by Karl Marx

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Education Everyday Antisemitism Facebook France Ξ E-mail

France’s prestigious Sciences Po expels a student for antisemitism

Amira Jumaa, a third-year student at Sciences Po University in Paris, interning at the French Embassy in New York, wrote to a Jew on Facebook that her country, Kuwait, could “buy you and your parents and put you in ovens.” The story was originally circulated on social media by the group Inglourious Basterds, which caused Sciences Po to end her embassy internship and to suspend her from the university. Now she has been permanently expelled. This is the first time that a student has been expelled from Sciences Po for disciplinary reasons.

Source: i24

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Education Everyday Antisemitism Texas Vandalism Ξ E-mail

Jewish student moves out of Texas university halls after yellow Stars of David glued to his door

A Jewish student at Texas Christian University has moved out of university accommodation after he found a trail of yellow Stars of David leading to his bedroom door. The stars were like those used during the Holocaust to identify Jews, and had been fixed to the walls and door using a hot glue gun. Dalton Barlow was the only Jewish student in the hall of residence and told CBSDFW: “There was one right outside my room. My doorway was decorated for the holiday for Hanukkah.” University police are investigating.

Source: CBSDFW

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Education Everyday Antisemitism West Midlands Ξ CAA Ξ E-mail

School inspectors find “antisemitic material” in unregistered schools in England

School inspectors in England have found three unregistered schools, operating in Birmingham, teaching from books which include “antisemitic material”. The inspectors, from Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills) found that the schools’s 94 pupils were being taught according to a narrow Islam-focused curriculum.

The discovery comes after Sir Michael Wilshaw, Chief Inspector of Schools In England and head of Ofsted, announced in late 2015 that school inspectors had found 15 unregistered schools in England, of which all had a Christian or Muslim faith designation.

Ofsted is setting up a task force against unregistered schools operating in England.

Sources: The Telegraph, BBC

 

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Education Everyday Antisemitism London Ξ E-mail

London university apologises for script about dukes owing money to “the Jew”

A London university has apologised unreservedly after students on its voice production course were asked to read a script about dukes owing Jews money as part of a drill in vowel and consonant projection.

Students at City Lit University wanting to improve their vocal clarity were asked to say: “The duke paid the money that was due to the Jew before the dew was off the grass on Tuesday. The Jew, having duly acknowledged it, bade adieu to the duke forever.”

The university immediately and unreservedly apologised, telling the Jewish News: “This exercise does not hold true to the core values and promotion of equality and diversity I expect of my team. I would most certainly like to issue an apology on behalf of the department for this extraordinarily outdated and offensive approach to lesson content. The learner was rightly offended…I am investigating this issue with the voice delivery team, as clearly we need to address the tutor responsible and provide support in their awareness and understanding of the offence they have caused in the first instance.”

The reaction comes after a Jewish News reader raised concerns it was “perhaps more acceptable in Shakespeare’s day than in 2015”.

Source: Jewish News

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Education Everyday Antisemitism Facebook New York Ξ E-mail

Man calls for gas chambers to “clean” Jewish members from New York school board

In a dispute between town officials and the large local Jewish community in East Ramapo, one Facebook user has resorted to calling for the use of gas chambers.

The dispute centres on the local Jewish community’s actions on the education board, which have met with fierce opposition by activists who have even resorted to threats and intimidation. School board member Yonah Rothman condemned the behaviour of activists who “want only more chaos and endless conflict with the Jewish community” in an open letter printed by the Rockland County Times.

In the comments section beneath the letter, Facebook user Edward Branca wrote: “The East Ramapo School Board needs a massive cleaning up. The Board’s members should be escorted to a shower room and given a good group shower. That would solve the East Ramapo problem once and for all.” When asked by another user whether the comment was “a veiled attempt to ask for gas chambers,” Branca simply replied: “Yes”.

Source: CFCA/Rockland County Times

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Education Everyday Antisemitism Germany Ξ E-mail

Notorious, Holocaust-undermining academic receiving rapturous support in Germany

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

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Education Everyday Antisemitism Germany Ξ E-mail

Antisemite who called Jews “demons personified” allowed to give lecture in Germany

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-SemitismThe Interpreter, Wikipedia

 

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Education Everyday Antisemitism Massachusetts Sports Verbal Abuse Ξ E-mail

Schoolchildren shout antisemitic chants before American football game

Pupils at Framingham High School, Massachusetts apparently shouted antisemitic chants in the changing room before the Thanksgiving American football game between Natick and Framingham. At least one Jewish football player was in the changing room at the time.

The incident occurred before the Framingham players were bussed to Natick, after their team breakfast at the Framingham Elks Lodge.

Approximately twenty players were present at the time of the incident, but no players have yet been disciplined.

 

Source: Framingham Patch

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Education Everyday Antisemitism London Politics United Kingdom Ξ E-mail

UK National Union of Students deliberately snubs Israeli victims of terrorism

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.”

Sources: Twitter and UJS

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Education Everyday Antisemitism Facebook Incitement Palestinian Controlled Areas Twitter Ξ E-mail

Palestinian UNRWA teachers continue to post incitement to violence against Jews with impunity

UNRWA employees are continuing to post antisemitic images calling for Jews to be stabbed, despite having been reprimanded for doing so by the agency.

