Israel disturbed by Polish treatment of anti-racism activist

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Foreign Ministry says it's concerned about online attacks prompted by a government official on anti-racism activist in Poland after he gave a presentation in Jerusalem, describing examples of anti-Semitic rhetoric since the country passed the Holocaust law. Israel disturbed by Polish treatment of anti-racism activist : https://ift.tt/2E3jVGm

Macron attends funeral of slain Holocaust survivor

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French president pays respects to 85-year-old Mireille Knoll, who was stabbed 11 times in her home in the capital before her killer burnt her apartment; 'He murdered an innocent and defenseless woman purely because she was Jewish', says Macron, as march held in protest against anti-Semitism. Macron attends funeral of slain Holocaust survivor : https://ift.tt/2GDdH5q

Anti-Semitic slaying of 85-year-old prompts outcry in France

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Son of Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll, who was stabbed 11 times in her apartment before it was set on fire, says he 'cried all the tears in my body' when he heard the news. Anti-Semitic slaying of 85-year-old prompts outcry in France : https://ift.tt/2GiydoF

NY Gov. Cuomo at Harlem church: Jews have no rhythm

Governor Andrew Cuomo has joked during a speech at a predominantly black New York City church that Jews lack rhythm when dancing.

The Democrat seeking a third term in office made the awkward crack Sunday at Mount Neboh Baptist Church in Harlem.

Cuomo with President Reuven Rivlin during a visit to Israel in 2014 (Photo: AP)

Noting he was Catholic, Cuomo said Catholics and Baptists share many of the same beliefs but Catholics "do it without the rhythm."

He added: "But we try. We are not as without rhythm as our Jewish brothers and sisters."

Cuomo then singled out Hank Sheinkopf, a Jewish Democratic political consultant who was moving to the music in a front pew. Cuomo referred to Sheinkopf's movements as "ugly."

A Cuomo spokeswoman later told the New York Post the governor was poking fun at himself and a longtime friend.

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2 charged with anti-Semitic murder of French Holocaust survivor

Two people have been charged with the murder of an 85-year-old French Jewish Holocaust survivor, who was stabbed repeatedly and whose body was then set alight in a crime being treated as anti-Semitic, a judicial source said Tuesday.

Mireille Knoll, who escaped a mass roundup of Jews in Paris during World War II, was found dead in her apartment in eastern Paris on Friday by firefighters called to extinguish a blaze.

An autopsy showed she had been stabbed 11 times before the apartment was set on fire.

Mireille Knoll's murder has shocked the local Jewish community

On Monday, investigators said they believed the crime was related to her religion after initially saying they were “not excluding any hypothesis.”

One of the suspects is a Muslim neighbor in his twenties whom she knew well and who had visited her that day, Knoll’s son, who did not wish to be named, told AFP.

A police source said the suspect had convictions for rape and sexual assault.

The second suspect, aged 21, has a history of violent robbery.

He was in the apartment building on the day of Knoll’s death and his name was given to police by the first suspect, a police source said.

An autopsy showed Knoll had been stabbed 11 times before the apartment was set on fire (Photo: AFP)

The death of the woman described by neighbors as very quiet has shocked the Jewish community, coming a year after an Orthodox Jewish woman in her sixties was beaten and thrown out of the window of her Paris flat by a neighbor shouting “Allahu Akhbar” (God is greatest).

The murder reignited the debate over anti-Semitism in working-class districts of France, where Jews have been targeted in several jihadist attacks in recent years.

Reacting on Twitter, President Emmanuel Macron condemned the “dreadful” killing and reiterated his determination in fighting anti-Semitism.

Knoll managed to avoid the notorious 1942 roundup of more than 13,000 Jews in Paris by fleeing with her mother to Portugal when she was 10.

After the war she returned to the French capital and married a Holocaust survivor, who died in the early 2000s.

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French police investigate possible anti-Semitic killing in Paris

PARIS - French police are investigating whether the death of an elderly Jewish woman stabbed and burnt to death in her Paris apartment last week was an anti-Semitic murder, a judicial source said on Monday.

  Mirelle Knoll, an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor, was found dead on Friday inside the blackened remains of her apartment, which police suspect was set ablaze after she was attacked. Two suspects have been detained but have not yet been charged.

