Monday, January 31, 2022
Multiple Synagogues, Jewish Businesses Vandalized On The Northwest Side; Person Of Interest Being Questioned
Police said around 7 a.m., officers were called to a synagogue at 3635 West Devon Avenue for a man kicking the side of the building, trying to break a window.
Then, around 5 p.m., someone spray painted graffiti on both a synagogue and a cargo container in the 2900 block of West Devon Avenue. A swastika was found spray painted on the side of the building.
Rabbi Levi Notik said residents were packing meals for Holocaust survivors in the neighborhood when they walked out and saw the graffiti.
Rabbi Notik said the same man who painted swastikas turned physical and used racial slurs. Police said a man was verbally assaulted during this incident. 6193440
"Someone comes into the synagogue and says on his way to services he was jumped outside, it turns out it was connected," he said.
Police said a person was taken into custody for questioning in connection with the second incident.
"It's difficult, but we'll overcome this," Notik said. "We'll get through it as a community. The way that we'll overcome this darkness, this hate, is through love and kindness and positivity."
According to the Concerned Citizens League, there were two other attacks reported on Saturday. Windows were broken at two Jewish businesses, at 2938 West Devon Ave. and Tel Aviv Bakery at 2944 West Devon Ave.
"I'm angry, this is against Jewish people," Bakery owner Walter Richtman said. "Out of the blue someone smashes a window and puts up swastikas on buildings? It's terrible."
The Concerned Citizens League said another synagogue's windows were broken in the area of Devon and Monticello on Saturday.
Officials said these incidents were reported to Chicago police. CBS 2 reached out to police regarding these additional incidents.
Anti-Defamation League Midwest Regional Director David Goldenberg took to Twitter to express his "sadness and anger" over the Chicago attacks over the weekend.
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Friday, January 28, 2022
ADL offers $5,000 reward following antisemitic attack in Crown Heights
In the wake of an assault on a Jewish man in Brooklyn early Saturday morning, the Anti-Defamation League is offering up to $5,000 for information about the person or persons responsible for the attack.
The New York Police Department is seeking to identify a suspect who, on Saturday, Jan. 22 at approximately 1:20 a.m., assaulted a 21-year-old Hasidic man at Troy Ave and Carroll St. in the borough's Crown Heights section. The victim was approached by another man who crossed the street and punched him in the nose, according to the NYPD's Hate Crimes unit.
"These attacks on Jewish individuals appear to have become normalized, but we must not let this be the case – an attack on anyone based on their Jewish identity or any identity is abhorrent and should not be tolerated," Scott Richman, ADL's New York/New Jersey regional director, said in a statement. "We hope that this reward offering will help us send that message to the community."
Anyone with information about this incident is encouraged to call the NYPD Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS.
Last month, the ADL offered a similarly sized reward following a Dec. 26 attack on a Blake Zavadsky in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Zavadsky, who was wearing an Israel Defense Forces sweatshirt, was approached by a man who spewed anti-Jewish sentiments and punched him multiple times in the face.
The NYPD arrested Othman Suleiman, a 27-year-old from Staten Island on Jan. 11. He was charged with third-degree assault and aggravated assault, both as suspected hate crimes.
According to the NYPD Hate Crimes Dashboard, there were 198 reported antisemitic incidents in New York City in 2021. That's 38 percent — a plurality — of a total of 538 reported hate crimes last year.
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Thursday, January 27, 2022
Belz Hasidic sect to begin teaching core curriculum, more communities may follow
The leader of the Belz Hasidic sect has approved the inclusion of core curriculum in its elementary schools, including math, science, Hebrew and English, according to Wednesday media reports.
The sect's education committee met on Monday with Education Ministry director Dalit Stauber and other top education officials in an attempt to formulate a model by which Talmud Torahs, the community's equivalent of grades 1-8, that teach core curriculum would be fully budgeted by the state in accordance with their success in these studies, the Kan public broadcaster reported.
Belz, led by Rabbi Yissachar Dov Rokeach, is the second-largest Hasidic sect in Israel, with the proposed reform initially involving some 7,000 children.
Many ultra-Orthodox communities shun core curriculums at their institutions, stating that education should only focus on Torah studies.
