Struggle
27-06-2008 / Britain
Britain - Student leaders pledge to fight campus antisemitism at Manchester University
The newly-elected student council at Manchester University contains a large number of Jewish students who have pledged to fight the university’s growing reputation for anti-Semitism.
The new team will have four Jewish representatives on the executive and another 14 on the student council. One of them, Rob Pinfold, is the new general secretary.
After the elections, Mr Pinfold was unequivocal about kicking out antisemitism: “For too long, Jewish students have seen their concerns swept away and ignored by the students’ union, their representative body,” he said.
“Antisemitism and racism will no longer be tolerated or ignored, in whatever form it may take. I and other members of the executive look forward to welcoming Jewish students back to the university”
Source: www.thejc.com
27-06-2008 / United States
USA - World Jewish Congress petitions UN on anti-Semitism resolution
In New York, the World Jewish Congress has delivered a petition with 200,000 signatures of concerned citizens from all over the world in support of a UN General Assembly resolution explicitly condemning anti-Semitism. Ronald S. Lauder, president of the WJC, said in a statement: "With these petitions, we are urging the UN to reaffirm the commitment made by then-secretary-general Kofi Annan in 2004 to fighting anti-Semitism and all forms of discrimination. We hope these petitions will reinforce that commitment and prepare the ground for an eventual UN General Assembly resolution."
Evelyn Sommer, chairwoman of the North American Jewish Congress, cited a recent seminar on anti-Semitism attended by leading human rights activists. "Within three minutes of the discussion, 1,300 delegates stood up and signed the WJC petition. It signifies our hope and belief in the power of the UN that, as an organization born in the wake of the Holocaust to defend human rights, it can and will stand up to anti-Semitism. It is in that spirit that WJC presents these petitions."
Rabbi Marc Schneier, chairman of the WJC American Section, underscored the importance of delivering the petition to the UN. “It is significant that we are presenting the petition in a week when a French Jewish teenager wearing a kippah was severely beaten on the streets of Paris in a vicious anti-Semitic attack. The safety and security of Jewish communities everywhere is paramount – it is not only a question of religious freedom but of basic civil rights as well.”
Source: www.worldjewishcongress.org
26-06-2008 / Russia
Russia - Krasnoyarsk cemetery vandals sentenced
Four teenagers were convicted of vandalizing a Jewish cemetery in
Krasnoyarsk
. The defendants faced the rarely applied charge of "damaging tombstones motivated by ethnic hatred"-most cemetery vandals are charged simply with "hooliganism."
They were found guilty of
vandalizing the cemetery on the night of October 7, 2007
. One was confined to a psychiatric institution, the others got sentences of between two and two and a half years and were fined as well.
Source: http://www.fsumonitor.com/
26-06-2008 / France
France - French comic fined for antisemitic remarks
The court fined Dieudonne M'Bala M'Bala, known as Dieudonne, nearly $11,000 for referring to Holocaust remembrance as "memorial pornography" at a news conference following a performance in Algeria in February 2005.
Source: http://www.jta.org/
25-06-2008 / United States
USA - Man sentenced to 22 years for synagogue terror plot
One of four men accused of plotting from behind bars to attack military sites, synagogues and other targets in California was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison.
Levar Haley Washington, 30, was sentenced by US District Court after pleading guilty last year to conspiring to levy war against the United States and using a firearm to further the conspiracy.
Two co-defendants, Kevin Lamar James and Gregory Patterson, also pleaded guilty to the terrorism conspiracy charge and will be sentenced later this summer. A fourth man, Hammad Samana, was found unfit to stand trial and is being treated in a federal psychiatric facility.
Source: www.latimes.com
20-06-2008 / United States
USA - The U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning Arab censorship and officially sanctioned anti-Semitism.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning Arab censorship and officially sanctioned anti-Semitism.
The non-binding resolution passed by unanimous acclamation "strongly condemns the endemic restrictions on freedom of the press and expression in the Arab world and the concurrent and widespread presence of anti-Semitic material, Holocaust denial, and incitement to violence in the Arab media and press."