Mirelle Knoll

The investigation by the Paris prosecutor's office is trying to establish whether it was a killing "motivated by the real or supposed adherence to a religion," the source said. France's chief rabbi described Knoll's death as a "horror." Jewish leaders have called for a march in her memory. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who is visiting Israel, said the theory that Knoll's death was anti-Semitic was plausible.

"It reminds us of the fundamental and permanent side of this battle (against anti-Semitism)," he said, speaking alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after visiting the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum.

Prime Minister Netanyahu, right, meets with French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian (Photo: Koby Gideon/GPO)

As a child in Paris, Knoll managed to evade the round-up of Jews during World War Two, Paris lawmaker Meyer Habib said. Thousands of Jews were brought to the Velodrome d'Hiver cycling track in 1942 and sent on to Nazi death camps. France is home to western Europe's biggest Jewish population and many in the 400,000-strong community have complained for years of a rise in anti-Semitic hate crimes. In 2015, vandals desecrated 250 tombstones in a Jewish cemetery in eastern France days after four Jews were killed in an attack on a kosher grocery in Paris. Knoll's killing took place a year to the day after the murder of Sarah Halimi-Attal, a 65-year-old whose death prosecutors believe was anti-Semitic. "The horror of the crime and the violence of the executioners are identical and reflect the negation of the human face," Chief Rabbi Haim Korsia said in a tweet.

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Elderly Parisian Holocaust survivor found stabbed in burnt home

Paris police attempted to ascertained Sunday who stabbed an elderly Jewish woman to death in her apartment in the French capital's 11th arrondissement and then set fire to the property.

  The elderly woman, 85-year-old Mireille K., was found dead in her home Friday evening by firefighters at around 6:30pm local time who were called in to put out a fire.

The woman's body was found to have been riddled with 11 stab wounds, and it was clear to the firefighters that the fire was the result of arson, with the unknown arsonist setting fire to five different points in her apartment.

File photo. Anti-Jewish graffiti in France

Suicide was ruled out by police, and the Parisian Jewish community fears the murder may have been motivated by anti-Semitism. The woman previously complained to authorities that one of her neighbors threatened to burn her, according to reports. French media also said the woman was a Holocaust survivor and that police have arrested a suspect, whose identity was not released to the public. A worrying trend of rising anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic incidents have been reported in Europe in general and France in particular. A kosher supermarket was put to the flame in January of this year, three years after the terror attack at the city's Hypercacher supermarket that claimed the life of four Jewish people, carried out by an Islamic State-inspired terrorist. It was reported in September of last year that a Jewish family was attacked in their home by unknown assailants. They tied the family up and made their getaway with a significant amount of property. In April of last year, another Jewish woman was killed in France, when she was pushed out of a third floor window by her Muslim neighbor.

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Anti-Semitic caricature appears in Belgian textbook

A parent in Bruges, Belgium's seventh largest city, reported to the International Legal Forum NGO that a school textbook for 15 year olds contained an anti-Semitic caricature. The geography textbook was approved by the Belgian Education Ministry and was used throughout the Western European country.

  The chapter in which the caricature appeared dealt with purported inequality in water distribution between Israelis and Palestinians residing in the West Bank. The caricature showed an overweight Jew with traditional Jewish payos (or sidelocks) asleep in a bathtub filled with water, contrasted with an old Palestinian woman with an empty water bucket.

The cartoon—which may have come from the international human rights group itself—carried a caption that read, "Amnesty International: Israel is denying Palestinians access to adequate water … While settlers enjoy lush lawns and swimming pools!"

The Belgian caricature created controversy, allegations of anti-Semitism

Director of the International Legal Forum attorney Yifa Segal, who is deeply involved in the international struggle against the worldwide Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, was astounded by a copy of the textbook she obtained and consequently sent a scathing letter to the Belgian education minister demanding the anti-Semitic caricature be removed summarily. News of the caricature broke merely a week after an expansive Foreign Affairs Ministry conference on combating anti-Semitism concluded. "It could scarcely be believed that in 2018 Belgium caricatures exist that scream anti-Semitism so bluntly," Segal said. "This act is not only immoral but also illegal and we demand the caricature be summarily expunged."

