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Concerns raised over Slovenian Prime Minister’s “Soros puppets” tweet 

Concerns have been raised over the Slovenian Prime Minister’s reported tweet in which he referred to “Soros puppets” in the EU Parliament.

In his tweet, the Prime Minister posted a graphic in which an image of George Soros is seemingly surrounded by arrows and images of Members of Parliament. Prime Minister Janez Janša wrote alongside the image: “13 of the 226 known Soros puppets in the EU parlement [sic]”

Prime Minister Janša appeared to double down on his comments in response to online criticism, tweeting that “there is no conspiracy theory”. 

George Soros is a Jewish financier who is often the target of antisemitic conspiracy theories. It is indisputable that George Soros has, in recent years, been subjected to antisemitic campaigns around the world, painting him as a shadowy Jewish bogeyman. Mr Soros has been frequently targeted by, amongst others, the Hungarian government and several Eastern European advertising campaigns, which have been described as worryingly antisemitic.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

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“Holocaust was a scam” projected onto Swedish synagogue, neo-Nazi group take credit

A neo-Nazi group has reportedly taken credit for projecting the phrase “the Holocaust was a scam” onto a Swedish synagogue last week.

According to Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, the neo-Nazi group Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM) has taken credit for projecting the incident onto the synagogue in Malmö at the same time that the city was holding its International Forum on Holocaust Remembrance and Combating Antisemitism.

At the conference last week, world leaders called for further measures to tackle antisemitism and Holocaust denial at the conference. Some of the speakers included the Swedish Prime Minister, Stefan Löfven, Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and the President of France, Emmanuel Macron.

According to the NRM’s own website, the phrase was also projected onto other buildings which reportedly included Södervärn’s water tower and the building belonging to the Sydsvenskan newspaper. It appears as though the website domain belonging to the NRM was also projected onto the buildings. 

The NRM uploaded several photos of the vandalised buildings to its website, stating that the projection was caused by a “National Socialist laser”, and wrote: “The fictional Holocaust is the global weapon of the globalists, which they use to disgrace, oppress and truly destroy our people. The Nordic resistance movement has been fighting the globalists since our founding in 1997 and therefore it is a matter of course that we protest against the Holocaust.”

According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “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 an example of antisemitism.

Police are investigating the incident as a hate crime. 

In April, NRM flyers were found at a Jewish cemetery in Aalborg, Denmark that was vandalised during the Jewish festival of Passover. Last year, the NRM launched a series of focused campaigns against Jewish communities in Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Iceland throughout the week leading up to Yom Kippur.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Image credit: NRM

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Ireland to criminalise Holocaust denial

Ireland is set to criminalise Holocaust denial, it was reported last week. 

Taoiseach Micheál Martin is introducing the new hate crime bill which has the power to impose a “Class C fine”, “imprisonment for a term not exceeding twelve months”, or both to anyone who “publicly condones, denies or grossly trivialises any act falling within the definition of a ‘genocide’ in Article II of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the Genocide Convention).”

In January, Mr Martin said that education is an “important tool” in strengthening and deepening the collective understanding of the events of the Holocaust, and maintained that the country is continually committed to combating antisemitism.

While the new ban against Holocaust denial will come as welcome news to many, it is notable that Ireland remained neutral during the Second World War, and a recent report has indicated that Ireland has a problem with antisemitism. It was also reported last week that a politician in Ireland had claimed that Israel was trying to accomplish “Jewish supremacy”.

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Deputy Chairperson in Irish Parliament reportedly claims Israel is trying to accomplish “Jewish supremacy” 

A politician in Ireland has claimed that Israel is trying to accomplish “Jewish supremacy”, it was reported earlier this week. 

Catherine Connolly, the Deputy Chairperson of the Lower House of Ireland’s Parliament, allegedly asked Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney if by his ministry’s “indicating support for the Jewish character of the Israeli state”, it agrees with “the treatment by Israel of Palestinian communities in its attempts to accomplish Jewish supremacy.”

It was also said that she asked Minister Coveney about “his views on whether these attempts to perpetuate the supremacy of Jews over Palestinians amount to apartheid, and if he will make a statement on the matter.”

The phrase “Jewish supremacy” is regarded by many as an antisemitic conspiracy theory which states that Jews harbour the goal of world domination, a false allegation that the Nazi Party used to justify its persecution against Jewish people.

According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “Making mendacious, dehumanising, demonising, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions” is an example of antisemitism. 

The Foreign Minister reportedly said that he “respect[s] the strong connection between the Jewish people and the State of Israel.” 

“By their very nature, all states have certain inherent characteristics,” he said, using “socialist, democratic, united, Islamic, Arab or Jewish” as examples, but he added that those states should have “full respect for the equal rights of all citizens, irrespective of ethnicity, religion or other similar factors.”

Jewish Representative Council of Ireland Chairperson Maurice Cohen said that Deputy Connolly had “strayed into classic antisemitic language by perpetuating the trope of ‘Jewish supremacy.’”

“The Jewish Representative Council of Ireland urges all political parties, as well as both Houses of the Oireachtas [legislature] to immediately adopt the [Definition] of antisemitism to which the government is already a European signatory,” he added.

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World leaders speaking at Sweden conference call for stricter measures against antisemitism and Holocaust denial

World leaders called for further measures to tackle antisemitism and Holocaust denial yesterday at the Malmö International Forum on Holocaust Remembrance and Combating Antisemitism.

Swedish Prime Minister Löfven spoke of previous milestones in the fight against antisemitism, naming the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust of January 2000, which led to the creation of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, and the 2020 IHRA Ministerial Declaration as important moments. “We are not looking for another declaration, we are looking to translate these principles of these documents into reality,” the Prime Minister said.

He continued: “I have therefore encouraged delegations that are representative here in Malmö today to present concrete measures to promote Holocaust remembrance and to combat antisemitism, anti-Gypsism and other forms of racism.”

Antisemitism is currently present in “extreme right-wing groups, parts of the Left, in Islamist environments and among ordinary citizens,” Prime Minister Löfven said, and said that it was also present “among adults and children who fled to Europe from countries where hatred of Jews is promoted in schools and through state-propaganda.”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog spoke of online antisemitism and the danger of violent attacks from extremists. He said: “We have witnessed thousands of antisemitic assaults, vandalism and threats from extremists all over, including in Malmö. This rise in antisemitic attacks on the streets, the physical attacks and assaults and verbal assaults, offensive articles and increasing intimidation on the web have been fueled, in large part, by the explosion of antisemitic incitement online.”

The President added that tackling antisemitism necessitates “working aggressively on social media, including with and confronting social media companies to ensure that hateful incitement is quickly removed,” while also adding that legislation, litigation, adjudication and law enforcement were also necessary tools in the fight against antisemitism. 

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who spoke out against antisemitism in Canada earlier this year during the conflict between Israel and Hamas, said that “we’ve seen so many different radical extremist groups of various types lashing out at so many different things, but one of the few, common things that so many of them have is an acceptance of antisemitic stereotypes and tropes that slip into their discourse, and that they build on so much of their other hatred on [sic].”

The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, who earlier this summer condemned antisemitism in a historic address, said that “each time someone denies the Shoah, each time an antisemitic act is committed, each time that a grave is desecrated, each time our memory is trampled on, it’s our shared humanity that is threatened.” 

Ursula Von Der Leyen, President of the European Commission, spoke of how the threat of antisemitism still exists for Jewish people, adding that it is also a “poison for our democracies, our values, and our open societies.” She continued: “We have to fight it, offline and online, and hate speech, disinformation and the denial of facts are everywhere online.” 

The United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is Jewish himself and was recently urged by a group of 70 Jewish officials from the United States Department of State to fire an “openly antisemitic” employee, delivered a statement at the conference in a recorded video in which he stated that the United States is “committed to remembrance and to fighting antisemitism, Holocaust denial, and hate in all of its modern forms.” He added that “The dangers of the Holocaust are not simply problems of the past..antisemitism is on the rise in many parts of the world.”

Secretary Blinken continued by outlining the steps that the United States has taken towards fighting antisemitism, which included pledging $1 million to counter antisemitic hate speech “online, in the Middle East, and North Africa”. He also stated that the United States was starting an expanded series of international visitor leadership programmes” which will work with “government and civil society representatives to confront Holocaust distortion and antisemitism in North Africa, Middle East, Europe, and Latin America.” The Secretary of State said that through working with congress, another $1 million will be given to tackle Holocaust denial in central Europe. 

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg also spoke at the event, saying that “At Facebook, we stand against hate of all kinds. We are working with governments and NGOs to fulfill the promise of ‘never again’.” 

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

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Neo-Nazi’s ashes “mistakenly” buried on plot of Jewish musicologist

Church authorities managing a Brandenburg cemetery have admitted to a “terrible mistake” after the ashes of a prominent neo-Nazi were buried in the grave of a Jewish-born musicologist.

Henry Hafenmayer, a 48-year-old Holocaust denier who died of an undisclosed illness, was well-known among German neo-Nazis, some of whom attended his funeral. During his life, Hafenmayer served a prison sentence for penning a series of antisemitic screeds to public bodies in which he branded the Holocaust a “lie”, which is a criminal offence in Germany where Holocaust denial falls foul of a law against “incitement of the people”.

Hafenmayer’s ashes were buried in a grave that used to hold the remains of Prof. Max Friedländer, a specialist in German Lieder who taught at Harvard University in the 1910s. Though Friedländer converted to Protestantism, he was born to a Jewish family, a fact not lost on the far-right activists who attended Hafenmayer’s funeral. Among those attending the funeral was Horst Mahler, a founder of the Baader-Meinhof terrorist group who later became a neo-Nazi.

The cemetery management explained that when a gravesite’s lease is not renewed after a “rest period” of ten to twenty years, the remains are removed and burial plots are reclaimed for new burials, but Friedländer’s headstone was still there because it was a listed monument.

In a statement, Christian Stäblein, a bishop at the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg and Silesian Upper Lusatia, said: “The burial of a Holocaust denier in the grave of Max Friedländer is a terrible mistake and a harrowing process in view of our history. We have to see immediately whether and what we can undo.”

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Image credit: Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg and Silesian Upper Lusatia

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Candidate for Mayor of Rome faces backlash after saying Jews “control banks and a lobby capable of deciding the fate of the planet”

A candidate hoping to become elected as the next Mayor of Rome is facing backlash for comments he made about Jews and the Holocaust in an article. 

Enrico Michetti, the right-wing candidate who is also a radio presenter and lawyer, wrote an article last year in which he claimed that victims of other mass killings are thought of less than those who died in the Holocaust because they “did not own banks and did not belong to a lobby that is capable of deciding the destiny of the planet.”

According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “Making mendacious, dehumanising, demonising, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions” is an example of antisemitism.

Mr Michetti was criticised by Emanuele Fiano, a Jewish MP from the centre-Left Democratic Party, who said: “My grandparents, who were gassed at Auschwitz, were much poorer than you, Michetti, as were my uncle and aunt and my great uncles and aunts.”

Mr Fiano added that he hoped Mr Michetti would be “ashamed of these words for the rest of your life,” before adding: “I have no pity for adults, cultured, who in 2020 make such a remark. I will not accept excuses. You don’t deserve excuses.”

Ruth Dureghello, the President of the Jewish community of Rome, said that Mr Michetti’s remarks were “dangerous” and that they hid “a disturbing prejudice.”

In a statement on Saturday, Mr Michetti seemingly tried to retract his words, stating: “The Holocaust was unique in its inhumanity against men and women who had done no wrong whatsoever, the lowest point in history. The utmost vigilance and unity is required by everyone against all forms of antisemitism, so that what happened never happens again, not even in other guises.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

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“A cosmopolitan enjoying state benefits to fatten himself up and live in two countries, to make money here and spend it there,” says Belarus state TV about murdered Jewish dissident

Belarus state television has described a murdered Jewish dissident as “a cosmopolitan enjoying state benefits to fatten himself up and live in two countries, to make money here and spend it there.”

Andrei Zelzer, a 31-year-old programmer, was shot dead by security forces during a raid at his home in Minsk as part of a crackdown against dissidents by the Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

Plainclothes personnel from the State Security Committee of the Republic of Belarus reportedly entered Mr Zelzer’s home with orders to arrest him. According to the Government, Mr Zelzer killed one of them during the raid.

Ryhor Azaronak, a news anchor on STV, a state television channel, then described Mr Zelzer using tropes reminiscent of antisemitic Soviet propaganda, claiming also that Mr Zelzer was American. It is understood that no new outlet has confirmed this dubious claim about his nationality, although Mr Zelzer did work for a US-based information technology company founded by a Belarusian Jew who now lives in the United States.

During the monologue, Mr Azaronak reportedly employed a stereotypical accent of Yiddish-speaking Soviet Jews.

It is believed that there are about 9,500 Jews in Belarus.

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Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs to meet British ambassador after right-wing author accused of antisemitism was denied entry into UK

The Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs is expected to meet the British ambassador this week after a right-wing author accused of antisemitism was denied entry into the United Kingdom on Saturday.

A letter from the Border Force showed that Rafal Ziemkiewicz, a Polish author who has been accused of promoting antisemitism and homophobia, was denied entry into the country as his views were deemed to be “at odds with British values” that were “likely to cause offence” and was flown back to Warsaw. 

Mr Ziemkiewicz was accused of antisemitism by Poland’s Human Rights Ombudsman last year after he reportedly said on Polish television that Jews had cooperated with Germans in the Holocaust. In 2014, he was accused of justifying rape after he allegedly tweeted: “Whoever has never taken advantage of a drunk person, let him throw the first stone.” He has also reportedly made several homophobic comments and tweets.

Speaking on the incident, Mr Ziemkiewicz reportedly said on Sunday: “I fell victim to a really powerful hatred against Poland by Poles themselves.”

Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs Szynkowski vel Sęk then tweeted about the event, saying: “I will invite Ambassador Anna Clunes to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs this week to make sure that freedom of speech belongs to the catalog of British values ​​and as it corresponds with the attitude of the British services in the case of R. Ziemkiewicz.”

However, he later clarified his comments. “I see the ambassador this week. The conversation is not an escalation, but the foundation and common denominator of the work of the entire Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We are also bound by the obligation to care for Polish citizens abroad and to respect freedom of speech. These revelations are worth so much,” the Minister said.

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Auschwitz-Birkenau site defaced with Holocaust denial graffiti

Antisemitic graffiti, including Holocaust denial slogans, has reportedly been discovered at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum.

Auschwitz concentration camp, one of the most notorious concentration camps where over a million people were murdered, was officially converted into a museum and memorial site in 1947.

The museum released a statement on Twitter yesterday which said that “signs of vandalism” were discovered on “nine wooden barracks in Sector Blla of the Auschwitz II-Birkenau site: spray-painted inscriptions in English and German, some of them antisemitic in nature.”

It continued: “Two references to the Old Testament, often used by antisemites, and denial slogans draw special attention.”

The museum described the vandalism as “an outrageous attack on the symbol of one of the greatest tragedies in human history and an extremely painful blow to the memory of all the victims of the German Nazi Auschwitz-Birkenau camp.”

The statement added that video footage was being reviewed and that police are investigating the incident.

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Teenage actor who played role of antisemitic bully in a film is now suspected of the real-life assault of 60-year-old Hamburg man

A sixteen-year-old has been suspected of assaulting a 60-year-old man at a vigil against antisemitism in Hamburg, Germany.

During the “Hamburg for Israel and against antisemitism” vigil, which took place on 18th September near the city’s central train station, a group of three or four people approached the participants and one of them – a male believed to be between the ages of eighteen and 25 – began yelling abuse.

When participants asked the offender to stop, he punched the victim in the face. Although police chased the group, they managed to flee on e-scooters.

