Sunday 29 June 2014

EU Donation Allows Jewish Sites in Czech Republic to be Reclaimed and Restored

FSWC Reports:

From AFP via ynetnews.com:


After its Jewish faithful perished under the Nazis, the Brandys synagogue in central Czech Republic sat for 40 years forlorn and forgotten, used by the Communist regime as a drugs repository.  

Today, golden stars twinkle on its sky blue ceiling and bright pink columns support upstairs prayer galleries reserved for women.

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Friday 27 June 2014

eBay Refuses to Participate in Auction of Former Nazi Leader's Car

FSWC Reports:

From Reuters:

Auction website eBay has refused to list a World War II-era Mercedes Benz once owned Hermann Goering, a Nazi leader who commanded the German air force, citing a policy prohibiting the sale of offensive items.

The 1941 Mercedes Benz 540 K Cabriolet B, custom built by Daimler-Benz for Adolf Hitler's close confidant, is currently in pieces in a high-end south Florida automobile shop, where owners said they plan to spend about $750,000 to restore it to working condition.

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Jewish Cemetery Desecrated in Manchester, UK

FSWC Reports:

From ynetnews.com:

Jewish graves in Manchester, England were defiled recently according to a BBC report in which local authorities called the anti-Semitic graffiti and toppled gravestones an "atrocity".  

"I cannot begin to get into the mind of someone who would commit such an atrocity," said Inspector Mike Reid to the BBC as investigations began to find the perpetrators. 

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Jews Kicked Out of African Union Summit

FSWC Reports:

From ynetnews.com:

The opening ceremony for the 23rd African Union Summit in Malabo was to begin Thursday with a declaration of support for the three kidnapped Israeli teens by a number of participants, until bad blood brought tensions to a boil. 

"I have never seen such racism, such anti-Semitism. We were humiliated," said several of the Jews in attendance, who had left Equatorial Guinea in a fury after changing their flights. 

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Wednesday 25 June 2014

Actor Gary Oldman Apologizes for Defending Antisemitic and Homophobic Remarks Made by Fellow Actors Mel Gibson and Alec Baldwin

FSWC Reports:

From the Associated Press:

Gary Oldman has apologized for defending fellow actors Mel Gibson and Alec Baldwin from critics of their controversial remarks about Jews and gays.

"I am deeply remorseful that comments I recently made in the Playboy Interview were offensive to many Jewish people," Oldman wrote in an open letter to the Anti-Defamation League late Tuesday. "Upon reading my comments in print - I see how insensitive they may be, and how they may indeed contribute to the furtherance of a false stereotype."

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Tuesday 24 June 2014

British Actor Slams Critics of Mel Gibson's Antisemitic Remarks

FSWC Reports:

From ynetnews.com:

Mel Gibson has been repeatedly criticized for his 2006 anti-Semitic tirade, in which he said that "The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world", but now he has a superstar defender in the form of fellow actor Gary Oldman.

Oldman told Playboy that Gibson had been turned into "an outcast" and "a leper" for his remarks, but that he should be forgiven as his detractors are "hypocrites".

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Facebook Page Ridicules Israeli Students Who Took "Selfies" During Trips to Nazi Death Camps

FSWC Reports:

From ynetnews.com:

A Facebook paged launched overnight Monday has garnered more than 5,000 likes (and counting) for ridiculing Israeli highschool students who take selfies during their Holocaust memorial trips to the Nazi death camps. 

After entering the 11th and 12th grade Israeli highschoolers are offered a week-long trip to Poland where they tour the country's Holocaust-era death and concentration camps. Naysayers claim they are more of a field trip abroad than a meaningful experience, claims which are reinforced by the occasional scandal of students getting drunk and trashing hotels. 

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Sunday 22 June 2014

Controversial "Yid" Soccer Chant No Longer an Arrestable Offense: London Police

FSWC Reports:

From Reuters:

Fans of Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur will no longer be threatened with prosecution if they chant the word "Yid" at matches, the Metropolitan Police said on Wednesday.

The "Yid Army" has chant has become a feature of matches at the club's White Hart Lane stadium, which is located near one of London's largest Jewish areas, and at away matches.

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Turkish Academics Attend Holocaust Studies Seminar at Yad Vashem

FSWC Reports:

From ynetnews.com:

Some 15 Turkish academics are participating in a special seminar this week at Yad Vashem’s International School for Holocaust Studies. 

The seminar, which focuses on Holocaust studies and geared specifically for Turkish university professors and lecturers, is the first of its kind and follows an educational conference which took place in Turkey at the Galatasaray University in Istanbul last October. 

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Nazi-Themed Cafe Reopens in Indonesia

FSWC Reports:

From AFP via ynetnews.com:

A Nazi-themed cafe in Indonesia that closed shop after sparking international outrage reopened Saturday with its walls still bearing swastikas and a painting of Adolf Hitler. 