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Holocaust scholar who blasted FDR policy dead at 89

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David S. Wyman, whose seminal work 'The Abandonment of the Jews' was a bestseller that scathingly criticized President Franklin Roosevelt's inaction in the Holocaust, dies at 89; Wyman drew upon private, government records, contemporary media accounts to blame religious organizations, mainstream media, anti-Jewish sentiment among American public for inaction; Roosevelt more concerned with angering anti-Semites than helping Jews, Wyman alleged. Holocaust scholar who blasted FDR policy dead at 89 : http://ift.tt/2peYnBl

UK Haredi seminary blasted for censoring textbooks

A Haredi seminary for girls in the United Kingdom has caused outrage after it redacted references to homosexuality and abortions from its textbooks, and censored imagery of women on the grounds that it was merely "shielding the girls from sexual content."

 

In Israel, Haredi textbooks are produced independently and their content is therefore supervised from the outset to meet the sector's standards. In England, however, the same textbooks are used across the country's school system, without deference to sectorial preferences.

Cleavage, legs were covered with a black marker by the Haredi girls' school (Photo: humanism.org.uk)

 British media, consequently, raised concern over the censorship on display in textbooks used by the Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls' School in Stamford Hill, Hackney. Entire paragraphs were erased from textbooks with a black marker, according to reports and photos disseminated online, while some photos were covered up and others women were "dressed" using the same black marker.

A history textbook in the seminary also censored portions discussing Nazi attitudes towards homosexuals as well as the persecution and discriminatory policies directed against them. References to women drinking alcohol in public or driving alongside men—part of a chapter called "Understanding the modern world" used for the UK's General Certificate of Secondary Education exams—were also censored.

Segments dealing with the United States Supreme Court's ruling on abortions were also stricken, as was a photo of Ginger Rogers dancing with Fred Astaire.

Fight for the right to abortion at the US Supreme Court was redacted (Photo: humanism.org.uk)

The British Guardian further reported that in a chapter on women's status in modern American society, references to women smoking, drinking alcohol, or driving with men were censored. The Independent, meanwhile, reported that "concerned members of the community" made the textbooks public through the Humanists UK non-governmental organization, which described the ultra-Orthodox seminar as "censorious, homophobic and misogynistic." However, the school—serving Haredi families in north London's Hackney borough—was rated by the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) as "good," which raised the ire of the British humanist organization even further. Jay Harman, manager of education campaigns Humanists UK, said, "It is simply not acceptable for a state-funded school to take such a censorious, homophobic and misogynistic approach to education. Once again, the consequences of giving religion free reign over our education system are brought into sharp focus."

(Photo: humanism.org.uk)

"Children deserve so much better than this, so we hope Ofsted will now investigate and take action immediately," Harman concluded.

The latest incident was not the first time the school found itself facing allegations of censorship. News 18 reported that in 2014, questions regarding evolution were censored on a test given to the school's pupils, thereby preventing them from answering the questions—part of state-mandated exams.

Officials at the Yesodey Hatorah, for their part, were nonplussed by the allegations. A message put out by a school spokesperson said, "Old news. It's well known we redact our textbooks, as has been reported numerous times and documented by all relevant authorities.

"This policy has nothing to do homophobia or misogyny, but is to protect our girls from sexualization in line with our parents' wishes and religious beliefs," he said.

Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls' School said the story was 'old news' (Photo: Google Maps)

Ofsted, the agency responsible for supervising British schools, stated that, "Ofsted is clear that all schools have a duty to actively promote fundamental British values. This includes mutual respect and tolerance of those who hold values different from their own. "We will not hesitate to act where we have concerns that schools are failing to uphold these values, and to ensure that pupils are properly prepared for life in modern Britain. Inspectors have recently visited the school and will publish their findings in due course." A source with knowledge of the events told the Jewish Chronicle that supervisors pored over the school's textbooks exhaustively.

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Hundreds of Poles gather to express solidarity with Jews

Hundreds of Poles have gathered in Warsaw Sunday to express their solidarity with Jews who perished in the Holocaust, were expelled from Poland 50 years ago or feel targeted by a new wave of anti-Semitism today.

 

Speakers at the demonstration denounced policies of the current Polish government that have led to a dispute with Israel and sparked a wave of anti-Semitic rhetoric.

