Israeli soccer fans attacked in Amsterdam, Israeli and Dutch authorities say

Israeli soccer fans were attacked in a “serious incident of violence in Amsterdam” overnight into Friday, authorities said, with the Israeli government saying it was sending planes to evacuate affected citizens.
Hundreds of fans of Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer team “were ambushed and attacked in Amsterdam” on Thursday night as they left the stadium following a Europa League game against Dutch side Ajax, the Israeli embassy to the United States said on social media platform X.
Social media video shared by the embassy showed what it said was violence against Maccabi fans. CNN has not yet been able to verify those videos.
Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said on X he was in touch with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and was “horrified by the antisemitic attacks on Israeli citizens.”
“This is completely unacceptable. I am in close contact with all parties involved and have just spoken to (Israeli Prime Minister) Netanyahu by phone to stress that the perpetrators will be identified and prosecuted,” he said, adding “the situation in Amsterdam is now calm once more.”
Netanyahu emphasized in a call with Schoof “the supreme importance” of the Dutch government ensuring the safety of all Israelis in the Netherlands, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said...
Whole article the CNN site Nov 8, 2024.

Simon Wiesenthal Center Applauds Adidas for Cutting Ties with Ye
Center Urges More Must be Done to Stop Entertainer’s Antisemitism

Following today’s decision by Adidas to cut ties with the Kanye West, Rabbis Hier andkanyewest Cooper, Founder and CEO and Associate Dean & Global Social Action Director said, “Ye continues to spread his Jew-hatred to tens of millions on social media, becoming the darling of white supremacists and Neo-Nazis. He deserves to be shunned for his bigotry. Americans of all backgrounds are right to demand a level playing field and equal standards for all. There is no room for bigots, anti-Semites, or racists in the mainstream of our society. Ye has decided to leverage his anti-Semitism to tens of millions of people, and the world is responding accordingly.” The Simon Wiesenthal Center urges any remaining companies that engage in business with Ye to cut ties immediately.
The Center continues working with law enforcement to take action against anti-Semites targeting Jews nationwide. Incidents in Los Angeles over the weekend included the distribution of anti-Semitic flyers and a banner on the 405 freeway.

Source: SWC E-Newsletter dated Oct 25, 2022

The Fate of Putin’s Jewish Oligarchs
Their extreme wealth and generous giving to Jewish causes speak to a precarious balancing act that the war in Ukraine may have permanently undone

From the moment Russian troops began marching across the Ukrainian border, the United States and its allies sought a response that could match the severity of Vladimir Putin’s invasion without actually entering the conflict. To mirror the swiftness and shock of Putin’s invasion, Washington and Western European governments froze Russia’s access to 87% of its $630 billion in foreign reserves that aren’t held in Chinese yuan, and took over the assets of Russians accused of aiding Moscow’s war machine. The new measures appeared with disorienting speed. “Having been at the Treasury, [I know] it could take years to get to this level of economic sanctions,” former U.S. government sanctions official Ari Redbord recently told The Scroll, Tablet’s daily newsletter. “We are here in a week at what I described as ‘the nuclear option.’”
In the opening days of the war, Russian banks were booted off the SWIFT payment clearance system, while U.S. and EU-based energy companies fled their multi-billion-dollar projects in the country. European governments have been seizing yachts and real estate belonging to wealthy Russians. Less than a week into the war, Roman Abramovich, the billionaire Putin confidante and former Russian regional governor, announced that he would sell his thriving Chelsea soccer club, one of the most valuable sports franchises on Earth. A few days later, the U.K. froze his assets, immediately severing him from the world-famous $3 billion property...
Whole article the Simon Wiesenthal Center Published on Oct 25, 2022.

Dutch king unveils Holocaust name monument in Amsterdam

AMSTERDAM (AP) — King Willem-Alexander officially unveiled a new memorial in the heart of Amsterdam's historic Jewish Quarter on Sunday honoring more than 102,000 Dutch victims of the Holocaust, and the Dutch prime minister vowed that it would remind citizens today to be vigilant against antisemitism.
Designed by Polish-Jewish architect Daniel Libeskind, the memorial is made up of walls shaped to form four Hebrew letters spelling out a word that translates as “In Memory Of.”
The walls are built using bricks, each of which is inscribed with the name, date of birth and age when they died of one of the more than 102,000 Jews, Roma and Sinti who were murdered in Nazi concentration camps during World War II or who died on their way to the camps.
acques Grishaver, chairman of the Dutch Auschwitz Committee, officially opened the monument with the king in the presence of dignitaries and Holocaust survivors. After walking through the gates, each picked up a white stone and placed it in front of a commemorative wall, a Jewish tradition when visiting graves.
The king helped Grishaver to pick up and put down his stone. After the ceremony, he spoke to three survivors of the Holocaust...
Whole article at the Yahoo site. Published on September 19, 2021.