Henry Mulyana voluntarily shut down his SoldatenKaffee last year after media reports exposed his swastika-clad establishment, prompting death threats and accusation of inciting racial hatred.

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Budapest Residents Remember Locals' Role in Holocaust

FSWC Reports:

From Reuters:

Tamas Marton was a Budapest schoolboy in 1944 when Hungarians allied to Nazi Germany helped to deport half a million Jews, including his mother, to death camps.

Seventy years on, as Hungarians still grapple with the past and many support the far-right Jobbik party, the government finds itself in conflict with the Jewish community over Hungarians' role in the Holocaust.

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Jews Demonstrate at Argentina vs. Iran World Cup Soccer Game to Demand Justice for 1994 Attack on Jewish Centre

FSWC Reports:

From the Associated Press via ynetnews.com:

Dozens of Jewish demonstrators gathered for a minute of silence Saturday before the Argentina-Iran World Cup game, demanding justice for a still unsolved bombing attack against a Buenos Aires Jewish center 20 years ago that left 85 dead and for which Iran has been blamed.

Demonstrators wore black T-shirts marking the event and held banners reading slogans such as "20 years without justice" and "a red card for lack of justice." They recited the names of the 85 victims of the bombing against the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association, AMIA for short, and then held their heads in silence at 12:59 - exactly one minute before Argentina and Iran kicked off their Group F match in Belo Horizonte. 

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Thursday 19 June 2014

French Jews Cite Antisemitism as a Reason for Deciding to Leave France and Immigrate to Israel

FSWC Reports:

From the Associated Press:

Increasing numbers of French Jews are leaving for Israel, citing dim economic prospects and a sense of being caught between an increasingly influential far right and militant Islam. More than 5,000 are on track to leave this year, the most since after the Six-Day War in 1967.

Israel, seeing the influx as a success, is doubling down on its efforts to attract Europeans, planning to dedicate $29 million over two years to bring in new immigrants.

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Former Auschwitz Guard Faces Extradition From U.S. to Germany

FSWC Reports:

From the Associated Press:

An 89-year-old Philadelphia man was ordered held without bail Wednesday on a German arrest warrant charging him with aiding and abetting the killing of 216,000 Jewish men, women and children while he was a guard at the Auschwitz death camp. 

The man, retired toolmaker Johann "Hans" Breyer, was arrested by U.S. authorities Tuesday night. Breyer spent the night in custody and appeared frail during a detention hearing in federal court, wearing an olive green prison jumpsuit and carrying a cane.

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Wednesday 18 June 2014

Zionist Organization in U.S. Compares American Policy on Palestinians to Kristallnacht

FSWC Reports:

From ynetnews.com:

The Zionist Organization of America issued a harshly worded condemnation of the kidnapping of the three Israeli teens Eyal Yifrach, Gil-Ad Shaer and Naftali Frenkel, and slammed the US' policy as "nothing less than a diplomatic Kristallnacht."

In the statement, the group described Hamas, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said is responsible for the kidnapping, as "Nazi-like". 

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Amsterdam Reconsiders Holocaust Memorial After Receiving Complaints

FSWC Reports:

From AFP via ynetnews.com:

Amsterdam officials on Tuesday ordered a rethink of a multi-million-euro Holocaust monument by US architect Daniel Libeskind after residents complained it would take over their park 

"The project currently on the table does not fit in with its envisaged surroundings," invited resident Lina van Beest told the Amsterdam Centre council before the majority vote requesting further consultations.

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New York Opera Cancels Screening Over Fear of Fanning Antisemitism

FSWC Reports:

From AFP via ynetnews.com:

New York's Metropolitan Opera said Tuesday it had scrapped a live cinema broadcast of an American opera inspired by a 1985 Palestinian hijacking over fears that it might fan anti-Semitism.  

Avant-garde American composer John Adams wrote the opera "The Death of Klinghoffer" in 1991 and the Met's new production was first performed in London in 2012 to widespread critical acclaim. 

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Monday 16 June 2014

Pope Francis Defends Holocaust-Era Predecessor Pius XII

FSWC Reports:

From Reuters:

Pope Francis has strongly defended his wartime predecessor Pius XII against accusations he turned a blind eye to the Holocaust, saying the opening of Vatican archives will shed light on the controversy.

In an interview published on Friday in the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia, Francis condemned anti-Semitism, saying it was a "continuing" problem that was more prevalent in right-wing parties in Europe, and called Holocaust denial "madness".
 
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Sunday 15 June 2014

Holocaust Survivor Found Redemption Through Music

FSWC Reports:

From the Associated Press:

Edgar Krasa took part in one of the ennobling acts of the Holocaust. He didn't take up arms in a ghetto insurrection, or fight in the Jewish underground. Instead, he and several hundred fellow concentration camp inmates defied the Nazis through music. 