After the attack, the victim was reportedly in hospital for six days with a broken cheekbone and nasal bone. Photos show the victim with a swollen eye and bloody face. In an interview, the victim was seen having to wear an eyepatch.

The teenage suspect identified by police as Aram A., who reportedly acted in a film about Holocaust survivors in which he played the role of a bully who harasses a Jewish boy, is being investigated for causing bodily harm.

Hamburg State Security was said to have identified Aram A. using video footage and then located him at his home in Berlin. Aram A.’s mother reportedly stated that her family was “against Israel” but that “what [her] son did is wrong”.

Stefan Hensel, Hamburg’s Commissioner on Jewish Life and the Fight against Antisemitism, said: “The rapid search success of the authorities is a reassuring signal after the disturbing images of the attack on the Hamburg vigil participant. The current case shows once again that even projects with the best intentions are no remedy against antisemitism. We see this incident as an appeal to intensify our work even further. In the long run, it will only be crowned with a consistent investigation of antisemitic crimes and criminal prosecution.”

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Ukraine bans “antisemitism and its manifestations”

The Ukrainian Parliament passed a law last week which bans “antisemitism and its manifestations”.

The Law on Prevention and Counteraction to Antisemitism in Ukraine defines antisemitism as “a certain perception of Jews, expressed as hatred of Jews”.

283 lawmakers out of 450 voted to pass the law, though it must be signed by the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, who is himself Jewish. However, the punishment for breaking this law has not been specified.

In August, pig skulls were used to desecrate the grave of Rabbi Nachman’s daughter in Kremenchuk. In June, a synagogue in Kremenchuk was found with bullet holes after being reportedly shot at.

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Madrid adopts International Definition of Antisemitism

The Madrid Assembly, the local Parliament of Spain’s main region, adopted the International Definition of Antisemitism on Friday.

The Assembly also demanded that Spain’s national Parliament adopt legislation that would prevent it from giving any grant or public aid to entities that breach the Definition.

It was reported that Spain adopted the Definition last year. Britain was the first country in the world to adopt the Definition, something for which Campaign Against Antisemitism and Lord Pickles worked hard over many meetings with officials at Downing Street.

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“Hitler forgot to exterminate you”: French courts give defendants convicted of antisemitic harassment suspended sentences

The French courts have given eight defendants who have been convicted of antisemitic harassment a two-month suspended prison sentence.

April Benayoum, who won the title of Miss Provence 2020 and was the runner-up in the Miss France 2021 contest, received antisemitic abuse online after it was revealed that her father was Israeli, including one tweet which read: “Hitler forgot to exterminate you, Miss Provence.”

It was reported that on Wednesday at Paris Criminal Court, most of the defendants appeared to show remorse for their actions. Ahmet I., one of the defendants, reportedly said: “I am ashamed to be here, to be seen as an antisemite or a racist. I apologise to Ms. Benayoum for having made remarks like that.” Another defendant, Rayanne M., allegedly said that he was “ashamed that people have this image of me as an antisemite.”

Mr Benayoum said that she accepted their apologies, but added that “Forgiving will be more difficult, this is something that hurt me a lot and spoiled an exceptional adventure.”

Mr Benayoum reportedly received an outpouring of support, including from the French Interior Minister, Gerald Darmanin, who said that he was “deeply shocked by the shower of antisemitic insults against Miss Provence”, adding: “Shame on their authors.”

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Image credit: The Algemeiner Journal via Twitter

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60-year-old assaulted at vigil against antisemitism in Hamburg

A 60-year-old man was injured at a vigil against antisemitism in Hamburg, Germany, after a group of youths insulted the participants with antisemitic abuse.

During the “Hamburg for Israel and against antisemitism” vigil, which took place last Saturday near the city’s central train station, a group of three or four people approached the participants and one of them – a male believed to be between the ages of 18 and 25 – began yelling abuse.

When participants asked the offender to stop, he punched the victim in the face, necessitating treatment in a hospital.

Although police chased the group, they managed to flee on e-scooters. Police are appealing for witnesses and information.

Stefan Hensel, Hamburg’s Commissioner on Jewish Life and the Fight against Antisemitism, said: “Violence driven by hatred of Israel and Jews is a disgrace to our city. This heinous attack must be condemned in the strongest possible terms. The act shows once again that so-called Israel-related antisemitism is increasingly turning into real violence. The perpetrators must be caught as soon as possible and brought to justice.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

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“Filthy beast” of antisemitism condemned by French education unions

Three French unions representing school teachers have condemned antisemitic tropes that featured at demonstrations against ‘vaccine passports’.

In a joint statement, CGT Education 43, FSU 43 and SUD Education 43, all of the Haute-Loire region of south-central France, observed that “for several weeks now, a handful of ultra-right activists have been instrumental in using the Saturday demonstrations against the health pass to display signs with hate messages with impunity,” and declared that “words and acts that target French people of Jewish faith, culture or tradition or attack their existence, their memory or their identity, hurt the whole of France.”

Placards at the rallies apparently bore slogans including, “Non a la manipula-Sion” (“No to manipulation”) with “Sion” (“Zion”) underlined; “En marche vers le chaos mondial” (“Forward to global chaos”), a pun on the political party of French President Emmanuel Macron and a slogan associated with convicted Holocaust denier Alain Soral; and “Je suis Cassandre” (“I am Cassandre”), declaring solidarity with controversial activist and former far-right Parliamentary candidate Cassandre Fristot.

The unions’ statement went on to assert that “Antisemitism is a crime condemned by law. It should be neither excused nor trivialized,” before calling on local residents “to stand up in the face of the return of the ‘Filthy Beast’ and of any form of racism.”

Anti-lockdown and anti-vaccination networks have become known as hotbeds of antisemitic conspiracy theories and tropes.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

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French court acquits Imam of incitement over sermon declaring “Judgement Day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews”

A French court has acquitted an imam of incitement to racial hatred over a 2017 sermon in which he declared that “Judgement Day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews”.

Mohamed Tataiat, the Imam of the Grand Mosque of Toulouse since 1987, was quoting a hadith popular among Islamists that “Judgement Day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews. The Jews will hide behind the stones and the trees, and the stones and the trees will say, oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew hiding behind me — come and kill him.”

A legal case was pushed by numerous French Jewish organisations and anti-racism groups, but, following a three-month trial, the President of the Toulouse Criminal Court concluded that the sermon was not intended to “provoke hatred or discrimination,” and that “the words could have been said recklessly, but not with the desire to discriminate.”

Jewish leaders were unimpressed with the verdict, which some compared to the recent case of Sarah Halimi, whose antisemitic murderer was held to be unable to stand trial due to being high on cannabis at the time of the crime.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Image credit: MEMRI

Antisemitic books sold outside Warsaw Church during beatification ceremony of revered Catholic figures in presence of Polish leaders

Antisemitic books were on sale outside a Warsaw Church that was hosting a beatification ceremony of revered Catholic figures, attended by Polish leaders.

The books, with titles such as Scum and the Jews in Today’s Poland and Judeopolonia II — Anatomy of Enslaving Poland, were met with no protest from the thousands of worshippers attending Warsaw’s Temple of Divine Providence for the beatification of Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski and Mother Elzbieta Roza Czacka.

Polish President Andrzej Duda, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of the ruling Law and Justice Party, were all in attendance for the beatification Mass, which was led by Vatican representative Cardinal Marcello Semeraro.

In addition to the antisemitic books was anti-vaccination literature and other conspiratorial material.

The ceremony took place while Pope Francis was in Hungary condemning antisemitism, which he did again two days later in Slovakia.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Image credit: Wojciech Karpieszuk

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Attempted Islamist terrorist attack on German synagogue on Yom Kippur thwarted, two years after deadly far-right attack in Halle

An attempted Islamist terrorist attack on a German synagogue on Yom Kippur has reportedly been thwarted.

Services in Hagen Synagogue in North Rhine-Westphalia were called off on Wednesday after “very serious and concrete information” was received by German officials, according to the Interior Minister of the country’s most populous State.

The information was reportedly received from a foreign intelligence service, rumoured to be Israel.

A sixteen-year-old Syrian national who lives in the city was detained yesterday morning, with three other people arrested in a raid on an apartment in connection with the incident.

According to Der Spiegel, the teenager mentioned in an online chat that he was planning an attack on a synagogue using explosives, which led investigators to the boy, who lives with his father in Hagen.

Police cordoned off the synagogue for the Kol Nidrei service on Wednesday night and sniffer dogs were deployed, although no dangerous objects were found in or around the synagogue. The investigation is ongoing.

Armin Laschet, the State Premier, said that “It appears that prior to today on Yom Kippur, an Islamist-motivated attack was averted,” adding: “We will do everything we can to clarify which networks may have been behind” the plot. Mr Laschet is running to succeed Angela Merkel as Chancellor of Germany.

German Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht said: “It is intolerable that Jews are again exposed to such a horrible threat and that they cannot celebrate the start of their highest holiday, Yom Kippur, together.”

The incident comes two years after a neo-Nazi attack on Yom Kippur targeted a synagogue in Halle. Although the synagogue’s security door thwarted that attack, the perpetrator, Stephan Balliet, went on to murder a passer-by and the patron of a nearby kebab shop before being arrested following a firefight with police. Last December Mr Balliet was given a life sentence.

Earlier this year, the Muslim-owned kebab restaurant in Halle that was targeted in the attack was saved from bankruptcy by a fundraising campaign led by the Jewish community.

Germany has seen a spate of Islamist terrorist attacks in recent years.

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Pope condemns antisemitism in visits to Hungary and Slovakia

The Pope has condemned antisemitism in papal visits to Hungary and Slovakia.

In a brief visit to Hungary, the pontiff told an ecumenical meeting in Budapest with leaders of other Christian denominations and the Jewish community: “I think of the threat of antisemitism still lurking in Europe and elsewhere.” He added that “this is a fuse that must not be allowed to burn. And the best way to defuse it is to work together, positively, and to promote fraternity.”

He urged Christian leaders top commit to an “education in fraternity” to stand up against hatred.

The Pope then travelled to Slovakia, where he told the Jewish community: “Your history is our history, your sufferings are our sufferings.”

Speaking in Rybné Námestie Square, which used to be the heart of Bratislava’s Jewish quarter, the Pope said that “G-d’s name was dishonored” in “a frenzy of hatred” during WWII.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

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For the second time in under a month, vandals desecrate Jewish cemetery in Ioannina, Greece

For the second time in under a month, vandals have desecrated the Jewish cemetery of Ioannina, Greece.

In a statement, the Jewish Community of Ioannina said: “It is a sad event in a city where the Jewish community left a mark, where it coexisted harmoniously for centuries and where a handful of its remaining members are a part of its present.”

In a separate statement on Friday, the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece (KIS) said: “Antisemitism targets even the dead. For the second time in less than a month a tomb was found vandalised at the Jewish cemetery of Ioannina. The vandals chose the period of the High Holidays of the Jewish faith for the manifestation of their antisemitic hatred with the hideous act of removing the tombstone of a grave. Shame!

“The state as well as the local authorities need to take all necessary measures for the safety of the Jewish Community and its sacred sites all over Greece, and particularly in Ioannina, where the Jewish cemetery has been the target of hatred attacks repeatedly in the past. Let the dead rest in peace!”

It was said that the grave had been smashed in “almost exactly the same way” as the grave in last month’s incident. The KIS said of last month’s vandalism: “We strongly condemn this shameful act of sacrilege which indicates that the hatred of the perpetrators leads to villainous manifestations of violence and fanaticism.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Image credit: The Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece

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Slovakia apologises for imposing antisemitic laws during the Second World War

This week, Slovakia’s Government apologised for imposing antisemitic laws during the Second World War.

Yesterday marked the 80th anniversary of the adoption of the Order on the Legal Status of Jews, also known as the “Jewish Code”, a policy that limited the civil, social, religious, and property-related rights of Jewish citizens.

The Slovakian Government released a statement on Wednesday that said: “The Slovak cabinet feels a moral duty to publicly express regret over the crimes committed by the ruling power of that time, especially over adopting a condemnable regulation restricting the fundamental human rights and freedoms of citizens of Jewish origin on September 9, 1941.”

Slovakia adopted the International Definition of Antisemitism last year.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

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Israeli tourist assaulted and hospitalised in Pisa, Italy after being told Jews “were killers”

Italian Police are investigating an incident in which an Israeli tourist visiting Pisa was assaulted, suffering head injuries.

On 31st August, Elad Forgash was shopping for souvenirs in the Tuscan city and was chatting to the sales assistant. Mr Forgash said that after telling the man that he was from Israel, the man allegedly said that he “hated Israel and the Jews because they were killers.”

Mr Forgash said that he remained calm, merely handing back the sculptures and saying he would “rather not buy from him.” Mr Forgash said the man then hit over the head with the sculptures.

“Luckily, there were tourists who filmed him,” said Mr Forgash. Police arrived and an ambulance took him to hospital. He reported suffering a fractured eye socket and a broken nose, which he said would need surgery in Israel.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project. 

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Head of UNRWA grilled over alleged antisemitism and incitement to Jihad in textbooks

Philippe Lazzarini, the Head of UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency), was told last week by Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to take “concrete steps” towards reform following allegations that textbooks used in UNRWA schools contained antisemitism, incitement to Jihad and the rejection of peace-making.

At a hearing of the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee (AFET), Mr Lazzarini claimed UNRWA had revised the textbooks following the allegations of antisemitism and other problematic content, revealed by a recent report from educational monitoring organisation IMPACT-se, as reported by CAA.

Mr Lazzarini’s acknowledged that “there are a number of issues needing to be addressed” but this did not satisfy MEPs. Germany’s Dietmar Köster said UNRWA had “admitted” that “its own education directors” had produced educational material between March and November 2020 “branded with UNRWA logo” that “incites to violence, calls for jihad and rejects peace-making.”  

Spanish MEP Jose Ramon Bauza Diaz, said “mentions of terrorism in certain texts” made it “very serious” if European taxpayers’ money was used “to pay for encouragement of terrorism or to foster corruption.”

Slovak MEP Miriam Lexmann, demanded to know “what concrete steps” Mr Lazzarini had taken. “What has been done to collect these materials back from 320,000 students,” she asked. “We know if these books remain with the students, they will create further damage.” Ms Lexmann also recalled that a U.S. State Department report on UNRWA said that UNRWA teachers had “refused to take part in training for tolerance and conflict resolution.”

Dutch MEP Bert-Jan Ruissen said the recent IMPACT-se report showed that “in the new textbooks of UNRWA” there was “daily mention of violence, rejection of peace and denial of the legitimacy of Israel.” Mr Ruissen added: “I think there is a question of how long we can tolerate this.”

The European Union is UNRWA’s largest institutional donor. Earlier this year, it passed a resolution condemning UNRWA and demanding that problematic material be “removed immediately.” In doing so, it became the first legislature to censure UNRWA over alleged teaching of hate and incitement to violence. The European Commissioner for UNRWA aid also said earlier this year, that there was “a need” for reform in Palestinian education and called on the EU to consider making aid to the education sector conditional on “full adherence to UNESCO standards of peace, tolerance, co-existence [and] non-violence.”

A cross-party group of 26 MEPs from sixteen countries also called for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to investigate UNRWA, created to aid Palestinians, and to take disciplinary action against it over its alleged teaching of hate.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project. 

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Austria records its highest number of antisemitic incidents in last twenty years

A Jewish group in Austria has reported that this year, it has received its highest number of recorded antisemitic incidents for the last twenty years.