The Warsaw solidarity rally decried the Polish government's 'radical, inappropriate' policies (Photo: AP)

 

They gathered late Sunday afternoon at the Gdanski train station, the departure point for thousands of Poles of Jewish descent who were forced to leave the country in a March 1968 purge by the communist regime of the time.

(Photo: AP)

The rally was part of a larger initiative by Polish civic groups that also published an open letter describing the government policies as "radical and inappropriate."

(Photo: AP)

 

In Macedonia, meanwhile, thousands of people marched in the country's south Sunday to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the deportation and eventual death of almost the entirety of the country's Jewish population.

The ceremony in Bitola, Macedonia, commemorating the 75th anniversary of Jews' deportation from there (Photo: AP)

Public officials, civic group representatives and relatives of former Macedonian Jews came from Israel, Latin America and the United States to attend the event in the town of Bitola.

(Photo: AP)

(Photo: AP)

Macedonia was a province of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia when it was occupied by Germany's Bulgarian allies during World War II. More than 7,000 Jews from the cities of Skopje, Bitola and Stip were confined to ghettos in March 1943 before being deported to the Nazi death camp in German-occupied Treblinka, Poland. Ninety-eight percent of Macedonia's Jews perished there.

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Icing on an anti-Semitic cake?

Food companies in Russia and Ukraine have decided separately to name a new cake and a new ice cream “Poor Jew.”

  One company, located in the Ukrainian district of Donetsk, recently introduced the "Poor Jew" cake into its range, selling it in supermarkets for 300 Ukrainian hryvnia (NIS 38).

The company claimed the name is intended to show Jews' ability to make good cakes even at cheap costs. Regardless, the cake looks rich, with layers of cream and poppy seeds.

The 'Poor Jew' ice cream

The company also rejected the claims the name of the products was anti-Semitic and sought to buttress the argument by highlighting that another cake called “Not Poor Jew” will soon be available on the shelves. Eduard Dolinsky, one of the leaders of the Jewish community in Ukraine, argued that "in such a time, when anti-Semitism is rising, it is offensive to choose that name for a cake." Alex Tenzer, an Israeli who emigrated from Ukraine, said the name of the cake was more of a gimmick than an expression of anti-Semitism. "If it weren't for that name, no one would be talking about that cake," he said. In Tatarstan, a federal subject of Russia, the Slavitsa company—seemingly unconnected to the Ukrainian cake—decided to manufacture an ice cream under the same name, "Poor Jew," with its packaging featuring the Israeli flag. An advertisement of the ice cream said it contains chocolate and peanuts and is definitely not poor in taste. Leonid Steinberg, one of the leaders of the Jewish community in Tatarstan, said the ice cream's name was racist and called on Slavitsa to stop its manufacturing and marketing. Slavitsa has previously manufactured chocolate ice cream called "Obamka," with a cartoon of an African child on the packaging. The ice cream's manufacturing was stopped following accusations the name was racist and expressed anti-American sentiments.

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‘Israel already has civil marriage under the radar’

There are 83,000 couples in Israel running a joint household, maintaining an intimate relationship and often raising children together without being joined together in holy matrimony.

The voices calling for the institutionalization of civil marriage in Israel usually come from non-Orthodox organizations and from representatives of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, who have involuntarily found themselves in the heart of the Israel’s “personal status” crisis. But now, a new force is joining the effort—and it comes, surprisingly, from the heart of the religious sector.

Illustration (Photo: Shutterstock)

The Ne’emanei Torah Va’Avodah movement is launching a PR campaign in a bid to enlist the religious-Zionist public’s support for the move. Based on a halachic opinion from Rabbanit Nechama Barash, the organization aims to encourage the Religious Zionism movement to reconsider what has been perceived as a real taboo until now.

Rabbanit Nechama Barash. 'We need to build a civil system similar to the situation in other places'

The religious people behind the move are concerned that the legal option of “common-law marriage,” which is being used by 6 percent of Jewish couples in Israel, is in fact civil marriage below the state’s radar. As this leads to halachic complexities, they would rather see the institutionalization of civil marriage in Israel as an official, recognized path.