Communique of CHRE on the neo-Nazi elements of the program at the Celebratory gala for the Victory Day in Belgrade

We regret that on the 9th of May 2021, at the celebratory gala on the occasion of the Day of the victory over fascism, at the National Theatre of Serbia in Belgrade, in the presence of the Government of Serbia, the RS, and other attendees, several passages of the poetry of quisling war criminal Dimitrije Ljotić were read as part of the official commemorative program. We find the reading of Ljotić's poetry alongside "Bloody fairytale" of Desanka Maksimović particularly offensive, as her poem describes the mass crime in Kragujevac, in which the forces of Ljotić's "Zbor", along with the Wehrmacht, were the perpetrators. We remind the public that the Ljotić's units have participated in the Holocaust and the persecution of Roma, ending the war in Austria, fighting with the Ustashe units of the ISC.
CHRE expects that the state of Serbia investigate and prosecute the responsible and publicly explain how this has occurred, and how it will make sure such an incident does not happen again.
Recording of the event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-Zvc1xzV00

More at CHRE FaceBook page (May 10, 2021)

Europe's labeling of Israeli products recalls Third Reich's boycott of Jews

The European Court of Justice has ruled that Jewish products from Israeli-controlled territories must be singled out for punitive labeling if they are to be sold in European Union countries. This attack on Israel’s economy is a blow to America’s most important ally in the Middle East.
What largely has been absent from the debate about the EU decision — which penalizes Israel alone among over 100 countries involved in territorial conflicts across the world — is the apparent Nazi and neo-Nazi origins of the measure.
The EU’s top court seeks to punish the Jewish state because of its presence in the disputed territories of the West Bank, Golan Heights and East Jerusalem. Instead of encouraging direct negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel over these contested territories as part of an eventual peace deal, the EU appears to have chosen to wage economic warfare against Israel...
Whole text at the The Hill site. Published on November 26, 2019.

Jordan halts film that refers to historical Jewish presence

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — A fictional caper about an antiquities heist set in an ancient Jordanian city has stirred widespread outrage over the film's portrayal of historical Jewish ties to Jordan, shining a light on the tenuous peace with neighboring Israel and prompting the government to suspend the movie's production.
Based on a book of the same name, the movie, "Jaber," follows a Jordanian boy who uncovers a stone in the rose-colored, rock-hewn city of Petra with a Hebrew inscription on it. He sets off to sell it to the highest bidder, but interested parties in Israel catch wind of the find, dispatching a Russian organized crime group to pursue the boy and retrieve the stone at any cost.
Opponents of the film say merely discussing a historical Jewish presence in Jordan could open the door to Israeli territorial claims to the Hashemite Kingdom. They point to Israel's claims over the West Bank and east Jerusalem — war-won territories sought by the Palestinians — which Israel says are rooted in millennia-old Jewish ties, backed up by archaeological finds.
While such a scenario is unlikely in Jordan, the concerns reflect the hostility Jordanians feel toward Israel despite the two countries' 1994 peace agreement.
Whole article at the Yahoo site. Published on August 14, 2019.

Addressing security needs of Jewish communities in Western Balkans focus of OSCE/ODIHR event in Skopje

Jelena Đurović of the JC Beograd and Nenad Fogel of the JC Zemun represented Serbia at this event.

The security needs of Jewish communities were at the centre of discussion at a regional conference co-organized by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) in Skopje on 12 and 13 November 2018.
The conference, organized in co-operation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, the OSCE Mission to Skopje and the local Jewish community, was designed to raise awareness of and discuss ways to address the security needs of Jewish communities in the Western Balkans region. The event brought together more than 50 law enforcement officials and Jewish community representatives (35 men and 17 women) from the host country, as well as Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia.
The conference featured a presentation of ODIHR's practical guide Understanding Anti-Semitic Hate Crime and Addressing the Security Needs of Jewish Communities...
Whole text at the OSCE site. Published on November 13, 2018.

Minister Dacic opens Exhibition “Jasenovac – The Right to Remembrance” at the United Nations

Statement made by First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Serbia at the solemn opening of the Exhibition "Jasenovac – the Right to Remembrance" at the United Nations Headquarters:

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Distinguished Guests,
I am honoured to say a few words on the occasion of the opening of the exhibition on the concentration camp, the camp of death, of Jasenovac within the marking of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on 27 January, established by the United Nations to remember the day of the liberation of Auschwitz. This exhibition is aimed not only at informing the international public of a little known chapter of the Second World War; it is also aimed at warning of the dangerous attempts to revive the ideology and political practice that brought horror and atrocities. These attempts are in part exemplified by unscientific reinterpretations of the events and processes that took place during the Second World War that are becoming part of public discourse and justify crimes. It is our duty to fight these attempts at amnesia, which are a new crime and a call to commit it all over again.
Jasenovac was the largest concentration camp in Europe not operated by the Nazis. It was operated by the Croatian Ustaše, perhaps the most unusual right-wing extremists of Europe. Great British historian Hobsbawm writes that the Ustaše spoke of themselves as greater Nazis than the SS-members and in that he was right. The Ustaše made a singular contribution to the Holocaust: in addition to the Jews and Roma, they were after extermination of all the Serbs who lived in their State, as well as the anti-fascist Croats and Muslims. The Serbs were banned from some parts of Croatian cities, just as were the Jews...
Whole text at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs site. Published on January 26, 2018.

AP Interview: UNESCO chief says US "empty chair" can't last

UNESCO'S new elected director-general France's Audrey Azoulay attends a press conference at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, UNESCO headquarters in Paris, Friday, Nov. 10, 2017. UNESCO's member states have voted to confirm the nomination of former French Culture Minister Audrey Azoulay as the body's new leader.
New UNESCO chief Audrey Azoulay has rebuked the U.S. for its decision to withdraw from the U.N. cultural body for alleged anti-Israel bias and says America is "affected by everything" the agency does.
Following her confirmation Friday as director general, Azoulay acknowledged difficulties in the Paris-based organization that has been rocked by U.S. funding cuts since 2011 over the admission of Palestine as a member...
Whole text at the McClatchy site. Published on November 10, 2017.