However, a growing trend in Israel has seen more and more Haredim seeking to enter the job market, which they are unable to do without learning secular subjects.
With the community continuing to grow at a rapid pace compared to their secular counterparts, many officials have warned that the economy will face increasing strain unless Haredim are able to get an education and work.
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Wednesday, January 26, 2022
Jewish community concerned about anti-Semitic flyers in South Florida
South Florida's Jewish community is on edge after hundreds of anti-Semitic flyers were found outside of homes in several cities over the weekend.
Jewish federations across South Florida are calling this an act of hate and another example of how anti-Semitic incidents are expanding in our own community and across the nation.
Hundreds of anti-Semitic flyers were delivered in the middle of the night to more than 200 homes in Miami Beach and Surfside Sunday targeting the Jewish community.
The words of hate were stuffed inside a plastic bags with rocks inside. The bags were thrown outside people's homes with anti-Semitic writings falsely saying "the COVID agenda is Jewish."
The Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County is calling this an act of hate. Their concerns deepening after learning the same flyers were also reported in Denver and San Francisco.
"We are remaining as calm as possible that we continue to show up, that we continue to ensure that our Jewish institutions are full with vibrancy, that we are able to participate as actively as possible and not let these acts of hatred and bigotry and anti-Semitism turn us away because we do not want them to win," a spokesperson said.
The Anti-Defamation League reports a sharp increase over the last decade in anti-Semitic incidents, with the dangerous rhetoric concerning city leaders across South Florida.
The Anti-Defamation League released a statement that said the flyers appear to be from a loose network of individuals that engages in anti-Semitic stunts to harass Jews.
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Tuesday, January 25, 2022
B’nai Brith Canada Objects to Guest’s Remark about Hasidic Jews on Quebec TV Program
B'nai Brith Canada takes exception to a remark made on a French-language television program Sunday night, when a guest inaccurately implied that Hasidic Jews are exempt from COVID-19-related health measures in Quebec.
On Tout le Monde en Parle, a popular television program in Quebec, Stéphanie Hariot, a pastry shop owner in Saguenay, Que., suggested that Hasidic Jews somehow operate independently of the health regulations in the province. Her remarks went unchallenged by the program's host.
Hariot, who is publicly refusing to adhere to the province's health directives regarding her commerce, asked this rhetorical question: "Do I need to dress like a Hasidic to have any rights?"
B'nai Brith Canada has written to the program's producers to demand they distance themselves from Hariot's remarks.
"Singling out Hasidic Jews for perceived violations of the Government's health restrictions places an undue focus on a community frequently targeted by antisemites and must be condemned," said Marvin Rotrand, National Director of B'nai Brith Canada's advocacy arm, the League for Human Rights. "Hasidic Jews are not a monolithic community and certainly should be afforded individual responsibility, not painted broadly as Stéphanie Hariot offensively implied."
"Many non-Jewish individuals, including Ms. Hariot, have contravened public health measures," said Michael Mostyn, Chief Executive Officer of B'nai Brith Canada. "Ms. Hariot's remarks seem to suggest only Hasidic Jews are guilty of doing so. Some who may not respect the rules may be Hasidic Jews, yet to depict an entire Jewish community as somehow collectively responsible for individual violations of public health restrictions is a disturbing and false generalization that must be corrected.
"We are calling on the producers of Tout le Monde en Parle to distance themselves from such remarks as they encourage a toxic antisemitic characterization of Hasidic Jews that is all too prevalent in Canada."
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Monday, January 24, 2022
Hasidic man's Brooklyn assault investigated as possible hate crime
Police are searching for a man they say assaulted a man wearing traditional Hasidic clothing in Brooklyn over the weekend.
Investigators say it happened around 1 a.m. Saturday near Troy Avenue and Carroll Street in Crown Heights.
Police say the 21-year-old victim was punched in the nose and treated at the scene.
It's being investigated by the NYPD hate crimes unit.
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Friday, January 21, 2022
2021 was the most antisemitic year in the last decade - antisemitism report
The year 2021 is the most antisemitic year in the last decade, with at least 10 antisemitic incidents happening on average every single day, according to the annual Antisemitism Report published by the World Zionist Organization (WZO) and the Jewish Agency.