The report, conducted by the Jewish Community of Vienna (IKG), also found that the 562 recorded antisemitic incidents in the first half of 2021 had more than doubled since the first half of 2020, which produced 257, and was only marginally less than the 585 recorded incidents for the whole of last year.

The incidents of antisemitism included 58 cases of damage to property, such as antisemitic graffiti, along with eleven threats and eight physical attacks.

Oskar Deutsch, President of the Jewish community of Vienna, said: “Even if the numbers seem catastrophic at first glance, they do reflect reality. We rely on the cooperation with civil society, politics and the authorities in order to continue to secure self-confident Jewish life.”

The influx is believed to be in part due to both the rise of anti-lockdown and anti-vaccination networks, which have become known as hotbeds of antisemitic conspiracy theories and tropes, and the clashes between Israel and the antisemitic genocidal terrorist group, Hamas, back in May.

Approximately half of these incidents’ perpetrators were believed to have been motivated by right-wing ideologies, about 100 by left-wing motives, and 71 cases were alleged to have had Muslim involvement.

“The sharp increase in the number of antisemitic incidents in Austria unfortunately confirms to me that we must continue the fight against antisemitism consistently and uncompromisingly,” said Wolfgang Sobotka, President of the Austrian National Council. He added: “It is a shame that the number of attacks, threats and insults against Jewish fellow citizens is increasing more and more.”

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Harry Kane suffers antisemitic abuse while black England players also on receiving end of racist chanting at qualifier match in Hungary

Harry Kane, the captain of England’s football team, has reported that he suffered antisemitic abuse at a match in Hungary yesterday.

England defeated Hungary 4-0 in the Budapest qualifier match for the World Cup, with Mr Kane, who plays for Tottenham Hotspur, reporting that he received antisemitic abuse at the game, possibly due his connection with his Premier League club’s long association with Jewish fans.

Mr Kane called on UEFA, the umbrella body for European football, to take action in response to the appalling abuse that he and his teammates received, particularly England’s black players.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson also called on FIFA, football’s global body, to “take strong action” against those attendees at the match who behaved shamefully.

Mr Kane has previously suffered antisemitic abuse in England.

Antisemitism and racism have no place in sport, which should bring nations, communities, ethnicities and those of all faiths and none together.

English football’s governing body, the Football Association (FA), has adopted the International Definition of Antisemitism.

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Hours after coming under fire, Greece’s new Health Minister apologises for inflammatory Auschwitz comment from 2009

Hours after coming under fire for inflammatory comments he made in 2009 when defending his father who was accused of inciting racism, Greece’s new Health Minister has apologised.

Thanos Plevris, a lawyer who is reported to have a “far-right, anti-immigrant and extremist background”, became Greece’s new Health Minister on Tuesday. However, The Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece (KIS) expressed concern regarding this new appointment owing to Mr Plevris’ 2009 comments during a trial in which he was defending his father, who said that Auschwitz concentration camp should be kept in “good conditions” so that it may be used again.

The KIS issued a statement demanding an apology for the comments Mr Plevris made before the Greek Court of Justice, where he reportedly said: “I will refer to issues that have puzzled you. You are concerned about the reference to Auschwitz. The one that says ‘to keep the camp of Auschwitz in good conditions’. I will examine the most extreme interpretation. That the defendant with this reference means: ‘Keep the camp of Auschwitz in good conditions because I want, at some point, the national socialist regime to come back, Hitler to come back, take the Jews and put them in Auschwitz’. What kind of instigation is this? What incitement is this? Is it that one is not allowed to believe and want to believe that ‘I want to exterminate someone’?”

The KIS continued: “We expect Mr. Thanos Plevris to apologise to the Jewish people for this reference and express his unequivocal condemnation of intolerance, antisemitism and Holocaust denialists, conforming with the declared positions of the Greek prime minister. We also hope that the new minister will address all citizens equally, regardless of skin colour, race or religion.”

Hours later, Mr Plevris stated that the KIS’ concerns were “understandable” and that he “fully disagrees” with his father’s views.

He added: “But I never wanted to insult the Jewish people, and I apologise if I did. I am certain that…as health minister, I will leave not the slightest grounds for reservation for those who doubt my respect for the Holocaust, and they will see that under no circumstances do I harbour antisemitic sentiments.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

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“Jewish Monkey” graffiti scrawled across bust of Italian anti-fascist

This week, a bust of the Italian anti-fascist Guglielmo Miliocchi was defaced with graffiti that says “Scimmia Ebrea” (Jewish Monkey).

The bust is located in the gardens next to the church of Sant’Ercolano in Perugia, in central Italy.

Andrea Romizi, Mayor of Perugia, said that there will be an investigation. A statement on the official website of Umbria, the region in which Perugia is the capital, said that “the vandalism was strongly condemned by the entire administration”.

It added: “It offends the Perugian community and will be the subject of a thorough investigation by the local police to reach the authors as soon as possible.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Image credit: StopAntisemitism.org

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Founder of French far-right party faces trial after being charged with inciting antisemitic hatred

Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of the French far-right party National Front (now National Rally), faces trial after being charged with “inciting antisemitic hatred”.  

The charge against Mr Le Pen originates from a 2014 video on the Party’s website, in which Mr Le Pen reportedly denounced several celebrities who disagreed with his political views. When asked about the French singer and actor Patrick Bruel, who is Jewish, Mr Le Pen seemingly mocked the Holocaust and Mr Bruel, saying: “I’m not surprised. Listen, next time we’ll do a whole oven batch!”

Mr Le Pen reportedly denied the allegation of Jew-hate, claiming that his comments carried no antisemitic messages “except for my political enemies or imbeciles”. It is understood that Frederic Joachim, Mr Le Pen’s lawyer, is seeking to have the charges dismissed. Mr Joachim reportedly said: “This case is based only on part of a phrase taken out of context.”

This is not the first time that Mr Le Pen has faced trial due to antisemitism-related comments. In 2018, France’s Court of Cassation upheld a conviction against Mr Le Pen for Holocaust denial after he said that the Holocaust was “a detail” of World War II. Subsequently, National Front’s Leader Marine Le Pen, the daughter of Mr Le Pen, expelled him from the Party.

In June, President Macron condemned antisemitism in an historic ten-minute long video address to the American Jewish Committee. Reiterating how important it was for France to have adopted the International Definition of Antisemitism, he went on to say that the Definition alone “is not enough”, and that France needs to strengthen their actions.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

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Greece’s new Health Minister comes under fire for inflammatory Auschwitz comment from 2009

Greece’s new Health Minister has come under fire for inflammatory comments he made in 2009 when defending a man accused of inciting racism.

Thanos Plevris, a lawyer who is reported to have a “far-right, anti-immigrant and extremist background”, became Greece’s new Health Minister on Tuesday. However, The Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece (KIS) expressed concern regarding this new appointment owing to Mr Plevris’ 2009 comments during a trial in which he was defending a man who said that Auschwitz concentration camp should be kept in “good conditions” so that it may be used again.

The KIS issued a statement demanding an apology for the comments Mr Plevris made before the Greek Court of Justice, where he reportedly said: “I will refer to issues that have puzzled you. You are concerned about the reference to Auschwitz. The one that says ‘to keep the camp of Auschwitz in good conditions’. I will examine the most extreme interpretation. That the defendant with this reference means: ‘Keep the camp of Auschwitz in good conditions because I want, at some point, the national socialist regime to come back, Hitler to come back, take the Jews and put them in Auschwitz’. What kind of instigation is this? What incitement is this? Is it that one is not allowed to believe and want to believe that ‘I want to exterminate someone’?”

The KIS continued: “We expect Mr. Thanos Plevris to apologise to the Jewish people for this reference and express his unequivocal condemnation of intolerance, antisemitism and Holocaust denialists, conforming with the declared positions of the Greek prime minister. We also hope that the new minister will address all citizens equally, regardless of skin colour, race or religion.”

Last month, the KIS condemned the vandalism of a Jewish grave in Ioannina, stating: “We strongly condemn this shameful act of sacrilege which indicates that the hatred of the perpetrators leads to villainous manifestations of violence and fanaticism…We call upon the competent authorities to arrest the perpetrators and bring them to justice. The Jewish cemetery of Ioannina is…a place of memory and cultural heritage for the city of Ioannina as a whole.”  

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

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Jewish hotel manager abused and assaulted in Italian lake resort

A 76-year-old Israeli man was physically assaulted and subjected to antisemitic abuse in the Italian resort of Sirmione.

Italian-born Eli Danzig, 76, is the manager of the kosher Olympic Hotel on the shores of Lake Garda and was reportedly assaulted and abused by the manager of a nearby hotel. The assailant allegedly called Mr Danzig “a s**t of a Jew” three times and spat in Mr Danzig’s face.

Mr Danzig was allegedly kneed in the groin and pushed to the ground. His assailant also allegedly called him a “dirty Jew” and said: “You tried to…take advantage of me like all Jews do.” When Mr Danzig managed to stand up, he was allegedly further assaulted and told “get out of here dirty Jew.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project. 

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Controversial Warsaw art exhibition features artist previously jailed for placing swastikas at Jewish community centre

An art exhibition at a Polish state museum has been criticised for giving a platform to antisemitic and racist messages.

The “Political Art” exhibition at Warsaw’s Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art features the work of 30 artists in what organisers say is a celebration of free speech, a challenge to political correctness and the “cancel culture” of the left-wing.

Poland’s Jewish community has criticised the exhibition and strongly protested the inclusion of Swedish artist Dan Park, who was jailed in Sweden in 2009 for hate crimes. In an open letter to the museum’s Director, Piotr Bernatowicz, rabbis and Jewish leaders argued that promoting such artists offends “all people” in a country where “six million Polish citizens – half of whom were Jews – were murdered during World War II.”

Poland’s Chief Rabbi, Michael Schudrich, said that while free expression was “essential to a democratic society”, free expression “still has limits.”

The Warsaw art centre, which has showcased avant-garde art for 30 years, says that the “Political Art” exhibition provides a space for artists excluded elsewhere. It features works that use swastikas or other symbols rooted in the Holocaust in an apparently ironic way but the most controversial inclusion is Mr Park, who was jailed in Sweden after placing swastikas and boxes labelled “Zyklon B”, which was the gas used in the mass murder of Jews during the Holocaust, outside a Jewish community centre in Malmo. Among works by Mr Park at the exhibition is a pastiche of an advertising poster that shows the Norwegian right-wing mass murderer Anders Breivik as a model for a well-known clothing brand.

Protesters carrying a large banner that read “State promotion of fascism” confronted Mr Park at the exhibition opening,  

Museum director, Mr Bernatowicz, was appointed in 2019 by Poland’s Law and Justice Party. Since coming to power in 2015, the Party has been accused of using Poland’s cultural institutions to promote conservative values.

At a news conference, Mr Bernatowicz said that he acknowledged that some of the work was “provocative” and “controversial,” and that he could understand the position of the Jewish organisations, but that Jewish representatives should “see the exhibition” before condemning it. He added: “I am not creating a platform propagating any types of Nazi or neo-Nazi views.”

Mr Bernatowicz said that he was “creating a platform” for art to be expressed. At the news conference, several artists, including two Jewish artists, defended the exhibition as an important platform. Israeli artist Marc Provisor said that while he found some of the images “not only disturbing but offensive”, he thought that it was important for those who protested to view the exhibition to “see what disturbs you.”

Separately, an anti-fascist network in Poland condemned “the attempts to use Polish art institutions to platform artists infamous for their neo-Nazi sympathies.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project. 

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Spanish university cancels course comparing Auschwitz to Gaza

A university in Spain has cancelled a course that would have looked at comparisons between Auschwitz concentration camp and Gaza.

The University of Santiago de Compostela’s philosophy faculty reportedly organised the course entitled “Auschwitz/Gaza. A testing ground for comparative literature”. However, after backlash from Action and Communication on the Middle East (ACOM), an independent organisation aimed at promoting relations between Israel and Spain, the University reportedly decided to cancel the course.

In the advertisement for the course, it compares images of children in a Nazi concentration camp standing behind barbed wire next to a photo of a woman and child.

According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is an example of antisemitism.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Image credit: ACOM

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Historic Bulgarian synagogue vandalised with swastika and neo-Nazi “1488” graffiti

A historic Bulgarian synagogue has been vandalised with a swastika and the numbers “1488”.

1488 is likely a coded reference to the neo-Nazi fourteen-word oath: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children”, a slogan initially devised by David Lane, a member of the white supremacist terrorist group “The Order” which was responsible for the murder of Jewish radio host Alan Berg. The number 88 refers to the eighth letter of the alphabet, H, and is intended as a code for “Heil Hitler.”

The vandalism at the Central Synagogue in Bulgaria’s capital of Sofia, the largest synagogue in the Balkan peninsula, was reportedly discovered on Sunday.  

Last month, a far-right Bulgarian politician was condemned after he reportedly praised Adolf Hitler and denied the Holocaust in a television interview.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

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Monument for Holocaust victims in Poland defaced with graffiti praising Hitler

Graffiti praising Hitler has been etched into a monument for Holocaust victims in Poland.

The vandalism was discovered over the weekend. The monument in Rudzica, near Krakow, acts as a symbolic grave for approximately 1,500 people who were murdered by German troops in 1941.

In 1944, Germans reportedly dug up and burned the bodies in an effort to hide the crime.

At an anti-vaccine rally in Poland last month, “Jews are behind the pandemic” and “rule the world” chants were heard.

It was also reported that a Polish model has had several of her contracts cancelled after a video emerged online of her espousing antisemitic and homophobic views.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

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Jewish teenager hospitalised with broken bones after being attacked for wearing skullcap in Germany

A Jewish teenager has been hospitalised with broken bones after he was attacked for wearing a skullcap, or “kippah”, in Cologne, Germany.

It was reported yesterday that on Friday, a Jewish eighteen-year-old was approached in a park by a group of about ten people who abused him with antisemitic insults before punching and kicking him in the face and stealing his skullcap. The Jewish man was taken to hospital with a broken nose and cheekbone.

An eighteen-year-old and a nineteen-year-old were arrested and then released. However, they are understood to still be suspects in the crime. Due to the assumed antisemitic nature of the incident, Germany’s police state security has taken over the investigation.

Dr. Felix Schotland, who sits on the board of the Cologne Synagogue Community, said: “We expect the police, the public prosecutors and the judges in this country to take action against antisemitic excesses with the necessary severity of the law. We know, however, that most representatives from politics and city society stand by our side.”

Avichai Apel, the Chief Rabbi of Frankfurt and Chairman of the conference of Orthodox rabbis in Germany, said that the attack was a wake up sign that “especially young people in schools, educational institutions or other public institutions must be taught more about Jewish life so that ignorance or fear of foreigners does not turn into hatred and violence directed against Jews who have been a natural part of Germany for the past 1700 years.”

The German Government will pay €35 million to combat antisemitism, it was recently revealed.

After a recent rise in antisemitic incidents, Germany has banned the Hamas flag. Hamas, the antisemitic genocidal terrorist group, clashed with Israel in May, which lead to widespread antisemitism in Germany with several people arrested.

A recent study found that antisemitic incidents have increased in Germany, with more reported incidents occurring in 2020 than in 2019.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

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Repatriation for French Jew who claimed he received antisemitic abuse in Turkish prison

A French Jewish man serving a sixteen-year prison sentence in Turkey who claimed that he was receiving antisemitic abuse in prison has been repatriated to France.

As reported by Campaign Against Antisemitism, Fabien Azoulay, 43, was convicted for buying a small amount of the drug GBL. He claimed that he did not know the drug was illegal in Turkey as GBL had been legal there until six months prior to Mr Azoulay purchasing it with his credit card. Earlier this year, his family said that he was being harassed and repeatedly assaulted in prison because he was Jewish and gay.