5 Reasons No Nation Wants to Go to War with Israel

The technology that binds all of these other systems together is the Israeli soldier. Since 1948 (and even before) Israel has committed the best of its human capital to the armed forces. The creation of fantastic soldiers, sailors, and airmen doesn’t happen by accident, and doesn’t result simply from the enthusiasm and competence of the recruits. The IDF has developed systems of recruitment, training, and retention that allow it to field some of the most competent, capable soldiers in the world. None of the technologies above work unless they have smart, dedicated, well-trained operators to make them function at their fullest potential.
Since 1948, the state of Israel has fielded a frighteningly effective military machine. Built on a foundation of pre-independence militias, supplied with cast-off World War II weapons, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have enjoyed remarkable success in the field. In the 1960s and 1970s, both because of its unique needs and because of international boycotts, Israel began developing its own military technologies, as well as augmenting the best foreign tech. Today, Israel boasts one of the most technologically advanced military stockpiles in the world, and one of the world’s most effective workforces...
Whole text at the Yahoo News site. Published on October 22, 2017.

Son of Hamas Founder Shakes Up UN Human Rights Council: ‘If Israel Did Not Exist, You Would Have No One to Blame’

The U.N. Human Rights Council’s perennial debate focusing on condemning Israel witnessed an unusual intervention Monday – a strong-worded statement in Arabic-accented English slamming not Israel but the Palestinian Authority.
Speaking for less than 90 seconds, the speaker questioned the legitimacy of Mahmoud Abbas’s P.A., accused it of jailing and torturing its critics, and called it the “greatest enemy of the Palestinian people.”
“If Israel did not exist, you would have no one to blame,” he declared, concluding by accusing the P.A. of using the HRC platform “to mislead the international community, to mislead the Palestinian society to believe that Israel is responsible for the problem you create.”ŽThe speaker was Mosab Hassan Yousef, the disowned son of a founder of the Islamist terror movement Hamas, and a convert to Christianity...
Whole text at the CNS News site. Published on September 25, 2017.

At UN, Abbas deplores creation of State of Israel
In UN General Assembly Speeches, Palestinian and Iranian Leaders Savage Israel and Zionism.

Attacks on Israel’s legitimacy were in full flow at the UN General Assembly session in New York City on Wednesday, as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas denounced the 1917 Balfour Declaration — in which Britain announced its support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” — as a “crime against our people,” while Iranian President Hassan Rouhani described the Jewish state as “the rogue Zionist regime,” in language harking back to the “Zionism-is-racism” days at the world body during the 1970s.
In an angry speech in which he repeatedly accused Israel of violating international law and abandoning the two-state solution, Abbas — moments after wishing Jews a “Happy New Year” on the eve of Rosh Hashana — slammed the United Kingdom for having launched the process which led to the creation of the State of Israel in the first place...
Whole text at the WIN site. Published on September 23, 2017.

Neo-Nazi site Stormfront goes offline
Jewish woman sues Daily Stormer founder for harassment campaign
Alt-right website the Daily Stormer appears hacked by Anonymous ByJTA August 29, 2017 12:26
Earlier this month, Google and GoDaddy booted the Daily Stormer, another neo-Nazi and white supremacist site.

Stormfront was no longer available online after its host put a hold on the neo-Nazi and white supremacist website. The hold issued Friday by Network Solutions is “uncommon” and “usually enacted during legal disputes, non-payment, or when your domain is subject to deletion,” said the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, according to Salon.
Earlier this month, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law urged web.com, which owns Network Solutions, to take down Stormfront, saying it violated the company’s policy against racist and discriminatory content. On Saturday, the Lawyers Committee said on Twitter that it was “pleased to see web.com appears to be enforcing its Acceptable Use Policy.”...
Whole text at the jpost.com. Published on August 26, 2017.

Australian council stops synagogue construction due to terror target fears

The council also said any changes to make the building safer would also make it an eyesore.
A local council in Australia has prevented the construction of a new synagogue due to fears that it could be a terror target, news.com.au reported on Thursday. The new place of worship was planned for a site just hundreds of meters from the country's iconic Bondi Beach.
The decision was upheld by the Land and Environment Court, which appeared to use the proposal's own risk assessment to determine that the synagogue could be a target and therefore endanger the lives of worshipers and local residents.
However the council also said that any changes to make the building safer would be unacceptable as they would have too great an environmental and aesthetic impact on the neighborhood.
Whole text at the i24.com. Published on August 3, 2017.

Roger Waters’ Jewish Problem Catches Eye of Award-Winning Filmmaker
His so-called activism will be the subject of a new documentary

Pink Floyd founding member and former bassist Roger Waters has spent the last decade disparaging the Jewish state. Labeled an anti-Semite by the Anti-Defamation League, Waters compares Jews to Nazi collaborators and claims Israel is a “racist apartheid regime” that practices “ethnic cleansing.”
As the de facto international spokesman for the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, Waters’ contempt for Israel and the Jewish people is often on full display at his concerts, which feature visuals such as a flying pig emblazoned with a Star of David and anti-Israel rants. When big-name performers announce concerts in Israel, Waters publicly pleads with them to cancel and join the boycott...
Whole text at the Observer.com. Published on July 7, 2017.