While the average number of incidents was over 10 a day, the real number is likely much higher since so many incidents go unreported.
The main antisemitic incidents were graffiti, desecration, vandalism and propaganda, but physical and verbal violence still took up just under a third of all incidents. Though at the very least, the year was lacking in antisemitic murders.
A number of events occurred throughout the year that seemed to coincide with spikes in antisemitic events.
This correlation was seen especially during the month of May, a month that included many high-tension events. This included Shavuot, Eid al-Fitr, Nakba Day, Jerusalem Day, Al-Quds Day, the escalating debate regarding the eviction of Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah, the trend of antisemitic violence being shown on TikTok, Jewish-Arab riots in Israel's mixed cities and, of course, Operation Guardian of the Walls, the latest round of fighting between Israel and Hamas.
Each of these events was associated with a notable rise in antisemitic incidents.
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Thursday, January 20, 2022
Synagogue Terrorist Screamed About ‘F*cking Jews’ in Final Call Before He Was Shot
The British terrorist who took four people hostage inside a Texas synagogue last week can be heard screaming about "fucking Jews" and bringing chaos to America in a deeply disturbing recording of his final phone call to his family before he was shot dead by the FBI on Saturday.
In the call, which Malik Faisal Akram made to his brother in England during the 10-hour standoff at the synagogue in Colleyville near Dallas, the gunman can be heard getting increasingly angry as he informs his family about the siege and tells them he'll be "coming home in a body bag."
The clip, obtained by the London-based Jewish Chronicle, shows Akram shouting at his brother during their farewell call. In a rant about American wars overseas, the terrorist said: "Why do these fucking motherfuckers come to our countries, rape our women, and fuck our kids? I'm setting a precedent… Maybe they'll have compassion for fucking Jews."
The call was made after Akram's brother, Gulbar, was summoned to a police station in Blackburn, England, to assist in the attempts to resolve the unfolding hostage situation in Texas. The terrorist became angry after his brother told him that what he was doing was a sin, and he shouted over Gulbar's attempts to persuade him to release the hostages.
During the call, Akram repeatedly called for the Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui, who's imprisoned at nearby Fort Worth in Texas, to be freed from her sentence for her attempts to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan. "She's in [prison] for 84 years, they fucking framed her," he ranted.
It becomes clear during the call that Akram wanted to be killed. In the recording, the terrorist told his brother: "I've asked Allah for this death, Allah is with me, I'm not worried in the slightest... I'd rather live one day as a lion than 100 years as a jackal... I'm going to go toe-to-toe with [police] and they can shoot me dead… I'm coming home in a body bag."
His final words to his brother were: "Anyway, I'm getting off." He was soon shot dead by the FBI, but all four of his hostages escaped unharmed.
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Tuesday, January 18, 2022
Jewish leaders call FBI comments on Texas hostages ‘insulting’
Jewish leaders ripped the FBI on Monday and said the bureau "got it wrong" when they said the terrorist who took hostages at a Texas synagogue didn't make demands that were "specifically related to the Jewish community," reports said.
FBI Special Agent in Charge Matt DeSarno made the comments late Saturday when addressing reporters after four people, including a rabbi, were taken hostage at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville by British national Malik Faisal Akram.
DeSarno noted that Akram was specifically focused on Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist who was convicted in Manhattan federal court in 2010 of trying to kill US authorities in Afghanistan, and his primary demand was her immediate release from prison.
"We do believe from our engagement with this subject that he was singularly focused on one issue, and it was not specifically related to the Jewish community. But we are continuing to work to find [the] motive," DeSarno said.
Kenneth Marcus, founder and chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, said "the FBI got it wrong" and the attack was "obviously a matter of anti-Semitism."
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Friday, January 14, 2022
Cambridge professor accused of ‘conspiratorial attacks on Jewish students’
A Cambridge University professor is facing claims she has made "conspiratorial attacks on Jewish students" after alleging became a target because she had voiced opposition to the IHRA definition of antisemitism.
Priyamvada Gopal, professor of postcolonial literature, was criticised by the Cambridge University Jewish Society on Thursday after she tweeted an astonishing attack on two students who she accused of committing "the perfect murder" on her as "someone whose views on IHRA you don't like."