For Krasa, the road began at the Masaryk Railway Station in the Czech capital, Prague. It was Nov. 24, 1941, and the Nazi machine was crushing one of the oldest Jewish communities of Europe. Over the next four years, thousands of its artists, writers, musicians and professionals would be transported from the Prague area to the fortress-turned-concentration camp where Krasa was sent that day: Terezin.

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Canadian Holocaust Denier Dies

FSWC Reports:

From The Globe and Mail:

James Keegstra believed that he had God and the Bible on his side, but he was also an unrepentant Holocaust denier who, for 14 years, demonized Jews and spun conspiracy theories in the high-school classes he taught in rural Alberta.

Criminally charged with promoting hatred, he fought a prolonged court battle that lasted as long as he had been teaching.

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Thursday 12 June 2014

German Court Awards Jewish Family $68 Million for Assets Seized by Nazis

FSWC Reports:

From the Associated Press:

A Berlin court has ordered Germany to pay the heirs of Jewish owners of a department store chain an additional 50 million euros ($68 million) in compensation for property seized by the Nazis. 

The Berlin administrative court said Thursday that the Schocken family lost its chain of stores, primarily in Saxony, during the Nazis' so-called "Aryanization" of businesses in the 1930s.

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Controversy Over World Cup Cartoon Deemed Antisemitic by Israeli Knesset Member

FSWC Reports:

From The Times of Israel:

Contrary to a Knesset member’s charge that a Nike World Cup ad is anti-Semitic, the Anti-Defamation League dismissed such claims saying that six points do not an anti-Jewish image make. 

“Anyone who thinks this is anti-Semitism is certainly off base,” an ADL spokesperson said in a statement, rejecting a remark to that end by MK Shimon Ohayon of the Yisrael Beytenu party. “You can put anything in a configuration of six. Just because it appears to look like the Star of David, it does not mean it is.” 

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Wednesday 11 June 2014

Professor Who Took Palestinian Students to Auschwitz-Birkenau Resigns From His Post

FSWC Reports:

From The Media Line via ynetnews.com:

The Palestinian professor who touched off a maelstrom of controversy by taking a group of students to visit the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps in Poland is now at odds with his former employer after the school accepted his resignation.

Dr. Mohammed S. Dajani Daoudi, who headed the American studies department and served as chief librarian at Al-Quds University, stirred-up a hornets’ nest among Palestinians who felt that the visit was not appropriate when he led the March trip. 

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Tuesday 10 June 2014

Jewish Building and Home in North York Spray Painted With Swastikas

FSWC Reports:

From the Jewish Tribune:

Reactions ranged from fear to defiance after swastikas were spray painted on a Jewish building and a Jewish home in the Bathurst and Sheppard area last week.

Staff at Na’amat Canada discovered Friday morning that a swastika had been spray painted on the building they share with Kol Yisroel Congregation and a daycare centre. They believe it was done while they were closed for Shavuot.

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Israeli Parliament Allocates One billion Shekels for Holocaust Survivors

FSWC Reports:

From ynetnews.com:

The Knesset authorized in second and third reading Monday a bill which allocated some one billion shekel to holocaust survivors. The bill was sponsored by Finance Minister Yair Lapid and Welfare Minister Meir Cohen and is the legal cornerstone of a national program to aid survivors.

The program stipulates raising the minimum stipend enjoyed by all Holocaust survivors to NIS 2,200 – as opposed to NIS 1,825 – and will range up to NIS 5,400. The move will affect some 70,000 Holocaust survivors considered to be psychically handicapped in wake of the Holocaust as well as 18,500 survivors of the ghettos and the death camps.

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Monday 9 June 2014

Las Vegas Cop Killers Being Investigated for Possible Links to White Supremacy Movement

FSWC Reports:

From ynetnews.com with contribution from Reuters:

The couple who shot two Las Vegas police officers to death in a weekend ambush before killing a bystander and themselves in a nearby Wal-Mart harbored anti-law enforcement and anti-government ideologies but are believed to have acted alone, authorities said on Monday.

Police are still investigating their links to white supremacy movement after swastika symbols were found in the couple's apartment, the Las Vegas Review Journal reported. 


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Leader of French Far-Right Party Defends Her Father, the Former Leader of the Party, Against Allegations of Antisemitism

FSWC Reports:

From ynetnews.com:

The head of the far-right French party the National Front, Marine Le Pen, has downplayed remarks by her father, party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, who told an interviewer that a Jewish singer should be sent to the "oven". Footage of the comments was published on the party's website over the weekend. 