It also "expresses deep concern that some Arab governments, including some that are involved in multilateral efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, use their government-owned, government-sanctioned, or government-controlled publishing houses and media to promulgate insidious, incendiary, and poisonous speech regarding Israel and the Jewish people that makes United States efforts to help resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict all the more difficult."
The resolution calls on the president and U.S. allies to make the censorship and anti-Semitism an issue in their dealings with the Arab world.
It was initiated by U.S. Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.), the Jewish chairman of the House Middle East subcommittee.
Source: http://jta.org
18-06-2008 / Germany
Germany - Germans eye ways to curb anti-Semitism
More must be done to keep anti-Semitism in check, a German parliamentary hearing concluded.
Meeting at the Bundestag in Berlin, lawmakers and experts offered suggestions and described the challenges.
Deidre Berger, the head of the American Jewish Committee office in Berlin, urged the German government to install a professional at the Bundestag designated to respond to the issue.
Henryk Broder, a journalist and co-founder of the Axis of Good Web site, warned of "modern anti-Semites who have good manners instead of shaved heads."
According to Heinz Fromm, the head of the German Federal Service for Protection of the Constitution, 20 percent of Germans have a "latent tendency to endorse anti-Semitic attitudes."
Source: www.jta.org
18-06-2008 / Italy
Italy - FM: EU stance on Israel in past swayed by intolerance of Jews
Italy's newly appointed foreign minister said that the European Union has in the past taken an unbalanced stance on Israel, at times blurring the line between legitimate criticism and anti-Semitic sentiments.
Speaking before a forum on Israel-European relations in Berlin, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said: "I have to admit, if I look at the past, EU has taken on some occasions an unbalanced stance visa vis Israel, even by making an unacceptable confusion between the legitimate political criticism of the Israeli gut and the sentiment of intolerance against Jewish people that can become anti-Semitism."
In his speech to the Israel-European forum, Frattini criticized the EU for delivering aid to Palestinian organizations which have incited against Israel.
"We ever found money given to NGOs close to Hamas using it to indoctrinates children against Israelis," he said.
Source:
www.haaretz.com
By Barak Ravid
15-06-2008 / Britain
Britain - World lawmakers to meet in London to fight anti-Semitism
A landmark conference bringing together the world's leading parliamentarians in the fight against anti-Semitism will convene at the British Parliament and Foreign Office in February 2009.
The conference will be jointly hosted by the newly established Inter-Parliamentary Coalition for Combating Anti-Semitism and the British Foreign Office.
The coalition assembles parliamentarians from around the world who are actively involved in confronting anti-Semitism, to share experiences, best practices and recommendations.
Key figures in the Coalition for Combating Anti-Semitism include Welfare and Social Services Minister Isaac Herzog and New Jersey Congressman Chris Smith.
Source: www.jpost.com
13-06-2008 / Russia
Russia – Suspect Detained in Vandalism of Jewish Cemetery
Police in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia detained a suspect in a string of antisemitic vandalism incidents. The young man and three other suspects allegedly vandalized Jewish graves in the Krasnaya Etna cemetery multiple times over the course of May and June, including a previously unreported incident on June 9.
Source:
http://www.fsumonitor.com/
12-06-2008 / Britain
Britain - Academic union could face legal action on ‘backdoor boycott’
The University and College Union will almost certainly face legal action if its executive decides to turn into policy the “back-door boycott” motion on Israel passed at its congress last week.
Senior lawyer Anthony Julius, acting on behalf of what he called a “growing number” of Jewish and non-Jewish UCU members, has written to UCU general secretary Sally Hunt setting out four areas where he said the union could be challenged legally. He argued that:
- The motion, despite the union’s denials, is a boycott motion;
- It is antisemitic;
- Because of the first two points, the UCU and its trustees could be sued, according to a legal opinion produced for the Stop The Boycott campaign;
- There would also be a claim by members for harassment under the Race Relations Act.