Her onslaught came after the Varsity student newspaper, for whom the two Jewish undergraduates work, published an interview Cambridge donProfessor David Abulafia, who accused Gopal of making "potentially libelous" comments about him.
History professor Abulafi had earlier written an article for the Daily Telegraph about the trial of activists who toppled the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol.
He argued that pulling down the statue did not "aid historical understanding" and that the activists should not be deciding its fate.
Professor Gopal -then tweeted: "'Few undergrads produce work this weak after the first week or so."
The row between Gopal and Abulafi – born in London to a Jewish family and spent most of his career at Cambridge, specialising in Mediterranean history – ended up appearing in several national newspapers this week.
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Thursday, January 13, 2022
Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jews confront #MeToo claims
After Israel's ultra-Orthodox Jewish community was shaken by sexual abuse allegations against several of its leading figures, a call has begun to reverberate throughout the deeply devout and introverted society.
"Lo Tishtok" — Hebrew for "You will not be silent" — is a phrase gaining momentum among ultra-Orthodox Jews, or haredim, who are being forced to reckon with claims of serious crimes, including sexual abuse of children, against several of their cultural icons.
In December, prominent children's author and rabbi Chaim Walder committed suicide after the Haaretz newspaper published a story accusing him of sexually assaulting nearly two dozen people, including children — allegations he had denied.
Haaretz had in March reported that Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, founder of the Zaka emergency response organization and winner of the Israel Prize — the country's highest public honor — had sexually assaulted boys, girls and women.
Meshi-Zahav, who denounced the claims as "lies", also tried to hang himself in April before new allegations of sexual misconduct surfaced on N12 Channel.
An Israeli police spokesperson told AFP that there was an open investigation into the allegations against Meshi-Zahav, but police offered no comment on the status of a criminal probe against Walder at the time of his death.
Avigayil Heilbronn, who founded the "Lo Tishtok" organization that aims to support haredi sexual abuse victims, said the ultra-Orthodox community has been rattled.
The allegations against Walder marked an "extraordinary blow", said the 33-year-old divorced mother of two, who describes herself as modern Orthodox.
If a "cultural icon" like Walder can be a predator, haredim have been forced to consider if they can "trust anyone", Heilbronn told AFP.
'I was a child'
The ultra-Orthodox community makes up roughly 12 percent of Israel's 9.3 million population.
Haredim are not a homogeneous group, but each professes to live in strict accordance with Jewish law, often creating tension with mainstream Israeli society.
The most recent misconduct revelations emerged this month, when the Yediot Ahronot newspaper published claims a prominent ultra-Orthodox radio host had assaulted three women, including a minor.
Adiel Bar Shaul, a 43-year-old ultra-Orthodox from the mainly haredi city of Bnei Brak near Tel Aviv, recounted his experience of being abused as a child shortly after that report came out.
Shaul said he was raped several times when he was 10 by a close family acquaintance, who was also ultra-Orthodox.
The first rape happened when Shaul's family hosted his attacker on Shabbat, a sacred period of rest and worship for haredim, he told AFP.
"He started giving me stickers. Then, in exchange for them, to put my hand on his pants," said Shaul, who kept silent for most of his life before going public years ago.
"I was a child. I did not understand… I was alone, I was extremely ashamed and I felt guilty," said Shaul, who now works with sexual assault victims.
500 calls a month
Josiane Paris, a volunteer at Jerusalem's Tahel Crisis Center, which supports children and women in religious Jewish communities, said victims often stay silent.
"They are afraid of what people and neighbors at the school or synagogue will say," she told AFP.
When the centre opened its crisis line three decades ago to help victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and rape, calls were relatively infrequent.
"Today we receive about 500 calls a month," said Paris — evidence the #MeToo movement was impacting Israel's religious communities.
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Wednesday, January 12, 2022
NYPD Arrest Man Charged With Hate Crime For Attacking 2 Jewish Men In Brooklyn
The New York City Police arrested a man who attacked two Jewish men in Brooklyn on December 26 last year, The Times of Israel reported on Wednesday. According to the media report, the Hate Crime Task Force (HCTF) said it identified the accused as Suleiman Othman, 27, and a resident of Staten Island. The HCTF confirmed that the accused was charged with assault as a hate crime and third-degree aggravated harassment. Notably, in New York, both the charges come under the category of hate crimes. In a statement released, the HCTF said that the 27-year-old man attacked two of the Jewish men who were standing outside a shoe shop on December 26.