During the interview, Le Pen lashed out at various celebrities, including Madonna, who had criticized the party's achievements in the EU parliamentary elections last month. When the interviewer told Le Pen that one of those critics had been French Jewish singer Patrick Bruel, he replied: "I am not surprised. Next time we should arrange another 'shipment' to the oven".

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Sunday 8 June 2014

Israeli Government Approves Emergency Plan to Encourage Jews in Europe to Immigrate to Israel

FSWC Reports:

From ynetnews.com:

In face of the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Europe, the government and the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption launched an emergency plan aimed at encouraging European Jews, especially from Ukraine, to immigrate to Israel. The government allocated NIS 100 million to the plan. 

After 66 years in which the issue of immigration was handled by the Jewish Agency and other bodies, the government decided to take matters into its own hands and establish an independent company to encourage aliyah. The company will not have the same restrictions applied to government-owned corporations, and it will be able to operate freely in European countries. 

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Friday 6 June 2014

Spain Approves Plan to Grant Citizenship to Descendants of Expelled Sephardic Jews

FSWC Reports:

From the Associated Press:

Spain's cabinet on Friday approved a bill allowing descendants of Jews forced into exile centuries ago the right to dual citizenship, but said applicants will have to take a Spanish culture test in addition to having their ancient ties to the nation vetted by experts. 

Sephardic Jews who want to apply must have their heritage checked by the Spanish Federation of Jewish Communities or by rabbis where they live, Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria said. She did not provide details about the culture test but said it will be developed by the Cervantes Institute, which promotes Spanish language and culture abroad.

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Security Beefed Up at Jewish Sites in Amsterdam

FSWC Reports:

From the Associated Press:

Amsterdam's mayor says he has ordered extra security measures at the city's Jewish schools, synagogues, and monuments — including the Anne Frank House — on the advice of the national anti-terrorism office. 

In a letter to the city council, Eberhard van der Laan said he is not aware of any concrete threat to Jewish places of interest, but an attack is "conceivable" following an attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels, Belgium, last month which left three people dead.

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New Brunswick Court Prevents Racist Organization From Inheritiing Coin and Artifact Collection Estimated to be Worth $250,000

FSWC Report:

From MSN News:

A court decision to bar an American white supremacist organization from inheriting an estimated $250,000 coin and artifact collection from a New Brunswick man is being commended by a Canadian Jewish organization. 

Robert McCorkill had willed the items to the National Alliance, based in West Virginia, before he died in Saint John in 2004. 

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Germany Approves Extension of Pensions for Jews Forced to Work for Nazis in Ghettos During Holocaust

FSWC Reports:

From the Associated Press:

Germany's Parliament on Thursday approved a measure extending pension payments totaling nearly a half-billion dollars for thousands of elderly Jews who were forced to work for the Nazis in ghettos.

The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, which helped negotiate the deal with the German government, said the agreement means some 40,000 Holocaust survivors, used by the Nazis in ghettos as laborers in exchange for food or meager wages, will receive additional benefits.

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Tuesday 3 June 2014

Belgian Prime Minister Vows to Fight Hate Speech and Strengthen Holocaust Education

FSWC Reports:

From ynetnews.com:

Belgium's government has agreed on Monday to work with the World Jewish Congress (WJC) to improve Holocaust education in the country and cooperate in the battle against anti-Semitism, racism and terrorism.

WJC's solidarity mission, comprised of 38 Jewish leaders, met with Belgium's Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo and senior Belgian cabinet members on Monday in the wake of the deadly shooting at the Brussels Jewish Museum on May 24. 

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Sunday 1 June 2014

Police Question Two Other Possible Suspects in Brussels Jewish Museum Attack

FSWC Reports:

From AFP and the Associated Press via ynetnews.com:

Belgian police carried out raids in Belguim and took two people in for questioning on Sunday morning in concert with the investigation into 29-year-old Mehdi Nemmouche, who was arrested Friday under suspicion of carrying out a recent attack in a Jewish Museum in Belgium killing four, including an Israeli couple from Tel Aviv.

"An intervention was conducted Sunday morning in the Kortrijk region and two people are being questioned by the police," said federal prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw. "The people are not under arrest. We want to see if they are involved or not," he said.

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Suspect in Jewish Museum Shooting Arrested

FSWC Reports:

From AFP via ynetnews.com:

A man suspected of killing four people at the Jewish Museum in Brussels on May 24 was arrested Friday in Marseille, carrying a Kalashnikov and a pistol of the type used in Belgian capital AFP learned on Sunday from sources close to the investigation and judicial source.

A source close to the investigation says that Mehdi Nemmouche, a 29-year-old from Roubaix in northern France,  is suspected of having been in the company of jihadists in Syria in 2013. He is in custody on suspicion of murder and attempted murder in connection with a terrorist attack, a judicial source said.

 
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