In April, shortly after their statement, a petition demanding his release received thousands of signatures. There was also a resolution by the City Council of Paris calling on Turkey to release him, saying his sentence was “excessive”. According to French radio, President Emmanuel Macron intervened with Turkish authorities on behalf of Mr Azoulay.

Although Mr Azoulay was transferred to France as a prisoner to supposedly serve the remainder of his sentence, it is understood that he will not go to prison as his actions do not violate French law.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project. 

Image credit: Change.org

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Antisemitic protest signs prompt hate speech investigations in France 

 Antisemitic protest signs have prompted hate speech and incitement of violence investigations in France.

In recent weeks, France has seen regular protests in response to the introduction of the “health pass”, a new strategy designed to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and an attempt to safely reopen public venues. Examples of a health pass reportedly include:

  • Proof of having completed a vaccination programme (two doses of an EU-approved vaccine: Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson)
  • A negative PCR or antigen test taken within the last 72 hours
  • A Covid-19 recovery certificate that is less than six months old

However, anti-lockdown and anti-vaccination networks have become known as hotbeds of antisemitic conspiracy theories and tropes, and antisemitic signs have been spotted at France’s recent protests.  

On 17th July, an anti-vaccination demonstration of over 100,000 people took place where several attendees wore yellows stars, while others carried signs that made comparisons to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Joseph Szwarc, a Holocaust survivor, spoke out against these acts, saying: “You can’t imagine how much that upset me. This comparison is hateful. We must all rise up against this ignominy.”

With tears in his eyes, Mr Szwarc added: “I wore the star, I know what that is, I still have it in my flesh. It is everyone’s duty to not allow this outrageous, antisemitic, racist wave to pass over us.”

This is not the first instance of yellow stars appearing at French rallies. In March, organisers of an anti-vaccine demonstration in the city of Avignon were described as “brainless” by Eric Ciotti, the Deputy (parliamentarian) for the region, for using the Nazi yellow star in their protest.  

On 8th August, French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin condemned a protester’s sign as “abject” on Twitter and said that “Antisemitism is a crime, by no means an opinion. Such remarks will not go unpunished.” The sign in question carried the names of several Jewish politicians and businessmen, along with the word “traitors” and the phrase “mais qui?” (“but who?”) written in red writing with devil horns on the letter ‘Q’. Mr Darmanin went on to say that he had requested that state services in Moselle report the incident to the public prosecutor’s office.

Two days later, it had been reported that Cassandre Fristot, a teacher and former local councillor for France’s far-right National Rally Party, was the individual carrying the sign at the protest of about 237,000 people in the city of Metz, and was to face a trial. She was detained by police and her home was searched. Prosecutor Christian Mercuri stated that Ms Fristot’s trial would commence on 8th September, and if found guilty, she could face up to one year in prison and a 45,000 euro fine.

The phrase “qui?” has gained traction in France after an antisemitic rant by a retired army general aired in a now-infamous television interview in June.

Today, it was reported that a prosecutor had opened an enquiry into an antisemitic sign, also protesting the health pass, that was spotted in Épinal, eastern France on 14th August. The sign featured a swastika and the words “gros Nazi” (“big Nazi”) alongside the name of Health Minister Olivier Véran. A few weeks prior, there was reportedly another sign featuring a swastika that was seen in Épinal. The swastika on that sign was said to have been made up of hand-drawn syringes.

Paris has seen demonstrations take place for four weeks in a row. Last Saturday, Paris police tweeted that “signs with antisemitic inscriptions were held up today in #Paris”, and that they were bringing this to the attention of the courts. Paris’ public prosecutor reportedly said that the police were investigating whether people carrying harmful signs were “provoking public hate or violence against a group of people because of their origin, their belonging or not belonging to a particular ethnic group, a nation, a race or a religion”.

Robert Ejnes, the Executive Director of the Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de France (Council Representing Jewish Institutions in France), said that “It is worrying not just for Jewish people but for the whole of French society because antisemitism is just the beginning of a process that leads to the expression of hate for the ‘other’”. He added: “These people are using all the antisemitic prejudices from the worst hours of the history of France and Europe, so of course this worries us.”

Last Wednesday, a memorial in Perros-Guirec dedicated to Simone Veil, a Holocaust survivor and former Minister of Health, was found vandalised.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

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68-year-old man arrested for painting swastika outside of synagogue in Spain

A 68-year-old man was arrested last week for allegedly painting a swastika outside of a synagogue in Spain.

The swastika was reportedly painted onto one of the bollards in front of the Chamberí synagogue in Madrid on Saturday 31st July, the Jewish Sabbath.

The suspect, who is accused of having committed a crime against Fundamental Rights, is not believed to have committed any other crimes of this nature.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Image credit: Google

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Pro-Nazi French website off-line after Interior Minister threatens to prosecute

A website inspired by a pro-Nazi World War II-era newspaper is no longer online after the French Interior Minister urged its closure and warned that its publishers and backers may be prosecuted.

Gérald Darmanin denounced the site, Je Suis Partout (I Am Everywhere), in a Twitter post as “deeply scandalous and nauseating”, and said that he had urged French law enforcement agencies to close the site “as quickly as possible” and to prosecute the publishers and backers. In a later tweet, Mr Darmanin said that web hosting companies and social media managers “must recognise their responsibilities.”

It is unclear whether the site’s disappearance is due to French Government intervention or to a decision to move to another hosting company.

The website had the same name as a weekly newspaper published in France during the Nazi occupation by French Nazi and collaborator Robert Brasillach, and its main offering was an elaborate graphic under the headline Ils Sont Partout  (They Are Everywhere) that purported to show Jewish control of media and other key industries in France.

There has been a fresh wave of antisemitic conspiracy theories across France in recent weeks. It is believed to have originated with an antisemitic rant by a retired French army general during a now-infamous television interview in June.

Last Wednesday, a memorial in Perros-Guirec dedicated to Simone Veil, a Holocaust survivor and former Minister of Health, was found vandalised.

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Memorial to Holocaust survivor Simone Veil vandalised with swastikas in France

A memorial in Perros-Guirec, France dedicated to Simone Veil, a Holocaust survivor and former Minister of Health, was found vandalised on Wednesday.

The stone memorial in north-western France was daubed with red swastikas and has prompted a police investigation.

Ms Veil, born in 1917, was deported to Auschwitz concentration camp as a teenager where she narrowly avoided murder. Her father and brother were deported and presumed dead, her sister was sent to Ravensbrück camp, and her mother died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. She went on to become President of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1982 and served as the French Ministry of Health.

Minister Delegate for Citizenship Marlène Schiappa wrote on Twitter that “Simone Veil is a French and global figure in women’s rights, in Europe and in the fight against antisemitism,” adding that “these heinous acts must not go unpunished.”

In 2019, letterboxes depicting images of Simone Veil were also defaced with swastikas.

In a similar incident that took place last month, antisemitic vandals used a blowtorch to engrave a Holocaust memorial with swastikas in Grenoble, France.

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“Jews should be killed” said Norwegian imam in Facebook posts

Police are investigating after a series of antisemitic Facebook posts, apparently spanning years, from a Norwegian imam were revealed recently.

Noor Ahmad Noor is an imam who served as the Director for the Norway branch of Minhaj-ul-Quran, an international non-governmental Muslim organisation that is said to be thought of as moderate and geared toward outreach, for many years. As part of his role as Director, Mr Noor would have participated in meetings with top government officials.

However, he was suspended indefinitely in light of the recent news concerning his history of antisemitic Facebook posts. One of the posts allegedly stated that Jews were dangerous and “should be killed”, while another from 2019 asserted that Jews “put the world in danger” and it was “necessary to kill them.”

Addressing the allegations, the imam said: “My posts were published in frustration over attacks in Gaza. Innocent children and women were killed. My criticism and frustration should have been directed at the regime. And not against a group of people. I apologise.”

Releasing its own statement, Minhaj-ul-Quran wrote: “These are attitudes and values we have zero tolerance for as a religious community. This is contrary to what we have been working for for decades.”

In February, a host on Norway’s state-owned broadcaster went on an antisemitic rant on live radio referring pejoratively to Israel as “God’s chosen people”.

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Jewish grave vandalised in Ioannina, Greece

A Jewish grave has been vandalised in Ioannina, Greece.

The news of the incident emerged last week and has prompted “outrage and resentment” from The Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece (KIS). They reported that the grave had the covering slab removed from it in addition to also having smashed pieces of marble scattered around.

The KIS said that this is not the first time that the Jewish cemetery of Ioannina has been vandalised. “We strongly condemn this shameful act of sacrilege which indicates that the hatred of the perpetrators leads to villainous manifestations of violence and fanaticism,” the organisation stated.

It added: “We call upon the competent authorities to arrest the perpetrators and bring them to justice. The Jewish cemetery of Ioannina is…a place of memory and cultural heritage for the city of Ioannina as a whole.”  

Earlier this year, the KIS denounced what it called “another attempt to diminish and exploit the Holocaust” following the publication of a cartoon in a Greek newspaper.

Last month, the Deputy Leader of the neo-Nazi organisation Golden Dawn was arrested after he was found hiding in Athens, Greece.

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Image credit: Eli Nahum/Monitoring Antisemitism Worldwide

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Pig skulls used to desecrate grave of Rabbi Nachman’s daughter in Ukraine

Pig skulls were used to desecrate the grave of Rabbi Nachman’s daughter, it was reported last week.

Rabbi Nachman of Breslov is one of the key figures in the Hasidic Jewish movement. Both he and his daughter, Sarah, died in the first half of the nineteenth century, however, vandals have continued to target their graves.

Last week, Sarah’s grave in Kremenchuk, Ukraine was defaced with pig skulls as well as pieces of pig. She was buried there 186 years ago, and other family members are buried in the same cemetery.

Members from Breslov Hasidim, the branch of Hasidic Judaism that Rabbi Nachman founded, discovered the vandalism on 2nd August and reported it to the police.

Breslov Hasid and businessman, Rabbi Avraham Chezin, said: “Following this horrific event, I spoke with a senior official from the United Jewish Community of Ukraine, which is directed by the Chabad emissary in the city of Dnieper. He was horrified by the horrible scenes, and immediately began to work on the issue together with the local police authorities. From past experience, every incident like this is immediately handled by them, and successfully.”

He added: “This is not the first pogrom in which antisemites have harmed the grave of Sarah, of blessed memory. I believe that following the inquiry to the organisation, this time a solution will be found and the vandals will be taken to court.”

In 2016, Rabbi Nachman’s grave in Uman, Ukraine was similarly desecrated using a pig’s head and red paint.

In June, a synagogue in Kremenchuk was found with bullet holes after being reportedly shot at.

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Germany pays €35 million to combat antisemitism

The German Government will pay €35 million to combat antisemitism, it was recently revealed.

Funds will reportedly be used for research and education projects, including efforts to educate non-Jews about Jewish ways of life and culture as well as millions to be given to universities. Scientists will also be asked to draw up guidelines based on their findings, which will be given to teachers in order to help them teach.

German Education and Research Minister Anja Karliczek said: “This is the highest number [of antisemitic incidents] in the last couple of years. There’s reason for worry that this is only the tip of the iceberg and that the unreported number of daily attacks on Jews is substantially higher.”

Ms Karliczek added: “It is a shame that Jews feel threatened in our country. Especially in view of our history, we have a special obligation to protect Jews and Jewish life in Germany.”

The minister also said that the reason for the allocation of funds into the research of antisemitism was “because we need deep knowledge in order to be able to efficiently fight” it.

After a recent rise in antisemitic incidents, Germany has banned the Hamas flag. Hamas, the antisemitic genocidal terrorist group, clashed with Israel in May, which lead to widespread antisemitism in Germany with several people arrested.

A recent study found that antisemitic incidents have increased in Germany, with more reported incidents occurring in 2020 than in 2019.

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EU condemned for diplomat’s appearance alongside leaders of proscribed antisemitic genocidal terrorist groups Hamas, Hizballah and Islamic Jihad at inauguration of hardline Iranian President

The European Union has been condemned for a diplomat’s appearance at the inauguration of Iran’s new hardline President, seated alongside leaders of the antisemitic genocidal terrorist groups, Hamas, Hizballah and Islamic Jihad, all of which are proscribed by the EU.

Enrique Mora, the Deputy Secretary General and Political Director of the EU’s External Action Service, attended the inauguration of President Ebrahim Raisi, known as the ‘Butcher of Tehran’, for his alleged role in executing thousands of political prisoners in the 1980s. He was placed under US sanctions in 2019 after being appointed to lead Iran’s judiciary, and has now won the Presidency.

The ceremony was attended by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, Hizballah Deputy Leader Naim Qassem, and the leader of Islamic Jihad, Ziad al-Nakhalah, behind him Mr Mora was sitting.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad are designated terrorist organisations by the EU, while the EU proscribes only Hizballah’s so-called ‘military wing’, but not its supposed ‘political wing’, even though the terrorist group explicitly does not recognise any distinction between its units.

Iranian dissidents were reportedly furious at the EU’s decision to honour President Raisi by attending, while Jewish groups were appalled by the EU diplomat’s appearance alongside proscribed antisemitic terrorist groups.

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Image credit: Algemeiner

German army appoints first military rabbi since Nazi era

It was reported on Monday that Germany’s Bundeswehr (armed forces) has appointed Rabbi Zsolt Balla as the first military rabbi since the post was abolished by the Nazis. The Orthodox Rabbi is also Germany’s first non-Christian military chaplain in almost 90 years

The son of a Holocaust survivor, Rabbi Balla says that his mother fully supports his new role and, like him, believes that only by confronting the horrors of the past can you look to the future.

Speaking to Forces News in Leipzig, Rabbi Balla said that he hoped to help change the perception of the German armed forces for the country’s Jewish community. He said that Jewish people “felt very uncomfortable serving in the Bundeswehr” after WW2, adding: “Our goal is that one day the Bundeswehr will reflect German society exactly the same way as…armies in the Netherlands, or in the United States, or the UK. To make sure that Jews feel comfortable to come and serve in these armed forces.”

After a recent rise in antisemitic incidents, Germany has banned the Hamas flag. Hamas, the antisemitic genocidal terrorist group, clashed with Israel in May, which lead to widespread antisemitism in Germany with several people arrested.

A recent study found that antisemitic incidents have increased in Germany, with more reported incidents occurring in 2020 than in 2019.

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Antisemitic mural of Dutch footballer Steven Berghuis investigated by police

An antisemitic mural of Dutch footballer Steven Berghuis, who is not himself Jewish, is being investigated by police, it was reported last Friday.

The image depicts the footballer wearing a concentration camp uniform and the yellow star that the Nazis forced Jews to wear during the Holocaust. The player’s nose was exaggerated in size, a key feature in antisemitic Nazi propaganda, and a skullcap was also drawn on his head. The words “Joden lopen altijd weg” were spray-painted beside the image, which translates to “Jews always run away”.

The mural appeared after the footballer announced that he was signing from Feyenoord Rotterdam to rivals Amsterdamsche Football Club Ajax, a club that has embraced its associations to Judaism (although it has no formal ties), even referring to themselves as “Joden”, which has often seen them on the receiving end of antisemitic chants.

Feyenoord Rotterdam have said that they have “no idea who is doing this and therefore not to what extent they really have a relationship with the club,” but a representative also added that if the culprit was found to be a supporter of the team, that person would be “banned from the club’s stadium for life.”

They also added that the club had “been working for many years to combat antisemitism,” which “ranges from webinars and workshops to educational trips to Auschwitz and Birkenau.”

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Image credit: CIDI

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Russian police fake murder of rabbi to catch members of USSR fringe group

Undercover police in Russia have arrested two members of a Soviet nostalgia group after an elaborate “sting” that involved faking the murder of a rabbi, it was revealed over the weekend.