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Tuesday, January 11, 2022
Interview Resurfaces of Late Sidney Poitier Saying Jewish Coworker Taught Him to Read
The death of Bahamian-American trailblazing actor and director Sidney Poitier at the age of 94, announced Friday, has inspired an outpouring of tributes and remembrances, with "CBS Sunday Morning" sharing a 2013 interview in which the Academy Award winner revealed that a former Jewish coworker taught him how to read English.
The youngest of seven children, Poitier was born three months early on Feb. 20, 1927, in Miami, where his Bahamian parents travelled to sell tomatoes. He lived in the Bahamas until age of 15, when his parents sent him back to Miami to live with his older brother.
He left for New York at age 16 and tried to launch an acting career, though he had only two years of schooling and was unable to read well. However, a Jewish waiter at a restaurant where Poitier worked washing dishes devoted time to helping him, he told "CBS Sunday Morning" anchor Lesley Stahl.
Poitier recalled: "One of the waiters, a Jewish guy, an elderly man, had a newspaper and walked over to me and said, 'What's new in the paper?' And I looked up at this man and said to him, 'I can't tell you, I can't read very well.' He says, 'Let me ask you something, would you like me to read with you?' And I said to him, 'Yes, if you'd like.'"
"Every night, the place is closed, everyone's gone, and he sat there with me, week after week after week," Poitier added. "I learned a lot, a lot. And then things began to happen."
In 1992, when Poitier was given the Life Achievement Award by the American Film Institute, he told the audience, "I must also pay thanks to an elderly Jewish waiter who took time to help a young Black dishwasher learn to read. I cannot tell you his name. I never knew it. But I read pretty good now."
Poitier started off his career with an acting apprenticeship at The American Negro Theater, before going on to star on Broadway in "Anna Lucasta" in 1948. Two years later, in 1950, he landed his first movie role in "No Way Out," playing a doctor who faced racism from a prisoner played by Richard Widmark.
The prolific actor starred in more than 50 films. In 1959, he became the first Black man nominated for an Oscar as best actor for his role as an escaped convict in "The Defiant Ones," also starring Tony Curtis. He was the first Black actor to kiss a white woman in the 1965 film "A Patch of Blue," and when he won the Oscar for best actor in 1964 for his role in "Lillies of the Field," he was the first Black actor to do so and remained the only one until 2002, "CBS Sunday Morning" reported.
In 1967, he starred in three films at a time when segregation was enforced in many parts of the United States, Reuters noted. In "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," starring Katherine Hepburn, he played a Black man with a white fiancée, and "In the Heat of the Night," he took on the role of a Black police detective wrongfully accused of murder while investigating the crime. That same year, he played a teacher in "To Sir, With Love." Other notable films included "The Blackboard Jungle" and "A Raisin in the Sun," which Poitier additionally performed on Broadway.
He directed nine films, including "Uptown Saturday Night" in 1974 with co-directors Harry Belafonte and Bill Cosby, and 1980's "Stir Crazy" with Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder.
Poitier was knighted by Britain's Queen Elizabeth II in 1974 and served as the Bahamian ambassador to Japan and UNESCO. He was on Walt Disney Co.'s board of directors from 1994 to 2003, and published a number of books, including three autobiographies. In 2009, then-President Barack Obama awarded Poitier with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Poitier is survived by his second wife, actress Joanna Shimkus, and six daughters.
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Monday, January 10, 2022
Jewish Community Leader Urges Action Against Antisemitism as Germany Considers Vaccine Mandate
The head of the Jewish community in Germany on Monday expressed support for a general vaccine mandate to contain COVID-19, but warned that compulsory inoculation may spur a stronger wave of antisemitism connected to the pandemic.
"COVID-19 impacts people's life and their health, but it has also led to dangerous social developments," said Josef Schuster, an internal medicine physician and president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany. "The anti-vaccine and corona denial movement is radicalizing to a frightening degree. It can't be ruled out that the introduction of a general vaccine mandate will fuel even stronger protests and violence."