Facebook Refuses to Block Holocaust Denial

Facebook will not block Holocaust-denying content on its platform in countries where it remains legal, saying it is merely the expression of an opinion.
Facebook will continue to allow Holocaust-denying content on its platform in countries where Holocaust denial is legal, a Facebook executive announced.
Israel’s NRG news reported Monday that Facebook’s head of policy in Israel, Jordana Cutler, in a letter to Member of Knesset (MK) Uri Maklev, wrote that Holocaust denial is illegal in Israel, and therefore such content is blocked for Israeli users as well as in other countries where it is illegal. However, where Holocaust denial is permitted, the social media platform will not block the content.
In the letter to Maklev, chairman of the Knesset’s committee on Science and Technology, Cutler explained that Facebook’s policy is to follow the lead of local governments and law, and that Holocaust denial will be available in several countries, even though it is “disturbing content.”...
Whole text at the worldisraelnews.com. Published on June 26, 2017.

Marchers turn out in NYC for annual Celebrate Israel parade

Elected officials joined thousands of marchers in a sea of blue and white flags along New York City's Fifth Avenue for the annual Celebrate Israel parade.
Participants ranging from school-age children to adults came out Sunday under overcast skies for the event. Elected officials who marched included New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, as well as Sen. Charles Schumer. Former New York Giants running back Tiki Barber was an honorary grand marshal.
The event was formerly known as the Salute to Israel Parade, and marks the birth of the Jewish state in 1948. The thousands of people who take part include students from regional yeshivas and Jewish day schools, Jewish groups and synagogues.
At the parade Sunday, Cuomo declared the day as Shimon Peres Day...
Whole text at the ABC News site. Published on June 4, 2017.

Shocker: Russia recognizes ‘West Jerusalem’ as Israel’s capital

Russia’s Foreign Ministry shocks the world by declaring West Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel.
In a statement released today by its Foreign Ministry on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Russia took the unusual step of removing ambiguity about its stance on West Jerusalem.
After explaining that it is “deeply concerned” about the absence of active negotiations between Israel and the Arabs on the creation of an Arab state in Judea and Samaria, Russia spelled out its stance on Jerusalem.
“We reaffirm our commitment to the UN-approved principles for a Palestinian-Israeli settlement, which include the status of East Jerusalem as the capital of the future Palestinian state. At the same time, we must state that in this context we view West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel,” read the statement...
Whole text at the WIN site. Published on April 6, 2017.

Benefit program for Holocaust survivors launched in Serbia
By JOVANA GEC, Associated Press

A program to provide direct funds to Serbian Holocaust survivors all over the world has been launched in Serbia, an international Jewish group said Tuesday. The program results from a law passed last year in Serbia allowing for the restitution to the Jewish community of heirless and unclaimed Jewish property seized during the Holocaust, the World Jewish Restitution Organization said in a statement.
Tens of thousands of Serbian Jews perished during Nazi occupation of the Balkan country during World War II.
The law envisions the Serbian government paying 950,000 euros ($1 million) per year for 25 years to the Federation of Jewish Communities. For at least the first 10 years, one-fifth of the money will be set aside for direct payments to Holocaust survivors, the World Jewish Restitution Organization said.
"This is a historic step to provide compassion and a measure of justice to Serbian Holocaust survivors more than 70 years after the Nazis declared Serbia free of Jews," WJRO Chair of Operations Gideon Taylor said.
Whole text at the Charlotte Observer site. Published on April 5, 2017.

There is no denying Jewish ties to Jerusalem, UNESCO head says
‘To deny, conceal or erase any traditions undermines the integrity of the site.’

“In the Torah, Jerusalem is the capital of King David, where Solomon built the Temple and placed the Ark of the Covenant,” UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova said, firmly rebuffing any attempts by her organization to deny Jewish history connected to Jerusalem.
Bokova was speaking at the policy conference of the European Coalition for Israel, a Christian grassroots movement, in the European Parliament on Thursday. Distinguishing between her role as the highest official of UNESCO and the resolutions passed by member states of the same organization, she said the protection of the heritage of Jerusalem is part of a broader vision for peace and the fight against all forms of denial of Jewish history, delegitimization of Israel and antisemitism.
Whole text at the Jerusalem Post site. Published on April 5, 2017.

US boycotts UN rights council debate on Israel, Palestinians

The United States on Monday boycotted a Human Rights Council session focusing on Palestinian areas, saying the regular review shows the council's "long-standing bias against Israel" that threatens the credibility of the U.N.-supported body.
Israel is the only country that faces an examination of its rights record at every one of the council's three sessions each year under a standing agenda item - known as Item 7 - on "Palestine and other occupied Arab territories." The current session, which lasts four weeks, ends Friday.
U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, in a statement, denounced how Israel was the only country that is a permanent fixture on the 47-member body's calendar.
"It is not Syria, where the regime has systematically slaughtered and tortured its own people," she said. "It is not Iran, where public hangings are a regular occurrence. It is not North Korea, where the regime uses forced labor camps to crush its people into submission. It is Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East."...
Whole text at the ABC News site. Published on March 20, 2017.