The 60-year-old man and the 70-year-old woman who allegedly ordered the rabbi’s killing are now on trial in the southern Krasnodar region. They are alleged members of Citizens of the USSR, a fringe group that believes the Soviet Union still exists and that they are in charge of the Communist state.

The pair, Alexander Dudarenko and Zoya Malova, are said to have hired a “hit-man” to carry out the crime last year. According to police, the “hit-man” was an undercover officer who had infiltrated the group. To increase authenticity, instead of asking for money, the “killer” demanded to be appointed as head of the group’s KGB Directorate for the Krasnodar region.

The rabbi, Yury Tkach, 52, agreed to take part in the sting operation after learning of the group’s reported antisemitism and its beliefs that members of Citizens of the USSR were “superior“ to Jewish people.

A make-up artist applied fake blood and a “wound” to his temple. Pictures of him slumped in the stairwell of his apartment block were shown to Mr Dudarenko and Ms Malova by the “killer” as evidence of the murder.

Police shared a video of the rabbi being prepared for his “death”, in which the make-up artist could be seen at work, as well as “blood” being added over his neck, beard, and shirt.

During the regional court hearing, both defendants denied the charges and Mr Dudarenko said he did not recognise the legitimacy of the proceedings. Members of the group consider Russia’s current government to be illegitimate and many refuse to pay taxes.

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French President Emmanuel Macron sues billboard owner over comparisons to Hitler

The President of France is suing a billboard owner over a poster that depicts him as Adolf Hitler.

The posters that appeared in Toulon – the capital of the Var – and La Seyne-Sur-Mer depict the President as the Nazi dictator and are accompanied by the phrase “Obéis fais-toi vacciner”, which translates as “Obey Get vaccinated.”

An image of the billboard was tweeted by Michel-Ange Flori, the owner and creator behind the billboards, who wrote: “Is there a vaccine against acute Macronitis? Will France become Macronistan?”

In response to the news of President Macron’s legal action, Mr Flori told a local newspaper that the police “confirmed that there had been a complaint from the Elysée. I was surprised and shocked.” Mr Flori also tweeted: “In Macron-land, showing the Prophet’s rear is satire, making fun of Macron as a dictator is blasphemy.”

According to Mr Flori’s own tweet, he is being sued for “insult and incitement to hatred.”

It has been reported that Mr Flori has claimed that he “has produced at least 100 provocative posters, insisting he is exercising his right to freedom of expression.”

Last month, President Macron condemned antisemitism in an historic address with a ten-minute long video to the American Jewish Committee, reaffirming France’s “commitment to defending religious freedom and tolerance.”

Anti-lockdown and anti-vaccination networks have become known as hotbeds of antisemitic conspiracy theories and tropes.

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“Jews are behind the pandemic” chanted at anti-vaccine rally in Poland

“Jews are behind the pandemic” and “rule the world” chants were heard at an anti-vaccine rally in Poland on Sunday.

The rally in Głogów was held by supporters of the local football team who marched to protest COVID-19 restrictions and vaccines. The organisers were reported to have called on locals to join “the fight for our common future” against “the globalists”, a term that is often used in far-right conspiratorial circles to refer to Jewish people.

It was reported that at one point during the rally, a man with a megaphone asked the crowd: “We know who is behind this whole ‘plandemic’ and who rules the world, right?”, to which someone responded “Jews”, and the man replied, “Of course it’s the Jews”.

A chant of “Every Pole can see today that behind the ‘plandemic’ are the Jews” was then reported to have broken out amongst the crowd of over 100 people.

Three arrests were made after confrontations broke out between protestors and police officers. A video of police officers retreating was uploaded to Twitter by a nationalist account, along with the caption: “You will all be held accountable someday.”

Earlier today, the account also tweeted an image of the Nazi flag and wrote: “We will never bow our knees, we will never submit, we will never become one of your sheep! Stop sanitary segregation!”

Anti-lockdown and anti-vaccination networks have become known as hotbeds of antisemitic conspiracy theories and tropes.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

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Model loses contracts after video emerges of her espousing antisemitic and homophobic views

It has been reported that a Polish model has had several of her contracts cancelled after a video emerged online of her espousing antisemitic and homophobic views.

Poland’s Confederation (Konfederacja) Party, a far-right organisation whose members have been accused of antisemitism, posted the video of Samuela Górska, a professional model and apparent supporter of the Party, to its social media pages.

The video has since been removed from the Confederation’s official Twitter account and uploaded elsewhere, but not before it was seemingly retweeted by Jakub Kulesza, a Member of the Polish Parliament.

Ms Górska can be seen in the video saying that she supports the Party because “I don’t want Jewry, I don’t want LGBT,” before adding that “only Confederation can ensure such normality.”

Several agencies have allegedly cancelled their contracts with Ms Górska following the video.

Recently, “Jews are behind the pandemic” and “rule the world” chants were heard at an anti-vaccine rally in Głogów, Poland. A video from the rally was uploaded to Twitter by a nationalist account, which also tweeted an image of the Nazi flag and wrote: “We will never bow our knees, we will never submit, we will never become one of your sheep! Stop sanitary segregation!”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

https://twitter.com/luj_ogluszacz/status/1416713890168115204

Community of Sant’Egidio becomes first Catholic movement to adopt International Definition of Antisemitism

The Community of Sant’Egidio has adopted the International Definition of Antisemitism.

The adoption, passed last week, makes the Community of Sant’Egidio the first international group of Catholics to endorse the Definition.

Created in 1968, the group is self-described on its website as “a movement of lay people counting more than 60,000 members, dedicated to peace, prayer, and service to the poor in more than 70 countries throughout the world.”

Israel’s envoy to the Vatican, Oren David, said that “This is a clear and unequivocal statement that rejects antisemitism in all its forms, as detailed in the broad definition from the [Definition], whose examples include delegitimization and demonization of Israel and denial of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination.”

Britain was the first country in the world to adopt the International Definition of Antisemitism, something for which Campaign Against Antisemitism and Lord Pickles worked hard over many meetings with officials at Downing Street.

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Neo-Nazi biker gang’s weapons seized in police raid in Austria

Weapons belonging to a neo-Nazi biker gang were seized in a police raid in Austria, it was reported earlier this week. 

The police were said to have confiscated automatic weapons, bullets, hand grenades, Nazi paraphernalia, and drugs. The raid came after reports from authorities of an unnamed neo-Nazi leader who was planning to orchestrate a miliz der anständigen (militia of the respectable) in order to “overturn the system.”

A network of bikers who are said to be affiliated with neo-Nazis has also been uncovered in Austria and Germany, with fourteen suspects under investigation. 

A similar raid of weapons occurred in Austria last December. Karl Nehammer, the Austrian Interior Minister, said: “I am deeply concerned when such a group has fully automatic weapons or hand grenades in their possession. The uninterrupted use of our security forces against right-wing extremism must continue without compromise.”

In March, a new survey of antisemitism in Austria showed mixed results. While the survey suggested a significant fall in antisemitic attitudes compared with the same past surveys, it also showed a much higher level than surveys by other organisations.

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Dieudonné fined by Swiss courts for Holocaust denial sketch just days after being handed prison sentence in France

Dieudonné has been fined by the Swiss courts for denying the existence of Nazi gas chambers in a sketch just days after being handed a prison sentence in France.

Dieudonné, whose real name is Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala, is a French comedian and political activist who has been convicted for hate speech and advocating terrorism, among other offences, in France and Belgium.

A complaint was made in 2019 after Mr M’Bala M’Bala performed the sketch in Switzerland. Last week, the Swiss courts found him guilty of violating laws on racist and antisemitic content and fined him 170 CHF (the equivalent of £134) a day, for 180 days.

Mr M’Bala M’Bala, 55, claimed that the views expressed in the sketch belonged to the on-stage character and not to him. However, this excuse was not accepted by President of the Geneva Police Court Sabina Mascotto, who said: “In view of his previous statements, his positions and the absence of any humor in his remarks, he will be found guilty of racial discrimination.”

According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “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 an example of antisemitism.

Last week, we reported that Mr M’Bala M’Bala had been sentenced to four months’ imprisonment for producing videos of an “antisemitic nature.” Mr M’Bala M’Bala was also fined €10,000 last Friday after he was found guilty of “public insult to an official,” namely Frédéric Potier, the former interministerial delegate for the fight against racism, antisemitism and anti-LGBT hatred.

Earlier this year, Mr M’Bala M’Bala was instructed by the Paris Court of Appeals to pay a fine of €9,000 (over £7,700) for mocking the Holocaust in a video.

Mr M’Bala M’Bala has attacked the “Zionist lobby”, claiming it controls the world, and he has been convicted more than twenty times on charges that include defamation, hate speech and endorsing terrorism in Belgium and France. Last year, he was given a two-year jail sentence and fined for tax fraud and money laundering.

In 2013, Mr M’Bala M’Bala was recorded during a performance suggesting that it was a pity that a Jewish journalist was not sent to the gas chambers. The then-French interior minister, Manuel Valls, declared that Mr M’Bala M’Bala was an “antisemite and a racist” and he would seek to ban all his events as public safety risks.

Last summer, as social media platforms claimed to be stepping up their fight against hate content, Mr M’Bala M’Bala was permanently banned from several major online platforms, including YouTube, Facebook, TikTok and Instagram, for his use of “dehumanising” terms in relation to Jews.

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Blowtorch used to engrave swastikas into Holocaust memorial in France

Antisemitic vandals have used a blowtorch to engrave a Holocaust memorial with swastikas in Grenoble, France.

The assailants targeted the commemorative plaques dedicated to the memory of deportees to Auschwitz concentration camp.

Police are investigating the vandalism which was discovered on Wednesday morning.

Last month, the President of France condemned antisemitism in an historic address. President Macron began his ten-minute long video address to the American Jewish Committee by reaffirming France’s “commitment to defending religious freedom and tolerance.”

After praising the contributions of French Jews, President Macron stated that “antisemitism is, as it has always been, an unacceptable, unjustifiable, menace, in the face of which we must relentlessly mobilise all our energies.”

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Far-right Bulgarian candidate condemned after praising Hitler and denying the Holocaust in TV interview

A far-right Bulgarian politician has been condemned after he reportedly praised Adolf Hitler and denied the Holocaust in a television interview.

Ultranationalist Bulgarian politician Miroslav Ivanov, a representative of the Bulgarian National Union – New Democracy (BNU-ND) Party who is running for a position in the National Assembly, made the comments in a television interview for Bulgarian broadcaster Nova Televizia ahead of Bulgaria’s upcoming elections.

The BNU-ND is a far-right party that professes to believe in “Bulgarian values,” although it has been stated that many consider them to be neo-Nazis.  

Mr Ivanov reportedly made several antisemitic and false claims, which included saying that Nazism wasn’t fascist but was national socialism, arguing that Jews lived happily under Hitler’s regime because they could work freely, and that the gas chambers which were operated by the Nazis were actually used for deworming.

Mr Ivanov also defended a photograph of himself performing a Nazi salute by claiming that it was actually a “Roman salute.”

According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “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)” and “Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust” are both examples of antisemitism.

Mr Ivanov and the BNU-ND Party have been condemned by the Bulgarian Jewish group, Shalom. The group has said that they “call on the prosecution to take a stand on this case, based on both Bulgarian legislation and European practices related to the spread of fascist and antisemitic propaganda and Holocaust denial.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

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Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko says that whole world “bows to Jews” because of the Holocaust

The President of Belarus has said that the whole world “bows to Jews” because of the Holocaust.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko made the inflammatory remark last week at a memorial service for Soviet soldiers who died during World War II.

“Jews were able to make the world remember [the Holocaust], and the whole world bows to them, being afraid of saying one wrong word to them,” the Belarusian dictator said, adding: “On our part, we, being tolerant and kind, did not want to hurt anyone’s feelings and let the things down to the point when they have started to hurt us.”

Accusing Jewish people of using the Holocaust in order to wield power is an antisemitic trope that perpetuates the conspiracy theory that Jews control the world.

President Lukashenko’s speech revolved around Belarus’ involvement in fighting the Nazis alongside Soviet forces, and stated that Belarus’ contributions in World War II needed to be recognised.

“This work has already begun with the investigation into the crimes of Nazism on the Belarusian soil. This is akin to the Holocaust of the Belarusian people,” President Lukashenko added.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

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Dieudonné sentenced to four months’ imprisonment for videos of an “antisemitic nature”

The French comedian Dieudonné has been sentenced to four months’ imprisonment for producing videos of an “antisemitic nature.”

Dieudonné, whose real name is Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala, is a French comedian and political activist who has been convicted for hate speech and advocating terrorism, among other offences, in France and Belgium.

Mr M’Bala M’Bala, 55, was handed his prison sentence last Friday after being charged with “public insult of an antisemitic nature” and “contestation of a crime against humanity” as a result of two videos that date back to May 2020.  

During his trial last May, Mr M’Bala M’Bala insisted that the man in the videos was not him and that in fact his likeness was manufactured using deepfake technology. However, the court was not convinced, stating: “The character appearing on the screen, identified by investigators as Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala, has the same name, the same appearance, the same voice and the same lexical references as the defendant.”

Mr M’Bala M’Bala was also fined €10,000 last Friday after he was found guilty of “public insult to an official,” namely Frédéric Potier, the former interministerial delegate for the fight against racism, antisemitism and anti-LGBT hatred.

Earlier this year, Mr M’Bala M’Bala was instructed by the Paris Court of Appeals to pay a fine of €9,000 (over £7,700) for mocking the Holocaust in a video.

Mr M’Bala M’Bala has attacked the “Zionist lobby”, claiming it controls the world, and he has been convicted more than twenty times on charges that include defamation, hate speech and endorsing terrorism in Belgium and France. Last year, he was given a two-year jail sentence and fined for tax fraud and money laundering.

In 2013, Mr M’Bala M’Bala was recorded during a performance suggesting that it was a pity that a Jewish journalist was not sent to the gas chambers. The then-French interior minister, Manuel Valls, declared that Mr M’Bala M’Bala was an “antisemite and a racist” and he would seek to ban all his events as public safety risks.

Last summer, as social media platforms claimed to be stepping up their fight against hate content, Mr M’Bala M’Bala was permanently banned from several major online platforms, including YouTube, Facebook, TikTok and Instagram, for his use of “dehumanising” terms in relation to Jews.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

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Polish ultranationalists given prison sentences for chants about hanging Zionists at rally

Two Polish ultranationalists have been given prison sentences in connection to chanting about hanging Zionists at a rally in 2016.

It was reported that one of the participants at the rally, which took place in the north-eastern city of Bialystok, led a chant about how “Zionists will hang from the trees instead of leaves.” It is understood that anti-Muslim chants were also heard.

The Criminal Tribunal in Warsaw imposed the sentences last Wednesday. The defendant who led the chants received a sentence of twelve months’ imprisonment, while the other defendant was handed a suspended sentence of six months.

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Antisemitic graffiti spray-painted onto side of building in German village

Antisemitic graffiti was found spray-painted onto the side of a building in Wemmetsweiler, a village in the German state of Saarland, last week.

The graffiti depicts three black Stars of David along with the word ‘Jude’, the German word for Jew.

The perpetrators are still unknown. However, local police are investigating the matter.

This incident comes only weeks after Germany banned the Hamas flag as a response to the rise in antisemitic incidents.

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Fugitive deputy leader of neo-Nazi organisation Golden Dawn arrested in Greece

The deputy leader of the neo-Nazi organisation Golden Dawn has been arrested after he was found hiding in Greece.