"However, protection of the health of the general public carries a heavier weight. Therefore, we consider a general vaccine mandate to be unavoidable," Schuster remarked.
As controversial steps are being discussed to increase the number of vaccinated adults in Germany, Schuster urged lawmakers to exhaust their means and take decisive action against recent antisemitic incidents flaring up at demonstrations against vaccine mandates.
"Just as a vaccine mandate will need to be accompanied by more measures to get the pandemic under control, a longer-term political commitment will also be needed to smooth out the social upheavals," Schuster said.
Schuster's comments come as new German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Friday that the contentious plan to introduce a vaccine mandate was still necessary to bolster the nation's inoculation rate and curb the pandemic. Back in November, Scholz had suggested that a general vaccine mandate would take effect this year, in February or early March.
"We need to continue to push forward with more vaccine and booster jabs. The best protection against the Omicron variant is a booster shot," Scholz said.
However, given the controversy over a general vaccine mandate among some in Germany's political echelon, it may take months for lawmakers to debate the measure.
Hate crimes against Jews have risen in Germany since the outbreak of COVID-19, much of it fueled by antisemitic conspiracy theories.
At some rallies against the government's coronavirus response, anti-vaccine protesters have worn yellow Jewish star, or "Judenstern," badges and other symbols associated with the Nazi era. Demonstrations organized by the group "Querdenken" — German for "lateral thinking" — have regularly featured far-right symbols and visual themes comparing social distancing to the Nazi Holocaust.
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Friday, January 07, 2022
Jewish Community in Munich Unnerved by Recent Antisemitic Incidents
Two antisemitic incidents this week in the German city of Munich have alarmed Jewish leaders and local politicians, leading to calls from one senior official for the public to show greater "vigilance."
On Wednesday morning, construction workers building a new Jewish elderly care home in the city's upscale Bogenhausen district arrived at the building site to find it vandalized with swastikas and other Nazi and white supremacist symbols. A police spokesperson told local media outlets that because the building site did not contain any visual indications of a connection to the Jewish community, the vandals would have been independently aware of this fact. Their likely intention was "to leave a threat for the future residents with the graffiti," the spokesperson said.
Later on Wednesday evening, a 41-year-old man was arrested in the immediate aftermath of a demonstration against the German government's COVID-19 policies. The man was said to have been part of a group of 20 people who were headed in the direction of Munich's Jewish Community Center.
According to the Suddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) newspaper, eyewitnesses identified one of the group as Karl-Heinz Statzberger, a convicted neo-Nazi terrorist who served a four-year prison sentence for his part in planning an attempted bombing of the Jewish Community Center in 2003. Statzberger is now reported to be active in the Bavaria branch of "The Third Way," a neo-Nazi organization which has been pushed its message at demonstrations and rallies against the pandemic public health measures. "We distribute leaflets and are simply part of the huge flow," one of the group's supporters wrote in a social media post this week. "We'll be there, regardless of whether it suits everyone or not. The resistance is growing! Expect us!"
Both incidents have boosted anxiety within Munich's Jewish community. "Every incident of this kind increases the insecurity within the Jewish community even further," the veteran head of the community, Charlotte Knobloch, told SZ.
Ludwig Spaenle, the state official in Bavaria tasked with combating antisemitism, told broadcaster BR24 that the incidents underlined the need for a "high level of vigilance" in society at large.
Addressing the protestors who attend the COVID-19 rallies directly, Spaenle encouraged them to distance themselves from the far right. "You have to know who you are taking to the streets with," he said.
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Thursday, January 06, 2022
Artifact from World War II Jewish hideout goes on display in Amsterdam
A round mantelpiece clock—the only remaining item from a Jewish hideout during World War II—will go on display with other Holocaust artifacts at Amsterdam's Dutch Resistance Museum later this year, reported The Guardian.
Along with family photographs, documents and a book of poetry that will be exhibited, the clock belonged to the family of Marianne ("Janny" or "Jannie") Brandes-Brilleslijper, a Holocaust survivor and Nazi resistance fighter who died in 2003.