Accused anti-Semitic bomb hoaxer has history of lies, threats

Accused anti-Semitic bomb hoaxer Juan Thompson has a long history of ridiculous lies and frightening threats — everything from once boasting he got a Malcolm X tattoo to vowing to smear his rivals as “racists” and ruin their careers, according to people who count themselves as his victims.
“He told me I wouldn’t get a job once he was done with me,” former friend and Vassar College classmate Ian D’Emilia told The Post.
Thompson, a 31-year-old disgraced journalist, remained jailed on federal cyber-stalking charges Saturday for allegedly calling in eight bomb threats to Jewish organizations.
D’Emilia, who was Thompson’s roommate in 2013, earned Thompson’s ire last year after Thompson was fired from the Intercept news Web site for making up quotes and sources...
Whole text at the New York Post site. Published on March 5, 2017.

Hezbollah threatens to attack Israeli nuclear facility; Israel will strike ‘all of Lebanon’

Israel’s Intelligence Minister said “all of Lebanon will be hit” after Hezbollah leader Nasrallah threatened to attack Israel’s nuclear facility in Dimona.
Israel’s Minister of Intelligence, Yisrael Katz, warned the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah that if it attacks Israel, “all of Lebanon will be hit.”
“If Nasrallah dares to fire at the Israel homefront or at its national infrastrucuture, all of Lebanon will be hit,” Katz said in a statement.
Katz made his remarks after Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah implicitly threatened to attack Israel’s nuclear facility in Dimona, located in Israel’s Negev region.
“I call upon Israel not only to evacuate the ammonia tank from Haifa, but also to dismantle the Dimona nuclear reactor,” Nasrallah said shortly after an ammonia tank up in Haifa was closed down earlier this week.
“The Israeli nuclear weapon that represents a threat to the entire region, we will turn it into a threat to Israel.”
Whole text at the WIN site. Published on February 17, 2017.

Australian leader sides with Israel in wake of UN resolution

Israel has a friend Down Under.
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull blasted United Nations Resolution 2334, calling the measure “deeply unsettling.”
Pledging support for the so-called two-state solution between the Israelis and Palestinians, Turnbull told a Sydney synagogue Friday that peace could only come through negotiations between both sides.
“It is not assisted by one-sided resolutions made at the councils of the United Nations or anywhere else, and that is why Australia has not, and does not, support one-sided resolutions,” Turnbull said at a Hanukkah menorah lighting ceremony in the Australian capital, according to the Australian Jewish News.
“These issues can only be resolved by the State of Israel and the Palestinian community,” Turnbull said...
Whole text at the NY PostNews. Published on December 30, 2016.

Start of Hanukkah met with vandalism, anti-Semitic messages

This year, the start of Hanukkah was met with a spate of anti-Semitism, including an apparent attack at a California synagogue, and at a school in France that was defaced with graffiti in German declaring, “Jews prohibited.” Even President-elect Donald Trump was bombarded with anti-Semitic tweets after he sent good wishes to those celebrating the holiday.
In the case of the California synagogue, Rabbi Boruch Rabinowitz arrived at the Living Torah Center Chabad in Santa Monica on Sunday morning to discover feces and rice smeared across the front window of the synagogue.
Although there were no anti-Semitic messages found on the building, the timing and location of the defacement, near the prominently displayed menorah, have led Rabinowitz and others in the congregation to believe that it was a religiously motivated attack...
Whole text at the Yahoo News. Published on December 27, 2016.

Trump Picks ‘True Friend of Israel’ as US Ambassador, Supports Moving Embassy to Jerusalem

US President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of David Friedman on Thursday as the American envoy to Israel drew applause from pro-Israel circles, especially among those committed to Israeli sovereignty in the biblical Jewish homeland and recognition of a united Jerusalem as capital of the Jewish state.
“I am deeply honored and humbled by the confidence placed in me by President-elect Trump to represent the United States as its Ambassador to Israel,” Friedman, 57, stated. “I intend to work tirelessly to strengthen the unbreakable bond between our two countries and advance the cause of peace within the region, and look forward to doing this from the US embassy in Israel’s eternal capital, Jerusalem.”
Earlier this week, Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s campaign manager, said that moving the US embassy to Jerusalem was “a very big priority” for the incoming president...
Whole text at the United with Istael site. Published on December 3, 2016.

Ami Horowitz Went Into a Muslim No-Go Area in Sweden and Got Beat Up by 5 Men

Ami Horowitz went on a fact-finding mission to Sweden to see how much the tide of Muslim immigration has harmed the Scandinavian country. He highlights the extreme rise in rapes and violence, and shows areas that police will not go into. While in one of these areas, Horowitz got attacked by five men and can be heard yelling for help. He asks people to consider whether Sweden has simply offered too many social benefits to anyone living within their borders, and has made it too welcoming for immigrants. This video makes you wonder when Sweden and other European nations will hit their breaking point.
Video at the PJ Media site. Published on December 16, 2016.

A History of Vandalism: Welcome to Ukraine’s Historic Holocaust Site

While many Ukrainian politicians and political activists alike have embraced pointed views on their country’s thorny and controversial World War II past, relatively few may claim direct personal experience of the Holocaust. Abraham Kristein, however, is the rare exception of someone who not only witnessed horrific wartime atrocities in Soviet Ukraine but also lived to tell the tale. Now 84 years old, he soberly recounts his harrowing story over lunch at a local synagogue located in Podil, Kyiv’s old Jewish historic quarter.
In the summer of 1941, when German forces invaded his home town of Tulchin, Kristein was just a small boy in first grade. The Nazis promptly organized a ghetto in the western Ukrainian town, and Jewish families were subjected to great restrictions on daily life. Several months later, in the midst of freezing winter, the Germans went even further by closing the ghetto outright. Kristein’s Jewish family, along with many others, was crammed into a local school where they were forced to stand for days on end...
Whole text at the Huffingtonpost. Published on December 3, 2016.