“A normal state can’t afford a situation in which 10 to 20 percent of its citizens are unable to marry,” says Rabbi David Stav, head of the Tzohar rabbinical organization.

“A couple may be married in accordance with Jewish law, but it won’t necessarily bother to get divorced in accordance with Jewish law, and that leads to multiple cases of mamzerut (when children are born from forbidden relationships). If there was no religious marriage ceremony, there would less of a problem,” explains Rabbi Ilai Ofran.

“In addition to my religious values, my arsenal of values includes democratic values as well,” explains Rabbi Michael Avraham. “A state should let every couple live the way they see fit. Despite being a religious person, I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

“I believe an alternative path should be established for people who aren’t interested in getting married through the Rabbinate,” says Rabbi Yuval Cherlow.

Rabbi Avraham adds, “I think that, as a religious public, we must join the protest over this violation of civil rights.”

Tani Frank, head of the Religion and State Department at Ne’emanei Torah Va’Avodah, says ignorance in the religious sector regarding civil marriage stems a misunderstanding of the problem. “When a young man wearing a skullcap arrives at the Religious Council, he won’t be required to undergo a ‘clarification of Judaism.’”

In Israel, he says, there are many couples who are can’t be married under Israeli law—and that’s in itself a good enough reason to try to come up with a fundamental solution to the problem. “There are several types of groups and several problems,” he says. “There are those who are considered to have no religion, even though they actually feel Jewish and even practice different Jewish customs, but the state rejects them when they wish to convert. “There is a group of people who are Jewish according to the Halakha but whose Jewishness is questioned, including immigrants from the former Soviet Union or from Ethiopia. The other group is comprised of seculars who aren’t interested in undergoing halachic religious practices, like bride training and ritual immersion, for a wedding. And finally, men and women who are refused a divorce, agunot (women chained to their marriage) and all other people who are halachically forbidden to marry.”

Tani Frank. 'Bennett may be a product of the ignorance I'm talking about' (Photo: Noam Feiner)

Rabbanit Nechama Barash picked up the halachic gauntlet. “Let’s start with the simpler cases,” she says, “of people who define themselves as Jews but aren’t recognized as Jews by the Halakha. In other words, they have no Jewish mother according to the Orthodox criteria, and they basically have no way of getting married here. “A democracy like Israel can’t afford a situation in which hundreds of thousands of its citizens simply can’t get married. All the marriages in Israel are under the religious envelope, regardless of religion. “The Spousal Covenant is only for couples in which both partners are officially defined as having no religious affiliation. It doesn’t apply to people who are halachically forbidden to marry, like a person considered a ‘mamzer’ according to Jewish law, a divorced woman who wants to marry a Kohen, or someone with no religious affiliation who wants to marry a Jew. They have no way of getting married here. “The question is how to balance our status as a democracy with the desire to maintain traditional and Jewish values. It isn’t easy, but it’s impossible to impose a system which doesn’t serve all citizens of an entire state. We need a situation in which people come to religious marriage, like in the United States and Europe, from a place of choice. We have to build a civil system that is similar to the situation in other places with an option of civil marriage and divorce.” How can this be solved halachically?“From a halachic perspective, if one of the parties isn’t Jewish, there’s no issue of marriage according to Jewish law. The question is what happens if both partners are Jewish according to the Halakha and are interested in a civil marriage. Are they considered married according to Jewish law and will have to seek a ‘get’ (religious divorce) in case of a separation? Like in the entire Halakha, there is a dispute here, but the dominant halachic voice of the ‘poskim’ (those who rule in accordance with religious law) tends not to see civil marriage as a marriage ceremony. In other words, this isn’t a religious marriage, it has no halachic validity and there is therefore no need for a religious divorce. “On the other hand, there is a minority opinion that asserts that a couple living together and establishing a joint family unit from a financial and sociological aspect is considered married and has to get a religious divorce. I personally identify with the minority approach and believe marriage is more from the halachic aspect, but I understand that most people feel differently. So I would rather take their opinion into consideration, as it allows couples to get divorced without a ‘get’ and reduces the number of ‘mamzerim.’ At the end of the day, I also identify with the opinion that religious marriage applies only after a very detailed and specific religious ceremony.”