After the Nazis invaded the Netherlands, Brandes-Brilleslijper refused to get a Jewish ID card and started working for the resistance by helping to spread secret messages, and move illegal packages and documents.
When the situation became direr for Jews, she and her husband, as well as their two children, moved to the High Nest villa in the woods outside Amsterdam. She lived there with her parents, her sister Lien's family, other Jewish people and resistance fighters. Seventeen people reportedly lived in the hideout, which was written about in Roxane van Iperen's bestselling novel that was published in English as The Sisters of Auschwitz.
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Wednesday, January 05, 2022
COVID-19 a deadly Jewish plot, tech boss tells associates, Utah governor
The founder and chairman of a major property management software firm told a coterie of associates, including the governor of Utah, that COVID was a deadly Jewish plot.
"I believe there is a sadistic effort underway to euthanize the American people," David Bateman, the founder of Entrata, said in the email, first reported Tuesday by Fox 13, a Salt Lake City TV station. The email, subject-lined "Genocide," suggested that COVID-19 and its vaccines are the work of Jews, and that both are "attacking the reproductive systems of women" and eroding natural immunity.
"I believe the Jews are behind this," Bateman wrote in the email sent to leaders in Utah's tech and political sectors, including Gov. Spencer Cox and Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith. Bateman is active in Utah GOP circles.
"For 300 years the Jews have been trying to infiltrate the Catholic Church and place a Jew covertly at the top," Bateman wrote. "It happened in 2013 with Pope Francis. I believe the pandemic and systematic extermination of billions of people will lead to an effort to consolidate all the countries in the world under a single flag with totalitarian rule. I know, it sounds bonkers. No one is reporting on it, but the Hasidic Jews in the US instituted a law for their people that they are not to be vaccinated for any reason."
"For 300 years the Jews have been trying to infiltrate the Catholic Church and place a Jew covertly at the top," Bateman wrote. "It happened in 2013 with Pope Francis. I believe the pandemic and systematic extermination of billions of people will lead to an effort to consolidate all the countries in the world under a single flag with totalitarian rule. I know, it sounds bonkers. No one is reporting on it, but the Hasidic Jews in the US instituted a law for their people that they are not to be vaccinated for any reason."
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Tuesday, January 04, 2022
Why ‘It Could Happen Here’
In the 1930s, as Nazi Germany was gearing up for war against its European neighbors and starting to implement the antisemitic Nuremberg Laws that presaged the Holocaust, the brilliant American author Sinclair Lewis ironically titled his 1935 novel about the threat of unhinged despotism, "It Can't Happen Here."
That title reflects something all Americans have been told and taught, and even convinced ourselves about the American experience. In our history books, our civics lessons, our folklore, and our outlook — as a nation exporting democracy around the world while fighting the threats of fascism and communism — America was supposed to be different. This was a true democracy, a nation with flaws, but one that strove to be more perfect — a land of hope and freedom that welcomed all people to its shores and gave all citizens an equal voice.
America was a haven for immigrants, regardless of one's origins. It was a melting pot, or, perhaps, a salad bowl. It was a great experiment in democracy, where our Constitutional freedoms and democratic institutions — while not always living up to their promise — nonetheless stood out as a beacon for other nations to emulate. Naked authoritarianism, vicious demagoguery, brutal antisemitism — those things just couldn't happen here.
Even today, nobody wants to believe that extremism, illiberalism, and violence inspired by different variants of the virus of intolerance could unfold on our shores.
But as I write in my new book, "It Could Happen Here," the title of which was inspired by, and is the inverse of Sinclair Lewis' ironic formulation, our social fabric is weakening, and our communities are buckling under the pressure from hate seemingly generated on all sides.
Our society is becoming more vulnerable by the day to hate on both the left and the right. Beset by a pandemic that has devastated communities, unsettled everyday life, and cost millions of jobs, people are on edge, and ever more likely to blame the "other" for deepening economic inequality, excessive levels of personal debt, and other stressors.
From my vantage point as the CEO of one of the Nation's oldest anti-hate organizations, the trends we're seeing in America are alarming. Hate is on the rise everywhere — much more than many people realize.
Between 2015 and 2018, the US saw a doubling of antisemitic incidents.