Holocaust-Themed Skating Performance Sparks Outrage

A smiling, playful and yet poignant ice skating performance on Russian national television has created a social media firestorm — because it is holocaust-themed.
Tatyana Navka, a famous champion ice skater in Russia and the wife of Vladimir Putin’s press spokesman Dmitry Peskov, did a holocaust themed skating performance Saturday on Russia’s “Dancing With the Stars” equivilant, “Ice Age” pairing with famous actor Andrey Burkovskiy.
Donned in striped pajamas and the Star of David, the couple smiled and frolicked to the tune of “The Beautiful Way,” which includes lyrics like, “Smile, no matter what they tell you.”
Navka took to Instagram, calling it “one of my favorite performances,” but her followers thought something quite different.
Video at the Yahoo News. Published on November 27, 2016.

Palestinian U.N. Ambassador: We’ll Use ‘Weapons That We Have in U.N.’ If Trump Moves U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem
By Lauretta Brown

Palestinian Ambassador to the United Nations Riyad Mansour said Friday that if President-elect Donald Trump follows through on his campaign promise to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, then “nobody should blame us for unleashing all of the weapons that we have in the U.N. to defend ourselves, and we have a lot of weapons in the U.N.”
Trump promised in March during a speech before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) that, “We will move the U.S. embassy to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem.”
Following a private meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in September, his campaign wrote that Trump “acknowledged that Jerusalem has been the eternal capital of the Jewish People for over 3,000 years, and that the United States, under a Trump administration, will finally accept the long-standing Congressional mandate to recognize Jerusalem as the undivided capital of the State of Israel.”
Whole text at the CNS News. Published on November 14, 2016.

Roger Waters' views on Israel, BDS movement reportedly costing him millions

Roger Waters is planning his most spectacular and expensive tour yet — but the Pink Floyd legend is facing backlash from some big-name sponsors over his views on Israel.
Sources tell us that American Express balked at spending up to $4 million to sponsor Waters’ 2017 US + Them North American tour.
AmEx sponsored this month’s so-called “Oldchella,” the Desert Trip festival, where Waters performed along with the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan and Neil Young.
Waters, who has angered many in New York with his support for a boycott of Israel over the issue of Palestinian rights, shocked people at Oldchella by unleashing a series of brutal images targeting Donald Trump, and slogans such as “F - - k Trump and his wall” and “Arrogant, lying, racist, sexist,” then voicing solidarity with students protesting for Palestinians. He also urged people to support the controversial BDS Movement (boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel) and added, “I encourage the government in Israel to end the occupation.”...
Whole text at the Fox News. Published on October 28, 2016.

Duterte visits synagogue to apologize for Hitler remark

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte visited a synagogue in the Manila metropolis Tuesday to personally apologize to the Jewish community for making a "terribly wrong" comparison between his anti-drug campaign and Hitler and the Holocaust in a recent speech.
Duterte had apologized to the Jewish world in a speech Sunday but he visited the Beit Yaacov synagogue in Makati city to press his expression of regret and assure that he was not racist, adding that his wife, now separated from him, has Jewish ties.
"I would like to apologize and it comes from the heart," Duterte told members of the Jewish Association of the Philippines.
Deriding critics who had compared him to Hitler, Duterte acknowledged he erred in referencing what happened to Jewish people under the Nazi leader...
Whole text at the Miami Herald site. Published on October 4, 2016.

How Shimon Peres Outwitted the U.S. to Bring Nukes to Israel

Renowned for his decades-long quest for peace in the Middle East, Shimon Peres’s greatest triumph was his cunning and successful plan to bring nuclear weapons to Israel.
PARIS —Shimon Peres is recognized as a great statesman and will be remembered after his death early Wednesday morning at age 93 as a passionate advocate of peace between Israel’s Jews and the Arabs of the Middle East.
With a longer view, historians will note that he managed to become prime minister twice and president of the State of Israel, but he never clearly won the powerful premiership in popular or parliamentary votes. He was always admirable, but in the end, proved almost unelectable, a brilliant rhetorician, but not nearly as successful a politician as, say, long-serving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Even as a peacemaker, or perhaps especially as a peacemaker, Peres could articulate brilliantly and beautifully the desires for peace, the reasons for peace, the benefits of peace, and indeed he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the PLO’s Yassir Arafat...
Whole text at the Daily Beast site. Published on Sep 28, 2016.

Egyptian judoka jeered in Rio after Israeli handshake snub

Rio de Janeiro (AFP) - Egyptian judoka Islam El Shehaby was jeered out of the Olympic arena in Rio on Friday after refusing to shake hands with his Israeli opponent.
El Shehaby was beaten by Or Sasson in their heavyweight first round encounter but at the end of the bout, he refused to either bow to the Israeli or shake his hand.
In judo it is customary to both bow to opponents -- a sign of respect in Japan -- and shake hands after a bout is over.
El Shehaby had been well beaten but stood impassively as Sasson tried to shake his hand.
As he left the mat area, El Shehaby was called back to the centre by the referee to bow.
But he was then loudly jeered out of the arena by angry supporters.
Egyptian IOC president Hisham Hatab blamed media pressure for El Shehaby's reaction...
Whole text at the Yahoo News site. Published on Aug 12, 2016.