Golden Dawn is an extremist group that was founded in 1985 and was registered as a political party in 1993. In the 2012 elections, against a backdrop of financial chaos that led to stringent austerity measures, the Golden Dawn Party became the third largest in the Greek parliament.

Last year saw the end of one of the most high-profile trials in modern-Greek history where Greek judges ruled that the extreme right-wing neo-Nazi political party operated as a criminal gang.

As a result of the decision in October, Golden Dawn’s deputy leader, Christos Pappas, was issued a thirteen-year prison sentence. However, he went missing one day later, which prompted some to believe that he had fled the country. 

Police arrested Mr Pappas, 60, on 1st June in an apartment in the central Athens district of Zografou. A woman, 52, was also arrested and it has been reported that she will be charged with aiding and abetting a criminal. 

Government spokesperson Aristotelia Peloni said: “With Christos Pappas’s arrest, the chapter of organised crime closes definitively.”

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Police identify minors suspected of vandalising synagogue in Romania

Police have identified minors who are suspected of vandalising a synagogue in Romania.

The Orăștie synagogue in southwestern Transylvania, which was built in the late 1800s, had its windows smashed, with rocks found inside the building. The suspects are believed to be between the ages of nine and fourteen.

The act of vandalism comes only days before the 80th anniversary of the Iași pogrom, a series of violent, murderous attacks that were carried out against Romanian Jews in Iași during the Holocaust. The killings lasted from 29th June until 6th July 1941 and over 13,000 Jews were murdered.

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Antisemitism increases in Germany with 1,909 reported incidents in 2020

A new report has found that antisemitic incidents have increased in Germany, with more reported incidents occurring in 2020 than in 2019.

The report that was published by Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (Federal Association RIAS) found that the 1,909 reported incidents included 39 assaults, 167 cases of damages and desecration of property, and 1,449 cases of abusive behaviour.

Over one-quarter of the reported incidents were related to COVID-19, which included antisemitism prevalent at rallies as well as the promotion of antisemitic conspiracies, while approximately one-third of reported incidents took place online.

Benjamin Steinitz, the Executive Director of Federal Association RIAS, said “Conspiracist milieu during the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-Israel activists during escalations in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, plus the constant threat from right-wing extremism: Danger to Jews comes from many sides. Antisemitism is still multifaceted in Germany, and open expression of this hate is increasingly normalised. No matter in what form it must be resolutely ostracised and rejected.”

Another organisation said: “The massive mobilisation of antisemitism from different social and political milieus poses an increasing danger. Therein lies the dangerous dynamic of antisemitism. As the report shows, growing antisemitism from the right-wing extremist milieu was joined by antisemitic conspiracist mobilisation in the context of the pandemic.”

Last week, we reported that Germany banned the Hamas flag after a rise in antisemitic incidents. Hamas, the antisemitic genocidal terrorist group, clashed with Israel last month, which lead to widespread antisemitism in Germany with several people arrested.

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Children in Poland destroyed Jewish gravestones to “build a fortress”

Children in Poland destroyed Jewish gravestones in order to “build a fortress”, it emerged earlier this week.

The desecration of the 63 gravestones were believed to have occurred on 16th June in the Jewish Cemetery of Wroclaw. Police intervened after hearing hammering noises.

The five twelve-year-olds behind the incident told police that they wanted to use the slabs from the gravestones to build a fortress.

Recently, we reported that Krakow banned the sale of antisemitic figurines which depict Orthodox Jews holding coins. The ban follows pressure from Polish Jews who campaigned for the sale of the figurines to be prohibited. Nevertheless, defenders of the practice of selling the figurines feel that the items represent a nostalgia towards Polish Jews.

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Image credit: The Jewish Community of Wroclaw

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Austrian solider imprisoned for sharing photos of swastika tattoo online

An Austrian solider has been imprisoned for sharing photos of his swastika tattoo online.

The man had already received a suspended sentence for previously disseminating photos of Nazi memorabilia from World War II online, the displaying of which is illegal in Austria.

The online distribution of his tattoo photos then activated his sentence, and he has received nineteen months in prison.

The antisemitic tattoo appears on one of the soldier’s testicles. He stated that he was “very drunk” when he underwent the procedure.

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Trial begins in Paris for gang accused of beating and robbing Jewish family in their own home

The trial that will determine the fate of a gang of nine men who are accused of beating and robbing a Jewish Parisian family in their own home has begun.

The alleged attack occurred on 8th September 2017, when, in the middle of the night, David Pinto found that the electricity in the family home had gone out. Going downstairs to see what the problem was, he fell into a trap allegedly set by the gang, who had cut off the electricity supply apparently in order to ambush whomever entered through the cellar door to check on the energy metre.

Three men then forced their way in, bound Mr Pinto and dragged him upstairs, where they then bound and gagged Mireille and Roger Pinto, his 73-year-old mother and his 83-year-old father.

“As I struggled, the first man threw me down,” Mrs Pinto later said. “He hit me. I really thought he wanted to rape me. The second one kicked me.”

The gang is accused of beating Roger Pinto into unconsciousness. As he came to, Mr Pinto reportedly recalled one of his assailants telling him: “You are Jewish, we know that the Jews have a lot of money and you will give us what you have. If you do not give us what we ask you, we’ll kill you.”

Mr Pinto went on: “The three men had a screwdriver and a knife, which they constantly threatened us with. They threatened to kill us. That was unbearable. These thugs took our credit cards, took all the goods we had, jewellery from my wife.”

Whilst the gang allegedly proceeded to burgle the residence, the family was tied up and locked in a room. After several hours, Mrs Pinto finally managed to call emergency services.  

However, lawyers for the defendants claim that the assault was not antisemitic in nature, as the assailants did not believe the family to be rich based on their religion, with one of the members even claiming not to have known that the family was Jewish.

The lawyer for the Pinto family rejected this claim, sating: “The Pinto family was assaulted because they are a Jewish family…the attackers told them, ‘You are Jewish, so you have money.’”

The trial is expected to last for nine days and will be closely monitored by the Jewish community, especially in the wake of the disappointing decision taken in the Sarah Halimi trial.

In April, France’s Court of Cassation ruled that Sarah Halimi’s killer could not be held to stand trial due to being high on cannabis whilst committing the murder. Campaign Against Antisemitism held a rally in solidarity with French Jews in opposition to the Court of Cassation’s ruling to let Sarah Halimi’s murderer go free.

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Germany bans Hamas flag after rise in antisemitic incidents

Germany has banned the Hamas flag after a rise in antisemitic incidents.

The ban, agreed upon by all parties in Germany’s grand coalition government, is believed to have been spearheaded by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

Thorsten Frei, the Deputy Parliamentary Spokesperson for the CDU as well as its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, said: “We do not want the flags of terrorist organisations to be waved on German soil.”

Hamas, the antisemitic genocidal terrorist group, clashed with Israel last month, which lead to widespread antisemitism in Germany with several people arrested.

Recently, it was announced that German soldiers who sang antisemitic and racist songs would be “vigorously prosecuted and punished”, according to the country’s Defence Minister.

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French ex-general accused of spouting antisemitic rhetoric on live TV now under investigation

A French former general who has been accused of spouting antisemitic rhetoric on live television has come under investigation.

In an interview on CNews, General Dominique Delawarde alluded to a group of people who control the global media.

When the Jewish interviewer asked who he was referring to, General Delawarde said: “This is the community that you know well.”

Although the general did not mention the Jewish community explicitly, the host of the show, Jean-Marc Morandini, abruptly cut him off and ended the interview segment.

The Paris prosecutor’s office has begun an investigation into General Delawarde, stating: “The Paris prosecutor’s office today opened an investigation into the heads of public defamation and incitement to hatred and violence on the grounds of origin or belonging to an ethnic group, nation, race or religion.”

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German soldiers who sang antisemitic and racist songs to be “vigorously prosecuted and punished”

German soldiers who sang antisemitic and racist songs are to be “vigorously prosecuted and punished”, according to the country’s Defence Minister.

The allegations relate to a party held by German soldiers stationed in Lithuania at a hotel in April.

Three soldiers have been summoned home, with an ongoing investigation to identify other suspects.

“Whatever happened is in no way acceptable,” Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said, adding that those implicated would be “vigorously prosecuted and punished,” she added.

Last year, she ordered the partial dissolution of a commando unit after reports that some of its members harboured neo-Nazi sympathies.

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Krakow bans sale of antisemitic figurines depicting Orthodox Jews holding coins

Krakow has banned the sale of antisemitic figurines which depict Orthodox Jews holding coins.

The figurines, which have been sold for decades in Poland, are purchased because they are believed to be good omens for prosperity. However, they depict the antisemitic trope of Jewish people being obsessed with money.

The ban follows pressure from Polish Jews who campaigned for the sale of the figurines to be prohibited. Nevertheless, defenders of the practice of selling the figurines feel that the items represent a nostalgia towards Polish Jews.

Robert Piaskowski, the city’s alderman for cultural affairs, said of the figurines: “This figurine is antisemitic and it’s time for us to realise it. In a city like Krakow, with such a difficult heritage and a painful past, it should not be sold.”

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Torah ark desecrated with swastika graffiti in Frankfurt airport

A Torah ark in Frankfurt airport was desecrated with graffiti of a swastika, it was reported on Sunday.

The graffiti on the Torah ark (the cabinet which houses the Torah scrolls) was discovered last week. However, it is unclear as to how long it had been there owing to the fact that the prayer room had not been open for a long time due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“It is simply sad. This hatred of Jews must finally stop,” Germany’s Orthodox Rabbinical Conference said of the incident. “The ugly grimace of antisemitism does not stop even in a highly secured area, at a place of encounter, silence and stopping, where people from all over the world meet briefly while traveling and are in transit.”

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EU reportedly tries to suppress report that shows antisemitism rife in EU-funded Palestinian Authority textbooks

The European Union has reportedly tried to suppress a report that reveals that antisemitism is rife in EU-funded Palestinian Authority textbooks.

The 200-page report was produced by the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research for the European Commission earlier this year and was reportedly kept from the public until the German newspaper Bild obtained a copy.

The report examines 156 textbooks and sixteen teachers’ guides from 2017-2020, revealing numerous examples of anti-Jewish racism that the report’s executive summary tries to downplay by insisting that, despite the overt racism, the textbooks nevertheless meet UNESCO standards. Earlier in the information-gathering process, IMPACT-se, an Israeli education watchdog, claimed that the Georg Eckert Institute was examining Israeli textbooks by mistake.

According to the report, the textbooks present “ambivalent – sometimes hostile – attitudes towards Jews and the characteristics they attribute to the Jewish people…Frequent use of negative attributions in relation to the Jewish people… suggest a conscious perpetuation of anti-Jewish prejudice, especially when embedded in the current political context.”

A religious studies textbook, for example, refers to “repeated attempts by the Jews to kill the prophet” and implies that the Jews are “enemies of Islam”, referencing also the “alleged perniciousness of the Jews”.

There are also numerous instances of glorification of violence and terrorism against Jews and of “resistance”, including in science and mathematics textbooks, using terror attacks to demonstrate scientific proofs and using terrorists as models of female empowerment. The report says of one female terrorist that there are “no further portraits of significant female figures in Palestinian history,” implying that “the path of violence [is] the only option for women to demonstrate an outstanding commitment to their people and country.”

 The European Commission reportedly said that it “takes this study seriously and will act on its findings as appropriate, with a view to bring about the full adherence to UNESCO standards in all Palestinian education materials,” and “reiterates its unequivocal commitment to the fight against antisemitism.” It has been promising a new strategy on fighting antisemitism for some time, amidst a significant increase in anti-Jewish racism in the bloc.

Following the leak of the report, IMPACT-se said in a statement: “This report confirms the findings published by IMPACT-se over the last five years. The question is, will EU policy-makers finally take action to condition EU funding to the PA [Palestinian Authority] on positive reforms to the curriculum as the European Parliament has demanded on several occasions.”

Antisemitism in Palestinian Authority and UNRWA textbooks funded by Britain, the EU and Western nations has been an ongoing problem for many years.

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Call for heightened security after Béziers Jews receive death threats and antisemitic abuse

An anonymous letter describing Jews as “the cancer of humanity” and threatening to attack a full synagogue with “two Kalashnikovs” was sent to the small Jewish community of Béziers in southern France, it was revealed last week.

The letter, containing further antisemitic abuse and death threats to local politicians, prompted both America’s eminent Wiesenthal Centre and France’s National Bureau of Vigilance Against Antisemitism (BNVCA) to express solidarity with the community President.

After telling the community President in an anonymous letter that he “detests this s****y race” and that Jews are “parasites and the cancer of humanity,” the writer references the massacre at Paris’ Bataclan Theatre which was attacked by terrorists in November 2015, leaving 130 dead. The anonymous writer said he had ”bought two Kalashnikovs” and a lot of ammunition “just for you” and would “wait until the synagogues will be full of vermin” so that he could “do a bigger carnage than at the Bataclan.” The Bataclan was Jewish-owned and often hosted Jewish events.

He then threatened to “go see my dear friend”, Béziers Mayor Robert Ménard, “his wife and his councillos [sic] and will empty my magazines on them.” He signed off: “See you very soon my friends.”

Dr Shimon Samuels, the Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, stressed that this was “not simply an example of hateful intent to commit murder,” but was “clearly antisemitic” and “inspired by Jihadi terrorism.”

“We express solidarity with those under menace in Béziers and call for heightened security from police forces and a rapid arrest of the author of this terrorist and antisemitic death threat,” declared Dr Samuels.

His letter also noted that the inclusion of the Mayor and his wife and councillors in the list of potential victims “confirms the author’s apocalyptic intentions” as well as hinting at “a wannabe lone-wolf terrorist.” He added that representatives of the Wiesenthal Centre would be present in Paris in September when the trial proceedings begin of accomplices allegedly involved in the November 2015 terror attacks in Paris.

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Image credit: French National Bureau of Vigilance Against Antisemitism via the Simon Wiesenthal Centre

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Fratelli d’Italia member posts inflammatory graphic of Jewish Chamber of Deputies member

On Wednesday, Lorenzo Rosso, a member of Italy’s national Fratelli d’Italia Party, posted an inflammatory graphic of Emanuele Fiano, a Jewish member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies.

In his Facebook post, Mr Rosso wrote “No Fiano, sono Italiano” (“No Fiano, I am Italian”), carrying the implication that Mr Fiano was not Italian. As well as being a prominent member of the Jewish community, Mr Fiano is the son of a Holocaust survivor.

According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations” is an example of antisemitism.

In his post, Mr Rosso wrote that Mr Fiano wanted to “compel” Italians to sing “Bella Ciao,” the contentious song that some wish to see made the official anthem of Italy’s Liberation Day. Mr Fiano is among signatories to a legislative initiative to do this.

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Czech Republic sees rise in online antisemitism

The Federation of the Jewish Communities of the Czech Republic has reported a rise in antisemitism, though still believed that antisemitism was at a relatively low level compared with other European countries and remained safe for Jews.

In its annual report, the Federation said that 2020 had seen 874 antisemitic incidents compared with around 690 the previous year. Some 98 percent, however, took place online and included conspiracy theories and antisemitic groups and individuals who blamed Jews for the pandemic and claimed that vaccination served Jewish financial interests.

Anti-lockdown and anti-vaccination networks have become known as hotbeds of antisemitic conspiracy theories and tropes.

While noting that the vast majority of anti-Jewish hatred was online, it said that in 2020 there had been one physical attack, one attack on Jewish property, and six incidents involving antisemitic threats, harassment and verbal insults.

The report stated that its “analysis of violent antisemitic attacks and the profiles of their perpetrators” confirmed that “a violent act” was invariably preceded by “expressions of hatred vented on the internet, especially on social media.”