In 2019, the ADL logged more antisemitic incidents than we had tracked in any year in the past four decades. And one need look no further than the attacks in Pittsburgh, Poway, Jersey City, and Monsey, and the brazen assaults of Jews in the streets in May 2021 during the Israel-Gaza conflict, for examples of how antisemitic ideologies and rhetoric that are spread online have contributed to acts of real-world intimidation and outright violence.
We know that antisemitism is the proverbial canary in the coal mine — that a good barometer of the level of tolerance in any given society is to look at how accepting that country is to its Jewish people and other minorities. So we should not be surprised by the fact that it's not just antisemitism, but hatred of all kinds – including anti-Black racism, anti-Asian hate, anti-Latino xenophobia, homophobia, anti-Muslim bias, and more — that's exploded in recent years. In 2019, the US saw a reported 7,314 hate crimes, i.e. more than 20 each day. In 2020, hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders skyrocketed by almost 150 percent in large urban areas.
The problem is amplified and expanded thanks to social media. A 2021 ADL survey found that 41 percent of Americans had experienced online harassment, and that members of marginalized communities reported increased harassment as well. Facebook is not only the largest social media platform on the planet, but the service where users are far more likely to be harassed in comparison to other services. TikTok has also skyrocketed in popularity, particularly among young people, but the platform has experienced the problems of other platforms, including an abundance of bigotry and bullying.
And in recent years, we've seen democratic norms shattered again and again, particularly by right-wing authoritarians who recklessly have normalized a toxic brand of conspiratorial extremism. The attempted January 6 insurrection spurred by accusations of a stolen election and encouraged by the rhetoric of President Trump himself. It was also aided and abetted by conservative media outlets and freshman members of Congress repeating antisemitic QAnon conspiracies and the big lie about the 2020 election, or trumpeting hate through efforts like the short-lived America First Caucus calling for "common respect for uniquely Anglo-Saxon political traditions." The recent efforts to sanitize the violence on January 6 literally have no parallel in modern times, but evoke the legacy of laundering the crimes of Confederates after the Civil War.
While there is no precise parallel on the other side of the political spectrum, we should not underestimate the danger of an over-correction driven by the far-left flank of the progressive movement. There are real forces that repel ordinary Americans, but seem to be gaining steam. And yet the rise of cancel culture, the shrinking spaces for open discourse, the tolerance toward certain types of intolerance, and the determined efforts to undermine institutions like academia, law enforcement, and other bodies bodes ill for our society, which is bound together by norms and values.
While no one is suggesting that America is heading down the path toward a Nazi Germany or Cultural Revolution, there are abundant warning lights. Indeed, if social instability should deepen, if hateful attitudes become even more pervasive and entrenched, if traditional institutional protections are further eroded, and a much shrewder demagogue rises to power, our country's great democratic experiment could become imperiled.
I wrote "It Could Happen Here" because we must confront this frightening but plausible scenario. As the grandson of a Holocaust survivor and the husband of a political refugee, I know we can't afford to let it happen. And hopefully, we won't. Still, I'm scared to death of what the future might hold for the Jewish people and other minorities if present trends persist.
But it is not too late. We can confront hatred head-on, and tear it out at the roots. The good news is that decent upstanding Americans far outnumber the haters and insurgents. The even better news is that we have the tools to fight extremism and hate, and push these plagues back to the sewer where they belong.
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Monday, January 03, 2022
Hasidic Jewish man bashed in head on Brooklyn street in possible hate crime
A 26-year-old Hasidic Jew was attacked on a Brooklyn street and suffered a serious head gash in what could be the first hate crime of the year, police said Monday.
The victim was attacked by two men on Bartlett St. near Throop Ave. in Williamsburg about 10:30 p.m. Sunday, cops said.
The victim, upon realizing he was being followed, started to run. He fell down, suffering cuts on his knees and face, and was then hit in the head with an unknown object.
His attackers got away in a car with possible New Jersey plates, authorities said.
The victim went to an urgent care center, where nine staples were needed to close his head wound.
Because the victim was wearing traditional Hasidic garb, cops are probing the incident as a possible hate crime.
Hate crimes in the city soared last year. Through Dec. 26, bias crimes were up 93% for the year, with 504 incidents compared to 261 for the same timeframe in 2020.
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