Amsterdam to pay €10m to Jewish community for historic property fines of Holocaust survivors

Amsterdam will give €10 million to its Jewish community as compensation for imposing housing taxes on Jewish survivors of the Second World War who returned home from concentration camps. 
Jewish people who returned to Amsterdam after the war were charged "ground rent" arrears, plus a penalty, for the period their home was unoccupied. Some homes had been sold in their absence. 
The local government at the time also charged outstanding street taxes and insurance bills to the Jewish owners or their surviving relatives, according to a Dutch institute for war, holocaust and genocide report. 
The payments first came to light in a 2013 study by student Charlotte van den Berg. Eberhard van der Lann, the mayor of Amsterdam, told a council meeting the same year they should “recognise what went wrong and put it right”. 
The report suggested the total sum owed was up to €10 million, which Amsterdam said on Friday it would honor...
Whole text at the Telegraph site. Published on May 20, 2016.

American College Kids Pledge Money to 'Wipe Israel Off the Map'

Satirical filmmaker Ami Horowitz went to Portland State University and asked people on campus if they would help raise money for Hamas.

Horowitz said he wanted to see just how far America's liberal students in the Pacific Northwest were willing to take the BDS Movement (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) against Israel.

Video at the Fox News Insider site. Published on May 23, 2016.

Controversy regarding Jasenovac: Croatia’s Far Right Weaponizes the Past
The new government includes an outspoken apologist for the country's World War II-era fascist regime.

The European Union’s newest member, Croatia, has an unabashed and strong-willed fascist in its new cabinet — one who makes the right-wingers in power in Hungary and Poland look like wimps. The contested figure is Zlatko Hasanbegovic, a 42-year-old historian who became culture minister in late January after the country’s latest election produced a new right-wing ruling coalition.
Hasanbegovic had been a prominent figure in a small ultra-rightist party that openly extols the fascist World War II-era Ustashe movement (He left the party and is now unaffiliated, though he has never renounced it). As a historian, his work focuses on downplaying the crimes of the Ustashe and cautiously rehabilitating its ideas. Unlike the right-wingers in Poland and Hungary who are eviscerating their states’ democratic structures, the Croatian nationalists are waging their war within the realm of political culture — for now. Their goal is to lay the groundwork for an eventual assault on the country’s liberal democracy...
Whole text at the foreignpolicy.com site. Published on May 6, 2016.

Former Auschwitz guard apologises at trial, says it was 'nightmare'

A 94-year-old former Auschwitz guard on trial in Germany apologised in court to victims on Friday, telling them he regretted being part of a "criminal organisation" that had killed so many people and caused such suffering.
"I'm ashamed that I knowingly let injustice happen and did nothing to oppose it", said Reinhold Hanning, a former Nazi SS officer, seated in a wheelchair in the court in Detmold.
Hanning is charged with being an accessory to the murder of at least 170,000 people.
Holocaust survivors, who detailed their horrific experiences at the trial which opened in February, have pleaded with the accused to break his silence in what could be one of the last Holocaust court cases in Germany.
Hanning finally broke the silence he kept over the course of 12 hearings, each limited to two hours due to his old age.
Reading in a firm voice from a paper he took out of his grey suit pocket, he said: "I want to tell you that I deeply regret having been part of a criminal organisation that is responsible for the death of many innocent people, for the destruction of countless families, for misery, torment and suffering on the side of the victims and their relatives".
Whole text at the Reuters site. Published on April 29, 2016.

U.N. Security Council Rejects Netanyahu's Claim to Syria's Golan Heights

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bold claim to Syria’s Golan Heights, annexed by Israel in 1967, was rejected by the U.N. Security Council, which still regards the land as belonging to Syria.
The dispute over the heights, which are situated on the Syrian-Israeli border and which Tel-Aviv has argued are strategically important for national security, has been ongoing for decades. A 1981 U.N. resolution officially dismissed Israel’s established control of the heights as illegitimate and a slow resolution process ensued, seeking to restore Syrian control over the territory.
Despite moments when both sides have appeared willing to compromise to resolve their territorial claims, Netanyahu’s government has pushed an increasingly hard line on the Golan Heights issue, especially since the start of the Syrian Civil War in 2011...
Whole text at the Newsweek site. Published on April 27, 2016.

Iran Vows to Defend Muslim Nations Against Terrorism, Israel

TEHRAN, IRAN— Iran's President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday vowed to defend Muslim countries against terrorism and Israel while insisting that its neighbors should not feel threatened.
Speaking during a National Army Day parade in which Iranian forces displayed sophisticated air defense systems recently acquired from Russia, Rouhani praised Tehran's role in helping the Syrian and Iraqi governments roll back the Islamic State group.
"If tomorrow your capitals face danger from terrorism or Zionism, the power that will give you a positive answer is the Islamic Republic of Iran," he said. But he added that Iran would only help if Muslim countries asked it to, and said its military power was purely for defensive and deterrent purposes
"The power of our armed forces is not against our southern, northern, eastern and western neighbors," he said...
Whole text at the VOA site. Published on April 17, 2016.

Sanders's Israel criticism splits Jewish American vote

New York (AFP) - When Bernie Sanders called Israel's response in the 2014 Gaza war disproportionate and urged America to be more balanced on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he smashed a presidential campaign taboo.
His remarks at the April 14 Democratic debate ahead of New York's decisive primary on Tuesday amounted to unprecedented criticism of Israel and promotion of Palestinian rights from a canvassing US presidential candidate.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "is not right all of the time," said the Vermont senator. "We cannot continue to be one-sided."
He criticized Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton for not saying that she would do more to promote Palestinian rights when she addressed the powerful right-wing American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) lobby in Washington in March.
"If we are ever going to bring peace to that region, which has seen so much hatred and so much war, we are going to have to treat the Palestinian people with respect and dignity," Sanders said...
Whole text at the Yahoo News site. Published on April 17, 2016.