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French President Emmanuel Macron assaulted on camera by members of public who allegedly had weapons and copy of Mein Kampf at home

The French President Emmanuel Macron was assaulted on camera earlier this week by members of the public, one of whom was later found to have had a copy of Adolf Hitler’s antisemitic Mein Kampf in his home.

Whilst greeting a crowd in the French commune of Tain-l’Hermitage, President Macron shook the hands of a man who then slapped him across the face with his free hand.

Two suspects, both 28-years-old, were arrested. One is accused of slapping President Macron and the other of filming the incident.

Investigators reportedly found the copy of Mein Kampf, along with weapons, in the house of the suspected cameraman. The weapons were said to have been a sword, a dagger, and a collector’s rifle.

The man who slapped President Macron is believed to have an interest in far-right groups.

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French President Emmanuel Macron condemns antisemitism in historic address

The President of France has condemned antisemitism in an historic address earlier this week.

President Macron began his ten-minute long video address to the American Jewish Committee by reaffirming France’s “commitment to defending religious freedom and tolerance.”

After praising the contributions of French Jews, President Macron stated that “antisemitism is, as it has always been, an unacceptable, unjustifiable, menace, in the face of which we must relentlessly mobilise all our energies.”

Reiterating how important it was for France to adopt the International Definition of Antisemitism, he went on to say that the Definition alone “is not enough”, and that France needs to strengthen their actions.

He then detailed how France’s network of investigators and specialist magistrates were assembled in order to provide care for victims of hate crimes, as well as offering a higher level of efficiency when dealing with investigations. President Macron also described how France has tackled online hate through its online watchdog.

Regarding the need for Holocaust education in schools, President Macron said that education was “at the heart of the fight against antisemitism.”

On the topic of the Sarah Halimi murder, President Macron defended the Court of Cassation’s ruling as it fell under France’s current legislation. However, he has said that he has called on the Minister of Justice for a reform in the law in cases where the perpetrator has deliberately ingested intoxicants.

It was announced earlier this week that a French Parliamentary commission of inquiry will be established in order to investigate the murder of Sarah Halimi.

In 2017, Ms Halimi, a 65-year-old Jewish woman, was murdered by her 27-year-old Muslim neighbour, Kobili Traoré, after he tortured her before pushing her out of a window to her death. Mr Traoré was said to have yelled “Allah Akbar,” “I killed the shaitan,” which is an Arabic word for ‘devil’ or ‘demon’, along with antisemitic vitriol. Campaign Against Antisemitism held a rally in solidarity with French Jews in opposition to the Court of Cassation’s ruling to let Sarah Halimi’s murderer go free. The rally took place outside the French Embassy in Knightsbridge, with protesters holding placards bearing the words “J’accuse! Solidarity with French Jews” and “Je Suis Sarah Halimi”. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, attendance was by registration only, with all places taken within 24 hours of our announcing the rally, with a significant waiting-list. A further 10,000 supporters demanding justice for Sarah Halimi watched the event across Campaign Against Antisemitism’s social media channels. The rally in London was part of a global movement of rallies in Paris, Marseille and other French cities, Tel Aviv, New York City, Miami and Los Angeles.

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Far-left French Presidential candidate says antisemitic murder of four Jews was “planned in advance” to encourage anti-Muslim sentiment

A far-left French Presidential candidate has said that the murder of four Jews was “planned in advance” in order to encourage anti-Muslim sentiment.  

In 2012, Mohammed Merah, a Jihadist and former combatant in Syria, murdered three children and a rabbi at a Jewish school in Toulouse.

Speaking last Sunday in Toulouse during a radio interview, Jean-Luc Melenchon said: “You’ll see that on the last week of the presidential campaign, we’ll have a serious incident or a murder. In 2012 it was Merah, last week it was Champs-Elysee.”

Mr Melenchon was referring to an incident in April where a policeman was gunned down in Paris. A 37-year-old Muslim man is currently on trial.

“All of this has been planned in advance…we get all kinds of people pulled out of nowhere at a very serious event which, once more, allows to point fingers at Muslims and to invent a civil war. It’s boring,” he said.

Mr Melenchon has announced as a Presidential candidate for 2022, and has run in the past as well.

In late 2019, Mr Melenchon, leader of the Unsubmissive France movement, claimed that one of the reasons that Jeremy Corbyn lost the General Election in Britain was “baseless accusations of antisemitism” and “the various influence networks of the Likud”, Israel’s ruling party.

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Police arrest Italian neo-Nazis who allegedly called for attacks on Jews and plotted to bomb NATO site

Police in Italy have arrested twelve neo-Nazis who allegedly called for attacks on Jews and plotted to bomb a NATO site.

A Carabinieri Police statement said that those involved ranged from ages 26 to 62 and went under the name “Ordine Ario Romano” on Facebook and the Russian social network VK.

The group were said to have posted content “inspired by Nazi, antisemitic and Holocaust-denial ideologies, as well as by anti-Jewish conspiracy theories.” This extended to calling for attacks against Jews and foreigners.

Along with far-right inviduals from Portugal, they were also planning an attack on a NATO site by using homemade explosives.

They have been charged with “criminal association aimed at spreading propaganda” and “incitement with ethnic and racial discrimination motives.” They are also required to regularly check in with the police whilst the investigation is under way.

One of the individuals who is being investigated by the police is Francesca Rizzi, a 39-year-old woman previously investigated for “far-right extremism”.

Ms Rizzi has a Nazi eagle and swastika tattooed on her back and won a “Miss Hitler” contest which was organised by the VK network.

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French parliamentary commission to investigate antisemitic murder of Sarah Halimi

It has been announced that a French Parliamentary commission of inquiry will be established in order to investigate the murder of Sarah Halimi.

In 2017, Ms Halimi, a 65-year-old Jewish woman, was murdered by her 27-year-old Muslim neighbour, Kobili Traoré, after he tortured her before pushing her out of a window to her death.

Mr Traoré was said to have yelled “Allah Akbar,” “I killed the shaitan,” which is an Arabic word for ‘devil’ or ‘demon’, along with antisemitic vitriol.

The welcome news was announced on 2nd June by the Union of Democrats and Independents (UDI), a centrist, liberal political party in France. French law states that each political party is allowed one chance per year to form a commission of inquiry, and the UDI has used their opportunity to investigate the murder of Sarah Halimi.

French-Israeli UDI member Meyer Habib was elected to form the commission. Mr Habib, a French Parliamentarian, said: “I’m thrilled to announce that in a few weeks, a Parliamentary commission of inquiry will be formed to look into the deficiencies surrounding the case of Sarah Halimi. The UDI party chose the proposal I submitted, in order to shed light on the affair. I will do…everything in my power to expose the truth.”

In April, France’s Court of Cassation ruled that Sarah Halimi’s killer could not be held to stand trial due to being high on cannabis whilst committing the murder. Last month, the Mayor of Paris has announced that a street in the French capital will be named for Ms Halimi, while the Jewish community has also called for action to be taken against a Facebook group created to support her murderer.

Campaign Against Antisemitism held a rally in solidarity with French Jews in opposition to the Court of Cassation’s ruling to let Sarah Halimi’s murderer go free.

The rally took place outside the French Embassy in Knightsbridge, with protesters holding placards bearing the words “J’accuse! Solidarity with French Jews” and “Je Suis Sarah Halimi”. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, attendance was by registration only, with all places taken within 24 hours of our announcing the rally, with a significant waiting-list. A further 10,000 supporters demanding justice for Sarah Halimi watched the event across Campaign Against Antisemitism’s social media channels.

The rally in London was part of a global movement of rallies in Paris, Marseille and other French cities, Tel Aviv, New York City, Miami and Los Angeles.

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German police begin hunt for masked suspect in synagogue arson incident

German police have begun a hunt for a masked suspect who is believed to have been involved in an arson outside a synagogue in Ulm.

The masked suspect, a male, was allegedly seen pouring a flammable liquid outside of the synagogue and setting it alight.

The synagogue’s interior was not damaged. However, the building’s exterior was covered in soot and a pane of glass was damaged.

Baden-Württemberg’s State Premier Winfried Kretschmann said: “It shows the insidious face of antisemitism, which we oppose clearly and unambiguously.”

Baden-Württemberg’s Office of Criminal Investigation (LKA) sent cybercrime and forensic experts to Ulm to investigate, security in the city has been increased and consultations with the city’s residents are believed to be ongoing.

Ulm’s synagogue was orginally destroyed in 1938 during the Kristallnacht pogroms and was only reopened in 2012.

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Synagogue shot at and Holocaust mass grave raided in Ukraine

In Ukraine, a synagogue has been found with bullet holes and a mass grave for Holocaust victims has been robbed and desecrated in two separate incidents.

The synagogue in Kremenchuk was reportedly shot at last month, but was only reported on 30th May in order to avoid panic amongst the Jewish community.

Eduard Dolinsky, the Director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, uploaded photographs, where a window can be seen with a bullet hole, to Facebook.

There were no injuries in the incident.

Mr Dolinsky also uploaded photographs of the desecrated grave in the village of Pikov, where Bones can be seen protruding from the earth.

He wrote: “Nazis and local collaborators shot more than a thousand Jews, including women and children in May 1942 there. Now some people who have lost their humanity are looking for gold in their grave.”

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Antisemitic flyer appears in Livorno after city council adopts International Definition of Antisemitism

An antisemitic flyer was found on a street named in honour of Jewish victims of Nazism, in the Italian city of Livorno.

Shortly before the flyer appeared, the city council had adopted the International Definition of Antisemitism.

Above a hand clutching a cross, invoking the oldest and most persistent antisemitic trope, the flyer reads: “Via dei Palestinesi Vittime dei Sionismo Guidaico,” or “Street of Palestinian Victims of Jewish Zionism.”

The adoption by the north Italian city of the Definition was in response to a call by the President of the Italy-Israel Association after a Palestinian Authority flag appeared at the tomb of Mussolini’s wartime Foreign Minister and son-in-law, Galeazzo Ciano, as well as a separate incident in which port authorities and workers tried to prevent a ship setting sail for the Israeli port of Ashdod.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

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Antisemitic chants extolling massacre of Jews heard at Vienna protests

Antisemitic chants extolling a historic massacre of Jews have been heard in protests in Vienna.

2,500 protestors against Israel in the Austrian capital heard a man chanting through a loudspeaker in Arabic: “Jews, remember Khaybar, the army of Muhammad is returning.” Demonstrators reportedly repeated the chant.

The “Khaybar” chant is a classic Arabic battle cry referencing the massacre and expulsion of the Jews of the town of Khaybar in northwestern Arabia, now Saudi Arabia, in the year 628 CE.

Similar chanting has also been heard in rallies in London.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

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Police detain over a dozen men in Germany after synagogues targeted in widespread antisemitic protests

German police have detained at least sixteen men so far after three recorded antisemitic incidents took place in three separate cities, all in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

In the cities of Bonn and Münster, synagogues were targeted late on Tuesday by protestors who set Israeli flags on fire outside.

Delivering a solemn warning of the rising antisemitism, Josef Schuster, President of Germany’s Central Council of Jews, stated: “Israel and Jews as a whole are subjected to hatred and incitement, particularly on social media. The threat to the Jewish community is growing.”

Lamenting the vandalism of the cities’ synagogues, Mr Schuster said that “the protection of Jewish institutions must be raised.” He added: “We expect from the people in Germany solidarity with Israel and the Jewish community.”

Thirteen men were arrested in Münster after a group of men were seen shouting and burning an Israeli flag outside the synagogue. For similar actions, three men in their twenties were arrested in Bonn.

Vandals in Düsseldorf, the capital of North Rhine-Westphalia, set alight a garbage bag over a stone which commemorated the city’s Grand Synagogue which was destroyed during Kristallnacht, a night of looting and attacks in Nazi Germany.

In Gelsenkirchen, footage emerged of an angry mob waving Turkish and Palestinian Authority flags while chanting “Scheiße Juden”, which translates to “sh***y Jews.”

Armin Laschet, the state’s Minister-President, stated that there would be enhanced security in the region. He declared: “We will tolerate no antisemitism.”

Meanwhile, a synagogue was vandalised in Spain with antisemitic graffiti.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

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Politicians ban “disgusting antisemitic” Al Quds event in Berlin

Politicians in Berlin have banned the annual “Al Quds Day” rally that was scheduled to take place in the German capital this year on 8th May.

The Iranian-sponsored Al Quds Day calls for the destruction of Israel. In 2020, events to mark it were cancelled due to the pandemic, but in 2019 more than 2,000 demonstrators chanted anti-Jewish slogans with one organiser telling a member of a counter-demonstration that “Hitler needs to come back and kill the rest of the Jews.”

Holger Krestel, the Spokesperson on the Protection of the Constitution for the FDP Party in the Berlin Senate, urged senators to “use all legal means to prevent this shameful event.”

This is the first time that Berlin has banned the event since coming to the city in 1996.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has been at the forefront of the campaign against the annual Al Quds Day rally in London.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

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Antisemitic flyer found in German tram blames Jews for COVID-19 pandemic

Antisemitic flyers were discovered on a tram in Cologne, Germany on 10th February, which blamed the Jewish population for the ongoing pandemic.

The flyers read: “Do we really have a Corona problem? Or do we have a Jewish problem?”

The text was presented with a Star of David in the background next to the names of Chancellor Angela Merkel, Health Minister Jens Spahn and Minister of Foreign Affairs Heiko Maas. The flyer claimed that the three prominent politicians are Jewish, despite none of them having Jewish heritage.

The flyer further states: “The more Jews in politics and media, the worse things are!”

Several German protests against coronavirus restrictions and preventative measures have reportedly featured antisemitic slogans and epithets, and protestors have allegedly drawn comparisons between the restrictions and the persecution of Jews in the Holocaust.

The citizen-led democratic initiative, Omas Gegen Rechts, found the flyers and confirmed in a social media post that it had filed a police complaint concerning the incident.

Anti-lockdown and anti-vaccination networks have become known as hotbeds of antisemitic conspiracy theories and tropes.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

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European Liberal Youth adopts International Definition of Antisemitism

European Liberal Youth (LYMEC) has adopted the International Definition of Antisemitism.

The European Union of Jewish Students (EUJS) announced that LYMEC, the youth organisation of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party, made the decision this past weekend at the online LYMEC Spring Congress.

In their press release, EUJS said: “EUJS is delighted that such a step forward was decided upon and would like to take this opportunity to congratulate LYMEC on its adoption of both the motion and the [D]efinition. Going forward, EUJS would like to note that the adoption of the [D]efinition represents simply a first step in the process and so we plan to be in regular contact with our contacts at LYMEC to ensure that the adoption is carried out and acted upon.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

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“Je Suis Sarah Halimi”: CAA holds rally in solidarity with French Jews over Sarah Halimi verdict outside the French Embassy

Campaign Against Antisemitism held a rally in solidarity with French Jews yesterday in opposition to the Court of Cassation’s ruling to let Sarah Halimi’s murderer go free.

In 2017, Ms Halimi, a 65-year-old Jewish woman, was murdered by her 27-year-old Muslim neighbour, Kobili Traoré, after he tortured and hurled her from a window to her death. In December 2019, France’s lower court ruled that Mr Traoré could not be held to stand trial as he was under the influence of cannabis at the time, which was said to have affected his judgment. The lower court’s ruling was upheld by France’s Court of Cassation late last week, sparking outrage across Jewish communities.

The rally took place outside the French Embassy in Knightsbridge, with protesters holding placards bearing the words “J’accuse! Solidarity with French Jews” and “Je Suis Sarah Halimi”. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, attendance was by registration only, with all places taken within 24 hours of our announcing the rally, with a significant waiting-list. A further 10,000 supporters demanding justice for Sarah Halimi watched the event across Campaign Against Antisemitism’s social media channels.