Rabbi David Stav, head of the Tzohar rabbinical organization (Photo: Yossi Zeliger)

According to Rabbanit Barash, in order to let the minority speak too, rabbinical courts demand a religious divorce even from couples who were married in a civil marriage. “But if the man or the woman refuse, they will dissolve the marriage without the ‘get,’” she says. “We suggested expanding the Spousal Covenant and letting every couple decide on a civil path. The thing is it won’t be called ‘marriage’ then. On the other hand, it could be a solution granting full legal rights to all couples without the need for a religious divorce if the relationship ends.” Barash stresses that the alternative civil path isn’t aimed at weakening the rabbinical establishment or sabotaging the halachic way of marriage, but rather at “giving couples a real choice to make their relationship official in a religious or civil way, whatever they decide, after all the options and their complexities are presented to them in full. “But I would gladly push some of the courts aside,” she adds. “Some of them are doing a very good job, but they aren’t making a sufficient effort to solve things in a systemic way, and it takes too much time as it is, causing a lot of anguish. I wouldn’t want to cancel the rabbinical establishment, but I would like this to encourage them to rethink the issue. I think it’s important for the entire population to have a choice, because from a moral perspective I want people to be able to marry rather than live together in a state of helplessness over starting a family. If there is a choice, the religious system will have to work to make itself more attractive.”

So how can one enlist the religious public to a battle that allegedly has nothing to do with it? According to Frank, this battle is actually more relevant than ever to people who care about Jewish identity.

“We began dealing with the common-law issue after realizing that there are many people who, unlike us, believe the state’s Jewish identity is reflected in the Rabbinate’s monopoly over marriage and divorce, and that even when there are victims and there is a democratic and moral price, it is seen as a proportional violation of rights in the name of the importance of the state’s religious identity. “We wanted to show that there are things happening that are very similar to the Shabbat situation. The public isn’t waiting for politicians and rabbis to provide options. There is an existing legal institution, which is one of Rabbi Yaacov Medan’s main motives to institutionalize civil marriage, and he talks about it in the Gavison-Medan Covenant. ‘Common-law marriage’ is a very problematic issue from a halachic perspective. There are religious couples, for example, who get married privately in a halachic marriage and no one knows who they are and what they are, and whether they even registered and where. “If there was any proper registration, we would know that these are couples who got married in a halachic marriage and have to undergo a religious divorce process. At the moment, chaos is much bigger. “I would like to tell all the opponents that there already is civil marriage under the radar. We have figures about a significant number of people who have found the way. It’s like saying, ‘We won’t allow public transportation on Shabbat,’ and then local councils offer private transportation because reality is stronger than anything.” At the end of the day, you are pinning your hopes on Bayit Yehudi MKs, who have been leaving the religion and state issues to the Haredi parties for a long time now. “That’s an important question, and there’s no clear answer,” says Tani Frank. “(Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali) Bennett, in my opinion, may be a product of this ignorance I’m talking about. In the previous term, when the Haredim were in the opposition and Bayit Yehudi had the Ministry of Religious Services, we didn’t see any improvement on this issue. But they did deal with issues on which there was less ignorance, like the conversion issue. “I can tell you that when the Spousal Covenant issue made it to a Bayit Yehudi faction meeting, they brought Prof. Shahar Lifshitz and Rabbi Medan, and in the end Rabbi Haim Druckman pounded on the table and said, ‘It won’t happen.’ Both politicians and rabbis follow the public. Every congregation rabbi knows he shouldn’t say things that don’t receive a nod from the audience. So we have to make heads nod, and then rabbis and politicians will follow along.”

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Christians emerge as key patrons for Jews moving to Israel

Israel’s founding fathers, who etched a commitment to encouraging Jewish immigration into the declaration of independence, might be surprised to find that, seven decades later, the state is relying on Christians to fulfill that promise. 

What was once a strictly Jewish-funded mission is increasingly being bankrolled by evangelical Christians. Israel’s Christian allies now fund about a third of all immigrants moving to the country, according to a tally by The Associated Press.

The figures reflect the ever tightening relationship between Israel and its evangelical Christian allies, whom Israel has come to count on for everything from political support to tourism dollars.