France: Le Pen fined over Holocaust remarks

Former French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen has been fined 30,000 euros (£24,000; $34,000) for calling the Nazi gas chambers a "detail" of World War Two. He was convicted of contesting crimes against humanity.
The former Front National chief was convicted of the same charge in 2012 after saying France's Nazi occupation had been "not particularly inhumane".
France has strict laws against Holocaust denial.
Mr Le Pen told a journalist his remarks "corresponded to my thought that the gas chambers were a detail of the history of war".
Asked if "millions of deaths" could be called "point of detail", Mr Le Pen said: "It is not a million deaths, it is the gas chambers. I'm talking about specific things. I have not talked about the number of dead. I spoke of a system. I said it was a detail of the history of warfare." ...
Whole text at the BBC site. Published on April 6, 2016.

Wiesenthal Center Calls for Sanctions Against Croatian Soccer Fans
in Wake of Fascist and Anti-Semitic Chants at Recent Israeli-Croatian Friendly Match

Jerusalem-The Simon Wiesenthal Center today called for sanctions to be leveled against Croatian football supporters in the wake of numerous fascist and anti-Semitic chants by local fans at the Israeli-Croatian friendly match held in Osijek, Croatia last Wednesday.
In a statement issued here by its director for Eastern European Affairs Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center noted that Croatian fans had expressed identification with the Ustasha fascist regime which ruled Croatia during World War II and orchestrated the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent Serbs, Jews, Roma and anti-fascist Croatians...
Whole text at the SWC site. Published on March 28, 2016.

Lamar Outdoor Advertising Under Fire for Anti-Israel Billboard

In a message posted on its Facebook page, Lamar Advertising has made the decision to remove the billboard advertisement. This decision was made public hours after the Observer published this story by the Haym Salomon Center’s Paul Miller. The Baton Rouge based company said, “We have tried to contact SEAMAC to discuss these issues but have not received a reply to our telephone and email messages. Therefore we have decided to remove the SEAMAC copy as soon as possible.”
Approximately five miles south of Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, alongside the Interstate 294, stands a large anti-Israel billboard.
Sponsored by the Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign (SEAMAC), the sign reads, “Boycott Israel Until Palestinians Have Equal Rights.” Part of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, the display has captured the attention of Chicago area residents and supporters of the Jewish state across the country. This has led to a growing social media campaign condemning Lamar Advertising, owner of the advertising space, for accepting the ad that is regarded as anti-Semitic by many in the Jewish community...

Whole text at the Observer site. Published on Feb 19, 2016.

Pope visits Rome synagogue, condemns violence in name of religion

Pope Francis made his first visit as pontiff to a synagogue on Sunday, where, in a reference to Islamist attacks, he condemned violence in the name of religion.
Amid chanting of psalms in Hebrew and speeches underscoring the remarkable advances in Catholic-Jewish relations in the past 50 years, Francis became the third pontiff to visit Rome's main synagogue, after popes John Paul and Benedict.
The temple is just across the Tiber River from the Vatican, and is rich with symbolism of the past persecution of Jews, who for nearly 300 years until the mid-19th century were forced to live in the adjoining quarter still known as The Ghetto and make compulsory payments to the popes.
Security was exceptionally tight in the area, with even journalists going through three separate checks in the space of less than 100 meters. Anti-terror police patrolled both sides of the riverbank, which was closed to the public...
Whole text at the Reuters site. Published on Jan 16, 2016.

Swedish FM calls to probe Israeli violence against Palestinians in recent terror wave

STOCKHOLM - Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom called on Tuesday for an investigation to determine if Israel was guilty of extrajudicial killings of Palestinians during the recent wave of violence there, local media reported.
The comments were the latest in a series of statements by Wallstrom that have irked Israeli authorities. Ties between Sweden and Israel nose-dived after Sweden announced its recognition of a Palestinian state shortly after Wallstrom's center-left Social Democrats won general elections in 2014.
She deepened the rift last year by describing Palestinians' plight as a factor leading to Islamist radicalization.
"It is vital that there is a thorough, credible investigation into these deaths in order to clarify and bring about possible accountability," Wallstrom said during a parliamentary debate, according to news agency TT...
Whole text at the Jerusalem Post site. Published on Jan 12, 2016.

Margot Wallstrom, tough Swede shown the door by Israel

Stockholm (AFP) - The unusually frank approach of Sweden's foreign minister has seen fans send her flowers over her biting criticism of Saudi Arabia -- and now prompted Israel to declare her persona non grata.
Declared unwelcome by authorities in the Jewish state on Wednesday thanks to a raft of critical comments, Margot Wallstrom has made a name for herself as a vocal feminist and fierce defender of human rights.
The 61-year-old Social Democrat is the undisputed star of her government, but critics wonder whether her tendency to speak her mind -- not a quality traditionally found in diplomats -- is good for the country.
She has repeatedly enraged Israel, starting with Sweden's recognition of a Palestinian state shortly after she became foreign minister in October 2014...
Whole text at Yahoo.com. Published on Jan 15, 2016.