The rally in London was part of a global movement of rallies in Paris, Marseille and other French cities, Tel Aviv, New York City, Miami and Los Angeles.

Beginning with a moment of silence for Sarah Halimi, a variety of speakers were then introduced, including Chief Executive of Campaign Against Antisemitism, Gideon Falter, actress Dame Maureen Lipman, and Founder of the Hexagon Society, Sophie Weisenfeld. Other speakers included political commentator and YouTuber Raphael Landau, and activist and Trustee for Muslims Against Antisemitism (MAAS), activist Liz Arif-Fear.

The rally criticised not only the Court’s ruling in the murder case but also the treatment of French Jews in general. Addressing this issue in her speech, Dame Maureen accused France of “putting your knee on the neck of the Jewish race. Under such blind and bigoted injustice, we too cannot breathe. Nous ne pouvons pas respirer.” Dame Maureen and Mr Falter also both observed how there has been worldwide solidarity against some forms of racism over the past year but global silence over antisemitic injustice.

Ms Arif-Fear spoke passionately, stating: “Sarah Halimi’s family deserve justice…the murderer must face justice…I, and my colleagues at MAAS, will always stand with our Jewish brothers and sisters. We believe that we’re stronger together, and we want Jews across Britain, France, wider Europe, and the world to know that you do have allies.”

Mr Falter, detailing his own first-hand experiences of antisemitism in France, revealed harrowing accounts of heightened security in Jewish neighbourhoods and synagogues being firebombed, before adding: “It’s shameful that today in the European Union, in Europe, in the world, we have a leading country, like France, where Jews are in fear.” Mr Landau echoed this sentiment in his remarks.

The speeches can be watched in full on our YouTube channel.

Lawyers for Dr Halimi’s sister have announced that they will be bringing a lawsuit under Israeli law to convict Mr Traoré, and are considering an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. Dr Halimi’s sister, Esther Lekover, is an Israeli citizen and the lawyers stated that they intend to make use of an Israeli law that allows them to take action over the murder even though it was committed outside of Israel.

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Mixed messages on whether French prisoner subjected to antisemitic harassment in Turkish prison may be repatriated

Turkish officials have agreed in principle to repatriate a French prisoner allegedly suffering antisemitic abuse in prison.

Campaigners in France say that Fabien Azoulay, 43, who is four years into a sixteen-year jail sentence for drug offences, has reportedly been subjected to abuse, harassment and mistreatment in prison in the city of Giresun because he is Jewish and “because of his sexual orientation.” The charges relate to the drug GBL, which prosecutors claim he intended to distribute. An appeals court rejected his claim that the substance was for personal use. Developed for medical use, GBL is implicated as a date-rape drug but is also popular in the gay club scene.

While Turkey’s Ambassador to France said that Turkey had “no objection in principle” to a prison transfer, the Turkish Embassy in Paris issued a statement saying that Mr Azoulay was not Jewish. “Claims that this individual is Jewish are unfounded, as his lawyers can also confirm,” noted the statement.

Carole-Olivia Montenot, a lawyer for Mr Azoulay, said that he was “being intimidated” and that his fellow prisoners “summon him to convert to Islam” and to pray five times a day. She said he was also harassed “because of his sexual orientation.”

A petition in France calling on the French government to accelerate the repatriation process received more than 80,000 signatures within three days.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Image credit: Change.org

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Lawyers for sister of Sarah Halimi announce lawsuit under Israeli law to convict antisemitic murderer after French court rules he cannot be held responsible

Lawyers for the sister of murdered retired doctor and schoolteacher Sarah Halimi have announced that they will be bringing a lawsuit under Israeli law to convict her antisemitic murderer, Kobili Traoré, after France’s highest court ruled he cannot be held responsible for his actions because he was high on cannabis.

Dr Halimi’s sister, Esther Lekover, is an Israeli citizen and the lawyers stated that they intend to make use of an Israeli law that allows them to take action over the murder even though it was committed outside of Israel.

French lawyers Gilles-William Goldnadel and Francis Szpiner said in a statement in French that they: “deplore being forced to make use of this procedure, but cannot accept a denial of justice which tramples reason and justice, reaching far beyond the Jewish community of France.”

In 2017, Dr Halimi, a 65-year-old retired schoolteacher found Mr Traoré in her Paris apartment. He had reportedly subjected her to years of abuse. Mr Traoré savagely beat Dr Halimi, shouting “Allahu akhbar” and then hurled her from her window to her death, shouting “I killed the Shaitan [demon]”.

For months, French authorities refused to admit the antisemitic nature of his crime. Dr Halimi’s murderer, a violent drug dealer, claimed that he had felt “possessed” because he was high on cannabis and should not be held responsible.

France’s highest court has now ruled in his favour, meaning that in France today, it is possible to be sentenced to a year in prison for throwing a dog from a window, but if you hurl a Jew to their death whilst on drugs, you walk free.

In addition to the lawsuit being filed in Israel, Dr Halimi’s family is considering an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

French President Emmanuel Macron has called for a change in the law.

For years, France has gradually betrayed its Jews by allowing antisemitism to run rampant, putting French Jews in fear. This Sunday 25th April, to coincide with demonstrations in France, we will rally outside the Embassy of France in London to stand in solidarity with French Jews. By agreement with the authorities, due to COVID-19 restrictions, only those who have registered to attend will be permitted entry to the enclosure. Capacity is limited, so please only register if you are certain you can attend.

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In disgraceful decision, French Court of Cassation deems Sarah Halimi’s killer not fit to stand trial because he was high at the time of antisemitic murder

France’s Court of Cassation has ruled that Sarah Halimi’s killer could not be held to stand trial due to being high on cannabis whilst committing the murder.

In 2017, Ms Halimi, a 65-year-old Jewish woman, was murdered by her 27-year-old Muslim neighbour, Kobili Traoré, after he tortured her before pushing her out of a window to her death.

Mr Traoré was said to have yelled “Allah Akbar,” “I killed the shaitan,” which is an Arabic word for ‘devil’ or ‘demon’, along with antisemitic vitriol.

In December 2019, France’s lower court ruled that Mr Traoré could not be held to stand trial as he was under the influence of cannabis at the time, which was said to have affected his judgment.

This decision provoked thousands of French Jews and their supporters to rally in Paris last year in order to protest the decision by the French Court of Appeal that Mr Traoré was “not criminally responsible” for his actions. Ms Halimi was routinely insulted in their building, Mr Traoré conceded that seeing a Jewish menorah and prayer book in the 65-year-old lady’s flat intensified his mental state and even the court acknowledged that the attack was antisemitic.

The lower court’s ruling was upheld by France’s Court of Cassation late last week. This most recent ruling from the Court of Cassation has sparked outrage across Jewish communities, with many, including France’s President, Emmanuel Macron, calling for reforms in French law.

In an interview with Le Figaro magazine, President Macron said: “Deciding to take drugs and then ‘becoming mad’ should not in my eyes remove your criminal responsibility. On this topic, I would like the Minister of Justice to submit a change to the law as soon as possible.

“It is not for me to comment on a court decision, but I would like to tell the family, relatives of the victim and all fellow citizens of the Jewish faith who were awaiting this trial of my warm support and the determination of the Republic to protect them.”

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “After the Holocaust, in which France did so little to protect its Jewish citizens, the nation swore to defend the Jews who remained against their tormentors. This latest decision, with France’s highest court determining that torturing and throwing an elderly Jewish woman out of a window cannot be ascribed to antisemitic motivations if the attacker is high, is a betrayal of that pledge.

“The fact that this cruel antisemitic murder has been punished less than a similar crime committed against a dog would be, tells you how the French authorities view Jews and how unserious they are about protecting them.

“In view of this attitude, it is little wonder that so many Jews have fled France in recent years and that fewer than half of British Jews believe that the Jewish community has a long-term future in Europe.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

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Antisemites bombard social media claiming football’s proposed European Super League is product of Jewish greed

Twitter users have responded to news of a possible launch of a new European Super League (ESL) by blaming Jews for “ruining football.”

The announcement of the ESL has proved controversial and unpopular with swathes of football fans due to the potential harm it is believed may be caused to domestic football leagues. Many fans apparently feel that the concept of the ESL is not in keeping with the game’s integrity.

However, for some Twitter users, what began as reasonable criticism regarding the direction of modern football quickly escalated into vitriolic, antisemitic accusations levelled against some of the league’s creators. who are the owners of the football clubs involved. Some of the owners or chairmen are Jewish. Among the tropes were claims of Jewish greed, a classic antisemitic notion.

One user wrote: “Notably, most of the owners of these ‘big’ football clubs pushing for a Super League are Jews, including Roman Abramovic and the Glazers…..Jews are ruining football, they dont give a f**** about the Gentile fans..”

Another tweeted: “All this talk of the European Super League. It’s jew rats behind it. All money grabbing c***s. It’s no wonder that people hate them as much as the muslims.” This abhorent post was accompanied by a popular antisemitic meme.

Yet another wrote: “Them 3 fat AMERICAN C***S YOU F***ING BASTARDS. And as for that Jew levy your family should have been gassed. Inters owners also ruined the cal champions. Perez is in the f***ing mafia”. Daniel Levy is the Chairman of Tottenham Hotspur, one of the founding clubs of the ESL. He was recently targeted by antisemitic abuse online.“

Another still said: “Hey Zionists it’s not all about money you suckers“.

These were only a selection of the antisemitic abuse online, appealing to classic tropes of Jewish greed, parasitism and control, as well as references to the Holocaust. Campaign Against Antisemitism has long called for tougher regulations on social media sites and that social networks proactively search for and remove hate speech from their platforms. The Premier League and nineteen of its constituent clubs have adopted the International Definition of Antisemitism.

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “The beautiful game has some very hideous fans, and they are out in force on social media objecting in the most grotesque fashion to the possible launch of a new European Super League. No controversy, however great the passions it may stir, can justify the horrendous antisemitic abuse meted out by some Twitter users towards football clubs and their owners. The Premier League, the clubs and social media networks have a responsibility to remove this material immediately and punish the offenders with bans from attending matches. This minority of perpetrators bring shame to the majority of fans who want to see racism expelled from football.“

Campaign Against Antisemitism continues its robust engagement with social media companies over the content that they enable to be published, and we continue to make representations to the Government in this connection.

View post on imgur.com

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Antisemitic mock hangings in Sweden and Denmark reminiscent of blood libel

Two macabre antisemitic mock hangings in which dolls were strung up and daubed with red paint representing blood took place in Sweden and Denmark over Passover.

The first incident, at a synagogue in Norrköping, is being investigated by Swedish police who have classified the message found at the scene as incitement.

An apparent copy of the Swedish incident took place outside a Jewish cemetery in Aalborg, Denmark, which also featured dolls, red paint and antisemitic messages. At both scenes, the messages described Passover as “a Jewish celebration of death” in an allusion to the tenth plague. Police in Denmark are investigating the incident.

There were calls for the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM) to be treated as a prime suspect after the NRM published a picture of the Norrköping “hanging” on its website, allegedly the evening before its discovery. The NRM is banned in Finland.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Image credit: NRM

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Jews in Paris prevent antisemitic knife attack

Jewish residents in Paris chased and apprehended a man whom they suspected of trying to stab three Jews. The man was then handed over to the police.

The incident took place on the evening of 31st March near a synagogue in Sarcelles, a suburb in northern Paris with a large Sephardic Jewish community.

Witnesses say that the man, a 35-year-old from Pakistan, approached three Jewish men, all wearing kippot and therefore visibly Jewish, from behind while carrying a large knife. 

Residents caused a commotion in order to alert the Jewish men who all escaped unharmed. The man was then chased and apprehended.

This is only the most recent antisemitic incident which has taken place in France.

On 29th December, a Jewish cemetery near Strasbourg was desecrated with swastikas and antisemitic slogans.

On 17th December, four men were arrested after they attacked a Jewish family for listening to Hebrew songs in their car. The attack took place in Aubervilliers, less than a 45-minute drive away from the Sarcelles incident.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

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Lodz local councillor was “only joking” with antisemitic quip in support of farmers

A Polish politician has been criticised for repeating an antisemitic joke during a Lodz District council meeting on agriculture. The “joke” goes: “Why don’t Jews buy land? Because you can’t cheat the earth.”

Waldemar Wojciechowski, a member of the right-wing ruling Law and Justice Party on the council, claimed that he used the “joke” to make a point about the need for fairness for farmers.

But Marcin Bugajski, head of the opposition party on the Lodz District council, said that he believed that it “was an antisemitic statement” and that it was “a scandal” to perpetuate such stereotypes, adding that the words had been “utterly irrelevant to the discussion.”

Separately, police are investigating the desecration of a monument to Holocaust victims in the town of Częstochowa, near Krakow. The monument was desecrated with a swastika and neo-Nazi symbols.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

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Bestselling author gets called out for antisemitic tropes in her books

A New York Times bestselling author has been called out for including antisemitic themes in her books, as well as the harassment of other authors.

Emily Duncan, author of several young adult books, has been accused of writing a plot that contains a multitude of antisemitic tropes, including the perpetuation of the “blood libel,” as well as the use of stereotypical, antisemitic physical and behavioural descriptions. These characteristics included “dark-eyed, dark-haired, vermin-like creatures who are part of a secret cabal that control the government of fantasy Poland,” according to one Twitter user.

Ms Duncan issued an apology on Twitter, stating: “In terms of criticisms that an element of my book included an antisemitic plot, I did recognise the significance while researching and tried to handle this in a sensitive way, but I fell short. I am sorry for the harm this has caused.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

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Jewish cemetery in Aalborg, Denmark vandalised during Pesach

A Jewish cemetery in Aalborg, Denmark was vandalised during the Jewish festival of Passover.

Red paint, baby dolls and antisemitic literature relating to the blood libel conspiracy theory were left outside the cemetery.

Flyers were also deposited directing readers to a website that associated with the Nordic Resistance Movement, a Pan-Nordic neo-Nazi organisation that is proscribed in Finland.

Henri Goldstein, Chairman of Denmark’s Jewish community, said: “Historically, a lot of antisemitism with a physical outcome has started with, among other things, vandalism against cemeteries and Jewish shops.” He added: “The vandalism at the cemetery around Passover is simply as classic antisemitism as it can be. We have seen this for centuries in Europe.”

Security in Denmark has been elevated and the incident is being investigated as a hate crime. 

Danish politicians have condemned the attack. Justice Minister Nick Hækkerup declared that it was “outrageous and deeply shameful”.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

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Norwegian state-run broadcaster includes antisemitic blood libel in quiz

NRK, the Norwegian state-run broadcaster, included the antisemitic blood libel theory as an answer to a quiz.

The quiz related to Easter and Passover. Its eighth question, which referred to matzah, was titled “a very special bread”, and asked: “What was special about the bread Jesus and the disciples ate during the Passover meal?” 

The third option to the question stated “det var blod i det”, which translates as “there was blood in it.”

The original antisemitic blood libel dates from the Middle Ages, and is the accusation that Jews murder Christian children in order to use their blood in Passover rituals.

Twitter users condemned the quiz, with one sardonically remarking that NRK “decided to test how many people believe in antisemitic conspiracy theories in their Easter quiz.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Image credit: Algemeiner

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Campaign Against Antisemitism is a volunteer-led charity dedicated to exposing and countering antisemitism through education and zero-tolerance enforcement of the law. Everything that we do is done by people who volunteer their time, using donations contributed by members of the public. Join the fight against antisemitism by subscribing to our updates, volunteering, or donating.