Mr Julius, a consultant at law firm Mishcon de Reya, told the JC this week: “I think the union has to stop being antisemitic and promoting antisemitism. Its denial of antisemitism is something to be taken into account, but it is hardly convincing.”
The UCU has draw fire from all sides since the vote, including from Higher Education Minister Bill Rammell. He said boycotts were “the complete antithesis of academic freedom” and appealed to the union to reconsider when he spoke on the last day of the conference.
Source:
www.thejc.com
By Leon Symons and Shelly Paz
12-06-2008 /
Europe - A new European body on tolerance to be presided by former President of Poland.
European Jewish Congress (EJC) President Moshe Kantor announced the launch of a new European body on tolerance to be presided by Aleksander Kwasniewski, former President of Poland.
The launch of “European Forum of Tolerance: The Council of Europe’s Civil Society Representatives (CECSR)” was announced after a meeting f the EJC’s Executive in Brussels.
Several distinguished political leaders, scientists, artists and public activists who have been fighting against discrimination and intolerance for the past decades will also take part in the new forum, the EJC said.
In his address to the EJC Executive, Kwasniewski stressed the fact that “we are living paradoxical times when Europe is becoming more and more multi-national, multi-cultural and multi-religious."
“In such times, tolerance needs to be at the core of the organization of today society,” he added.
“We seek to emphasize the global importance of fighting xenophobia in its most acute form, anti-Semitism”, the EJC president said.
The first public event of the CECSR will take place on the occasion of the third “Let My People Live! International Forum,” which will be held in Brussels in November 2008 and this year will commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Kristallnacht, or "Night of Broken Glass" when on November 9, 1938, the Nazis unleashed a wave of pogroms against Germany’s Jews.
Source: /www.eurojewcong.org
10-06-2008 / Britain
Britain - Israeli ambassador says Britain 'hotbed of anti-Israeli sentiment'
In a comment
piece for the Daily Telegraph, Ron Prosor wrote he was "concerned ... that in Britain the most extreme elements of the debate have been allowed to hijack the mainstream."
"Alarmingly, these values are under threat in an institution that should be safeguarding them."
Source:
www.ynet.co.il
03-06-2008 / Sweden
Sweden - Former neo-Nazis become Holocaust commemorators
They used to paint swastika graffiti, get into street fights with immigrants, and distribute anti-Semitic propaganda. But after studying the cases of a few of the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis during World War II, some former Swedish neo-Nazi teenagers came to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial to underline their new attitudes.
The kids, some of whom were active members of neo-Nazi groups, came to the memorial to present the findings of their research into the stories of 16 Holocaust victims from their hometown of Karlstad, and add pages of testimony for the previously unknown dead.
The project, named Combatting Social Unrest, is the initiative of Swedish Holocaust educator Christer Mattsson. The concept is to take troubled youths off the street, confront their prejudices and ignorance and slowly convert them into Holocaust educators themselves.
The only former active member who arrived, 17-year-old Joar, refused to be photographed and would be identified only by his first name for fear of retribution from his former friends.
''I didn't know so much. I've learned a lot about the Holocaust,'' he said, through a translator. ''I have a different perspective on life now.''
The journey has been an arduous one. Of the 100 teenagers in his program, Mattsson said about five to eight are ''hard-core neo-Nazis'' - some completely reformed, others not. Those, some sporting Nazi tattoos, did not make the trip to Israel, either for fear of offending survivors or to remain anonymous for their own safety.
Source: www.ynet.co.il
29-05-2008 / United States
USA - ADL: latest call for academic boycott of Israel a 'cynical and perverse violation'
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) denounced a vote by Britain's main academic union to reintroduce a call to boycott Israeli academic institutions, calling it "a cynical and perverse violation of academic freedom and anti-discrimination principles."
Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, issued the following statement:
“This reintroduction of the call for an academic boycott of Israel by the UCU is a cynical and perverse violation of academic freedom and anti-discrimination principles. Four years after the first such academic boycott resolution, it is clear the UCU's anti-Israel activists remain as determined as ever to demonize everything and everyone Israeli, while shunning constructive measures to promote Israeli-Palestinian academic partnerships”
Source: www.adl.org
28-05-2008 / Russia
Russia - Newspaper editor sentenced for antisemitic article
The editor of an independent newspaper in the predominately Muslim republic of Dagestan was found guilty of inciting ethnic hatred. Nabigula Dzhavatkhanov, editor of Mnenie Naroda received a suspended sentence of one and a half years for his article "An Answer to the Zionists." An expert commission found that the article incites "hatred towards the Jewish ethnos" and "humiliates the dignity... of citizens of Jewish nationality." The court also found that the article "contained elements of extremism."
Source:
www.fsumonitor.com
28-05-2008 / Russia
Russia - Bryansk prosecutors drop hate crimes charges against attackers of Jewish school
Prosecutors in Bryansk, Russia have dropped hate crimes charges against a group of youths who attacked a Jewish school on multiple occasions. The four youths, only one of whom is legally an adult,
attacked the Or Avner Jewish school five times. Armed with wooden clubs, the accused allegedly shattered the school's windows while, according to earlier media reports, screaming antisemitic threats at the students within. Although investigators established that the attacks were motivated by ethnic hatred, the youths only face charges of vandalism and "hooliganism" rather than more serious hate crimes or extremism charges.
Source:
www.fsumonitor.com
28-05-2008 / Britain
Britain – Battle against Nazis and Holocaust-deniers on Facebook
Activist David Appletree has established a group - Facebook: Stop Violating Your Own Terms By Supporting Hatred and Terror - to fight anti-Israel and anti-Jewish groups that are cropping up on Facebook, the social-networking website. Appletree’s group lists around 80 Facebook groups that praise Hitler and deny the Holocaust. More than 5,000 members are supporting Appletree’s campaign, which is attracting widespread media interest. Texas-based Appletree says he has actively been on Facebook’s case to remove antisemitic groups since he came across a group praising the murderer of the yeshivah students at Jerusalem’s Mercaz Harav.
Source:
www.thejc.com
By Candice Krieger
26-05-2008 / United States
USA - The Presbyterian Church: No to Anti-semitism
The American Jewish Committee praised the Presbyterian Church (USA) for its strongly-worded condemnation of anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish language in writings about Israel.
Vigilance against anti-Jewish Ideas and Bias, issued by the church's Interfaith Relations Office, repudiates anti-Semitism in advocacy and writings on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“This statement is tough, thorough and balanced - we warmly welcome it,” said Rabbi Gary Greenebaum, AJC's U.S. director of Interreligious Affairs. “No other Mainline Protestant denomination has yet taken such a critical look at its own teachings and how Christian teaching can be horribly misused to demonize Israel.”
AJC sent a letter of thanks to the head of the Presbyterian Church (USA) Stated Clerk Reverend Clifton Kirkpatrick.
In the document, the Presbyterian Church (USA) recognized that Christians must be vigilant when couching the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in theological terms. They note that the misuse of liberation theology as regards the conflict can be “troubling in its demonization of Israel and the Jewish people and its echoes of ancient Christian anti-Judaism.”
Source:
www.ajc.org
25-05-2008 / United States
USA – The trial of the youngsters for anti-Semitic attacks on a Jew has begun.
The trial of 4 students from Temple University in Philadelphia, accused of attacking a Jew because of anti-Semitism, began a few days ago. The four, David Scott, his brother, Steven Scott, Michael Walsh and Bryan Pediero are from New Jersey.
They are accused of attacking Jordan Blady.
Blady is a student completing his second degree at Penn State University. They broke his nose, severely injured one of his eyes and so seriously wounded his face as to require surgery.
Temple University summoned the four to appear before the “disciplinary committee” of the University and suspended them from studies. The first hearing was held on April 29 and the judge decided to uphold all the charges though he did ameliorate one of them. The four are accused of assault, terrorist threats, ethnic intimidation and merciless conspiracy. The amelioration was from aggravated assault to simple assault only.
Source:
http://www.onedia.co.il/
From: Dr. Rebecca Shafek-Lissack