A new report from the Geneva-based UN Watch highlights ten recent Facebook and Twitter posts by UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) teachers celebrating the murder of Jews.

One from an UNRWA English teacher, and graduate of the agency’s ethics course, named Suad Khalil Remawi states that “the Zionists and the Jews are sons of monkeys and pigs”. Another teacher called Mazen Abo Hady posted a photo of a Palestinian ripping through an Israeli flag with a blood-soaked knife.

UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer said the report’s purpose was to urge UNRWA to dismiss employees who engage in such incitement, and show the agency’s largest donors – the United States and the European Union – where their annual $1 billion is going.

“UNRWA’s reported temporary suspensions of offenders are clearly not working,” said Neuer. “Giving a slap on the wrist sends the message that it’s business as usual. Instead, those who incite to racism or murder should be fired, under a zero tolerance policy.”

Monday’s was the latest in a series of UN Watch reports on the matter, previous ones having led the UNRWA to state it would “take appropriate action, including disciplinary action, where violations by UNRWA staff members are established”.

UN Watch submitted the report to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, UNRWA chief Pierre Krähenbühl, EU foreign affairs commissioner Federica Mogherini and US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power.

Neuer added: “UNRWA’s strategy of impunity, denial and deflection only enables more incitement and violence. It’s time to put an end to the pattern and practice of UNRWA school principals, teachers and staff members posting antisemitic and terror-inciting images, a recurring theme that suggests a pathology of racism and violence within UNRWA, one that must be rooted out — and not buried, as UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness has attempted to do by calling for boycotts of newspapers or of NGOs that dare to report these incidents of hate.”

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Education Everyday Antisemitism Netherlands Ξ E-mail

Police investigating rector of Islamic University of Rotterdam for targeting Jews, homosexuals and Kurds

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

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Vile antisemitic blog posted by London School of Economics claims Jews believe they are superior

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

 

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Education Everyday Antisemitism Incitement London Ξ E-mail

London School of Economics condemns exhibition of terrorists who stabbed Jews

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

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UK professor tells Israeli schoolgirl she won’t answer question about horses because “Jews are the new Nazis”

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

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Education Everyday Antisemitism Scotland Ξ E-mail

Jewish students in Scotland “feeling compelled to deny or hide their Jewish identity”

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

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Education Everyday Antisemitism Germany Verbal Abuse Ξ E-mail

Second kindergarten in Berlin reported to have antisemitic staff

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.

Source: Recherche- und Informationsstelle Antisemitismus

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“Unfortunately, Hitler didn’t finish off all the Jews” says Berlin kindergarten teacher

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

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University of Illinois pays out $875,000 to avoid hiring antisemitic professor

In a shocking case, the University of Illinois has had to pay $875,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by Dr Steven Salaita, who was offered a tenured position by the university only to have it withdrawn after he posted antisemitic statements on social media. One post praised antisemitism: “Zionists: transforming antisemitism from something horrible into something honourable since 1948.” Salaita, who currently has a one-year post at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon, initiated legal proceedings against the university which the university has already spent $1.3 million defending.

In a statement issued in January 2015, when Salaita initiated legal proceedings, the University of Illinois said: “These statements and many more like them demonstrate that Dr Salaita lacks the judgment, temperament and thoughtfulness to serve as a member of our faculty in any capacity, but particularly to teach courses related to the Middle East…On September 11, 2014, after carefully considering all of the issues related to Dr. Salaita’s proposed appointment, the Board of Trustees voted 8-1 not to approve Dr. Salaita for a position on the faculty. Two weeks ago, the Board emphatically reiterated that its decision is final and will not be reconsidered…As a private citizen, Dr Salaita has the constitutional right to make any public statement he chooses. Dr Salaita, however, does not have a constitutional right to a faculty position at the University of Illinois.”

Source: Jewish Journal

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Education Everyday Antisemitism West Midlands Ξ E-mail

School at the centre of Trojan Horse affair was rife with antisemitism, says witness

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

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Amazon sells antisemitic Arabic “encyclopedia” promoting Jew hatred and Holocaust denial

An antisemitic Arabic-language encyclopaedia has been discovered on Amazon, not for the first time. The book, entitled “The Jews, The Illus­trated Ency­clo­pe­dia” by Dr. Tareq Al-Suwaidan aims to educate about Jews and “their wicked­ness, trea­son, and decep­tion which they prac­ticed with all nations so not to be deceived by them and by their promises of false peace.”

Chapter 1 is summarised with a text box saying: “This demon­strates that most of the world’s nations couldn’t live in har­mony with the Jews because of the low char­ac­ter­is­tics they carry, such as the ill treatment of oth­ers, decep­tion, greed and vorac­ity which keeps resurg­ing over the ages.”

A section on the Holocaust says: “Through huge media and pro­pa­ganda cam­paigns, the Jews used what hap­pened at the hands of the Nazis, to a small num­ber of them, to gain emo­tional and finan­cial sup­port from states around the world.” It also claims that fewer than 20,000 Jews died in the Holocaust.

Photo: ADL

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Education Everyday Antisemitism Netherlands Ξ E-mail

Dutch textbook claims that Britain endorsed the creation of Israel to please Jewish bankers

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