(Photo: AP)

“After 2000 years of oppression and persecution, today you have Christians who are helping Jews,” said Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, a group that raises money from evangelical Christians for Jewish causes. “This is an amazing thing.” Israel has long depended on diaspora Jewish communities, especially in the United States, for donations and to lobby their local governments on its behalf. But evangelical communities have become increasingly important. Israeli charities raise millions of dollars from Christians around the world, and evangelical Christians make up 13 percent of all tourists to Israel. A parliamentary caucus works with evangelical legislators around the world to foster support for Israel. Israelis can also thank white evangelicals for helping to put President Donald Trump, an ardent supporter of Israel’s nationalist government, in the White House. “Israel has no better friends, I mean that, no better friends in the world than the Christian communities around the world,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a Christian media summit in Jerusalem last year. European and American Jewish philanthropists championed immigration to Israel, known as “Aliyah,” or ascending, even before the creation of the state in 1948, by working to settle Jews in what was then Ottoman and British Palestine. In the decades after independence, the government partnered with Jewish groups to organize dramatic airlifts of Jews from troubled countries.

Christian support for the Aliyah largely began with the collapse of the Soviet Union and has grown in recent years as American Jews have redirected charitable donations to niche causes. That has forced nonprofits to expand their pool of benefactors.

 

(Photo: AP)

“We don’t see any reason why not to rely on help, including donations, from all our friends around the world, be they Jewish, Christian or others,” said Yigal Palmor, a spokesman for the Jewish Agency, a nonprofit that spearheads Jewish immigration to Israel. The Israeli Ministry of Aliyah and Immigrant Absorption, however, said it has no ties to Christian groups. Of the more than 28,000 Jews who immigrated to Israel in 2017, at least 8,500 arrived thanks to Christian donations, according to official figures and numbers provided by the Fellowship and Jerusalem’s International Christian Embassy, another prominent group that raises money from evangelicals. The Jewish Agency receives additional undisclosed funds from other Christian donors, meaning that share could be even higher. Not everyone is pleased. Some in Israel are suspicious that the evangelical embrace stems from a belief that the modern Jewish state is a precursor to the apocalypse—when Jesus will return and Jews will either accept Christianity or die. Liberal Jews, who make up the majority of the American Jewish community, bristle at the evangelicals’ ties to the political right and their support for Israel’s settlement enterprise in the West Bank, a major sticking point in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of J Street, a liberal pro-Israel group in Washington, said the Jewish community should be “wary of taking help from those who are playing with our lives to further their own religious and ideological purposes.” Evangelical Christianity is one of the fastest growing religious movements, making up more than a third of the world’s estimated 2 billion Christians. Evangelicals say their affinity for Israel stems from Christianity’s Jewish roots. Some view Israel’s establishment as fulfilling biblical prophecy, ushering in an anticipated Messianic age. Jews also believe in a future Messianic age, but do not believe Jesus is the Messiah.

Rabbi Eckstein and Immigration Minister Landver welcome new immigrants from Ukraine in 2014

“It’s a connection. It’s a DNA that goes back to Sunday school, to their very being. It’s a love affair, it’s a romance with a nation that is connected to heaven and earth,” said Mike Evans, an evangelical Christian who sits on Trump’s evangelical faith advisory board. In recent years, suspicions have diminished in Israel, thanks in part to the steady flow of donations as well as evangelical representatives playing down talk of the end of days. They say it is not a central tenet for most of the world’s evangelicals or what makes them love Israel. Johnnie Moore, the faith board’s spokesman, said the skepticism over evangelical support was “ignorant” and “offensive.” The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews says it gave $188 million to the Jewish Agency over the course of a two decade-long partnership, with Eckstein even sitting on the agency’s executive board. But after disagreements over how to publicize the Fellowship’s support, the two had a falling out and the Fellowship struck out on its own in 2014. Its own Aliyah project has since ferried thousands of Jews to Israel from 27 countries, providing them with financial assistance beyond that extended by the state, as well as vocational training and assistance with local bureaucracy. The Fellowship said it has spent nearly $20 million on Aliyah since 2014. Eckstein said the organization believed Jewish-funded groups were not doing enough, particularly following the conflict in Crimea. Some 200 Jews from Ukraine arrived at Israel’s Ben Gurion International airport recently wearing Fellowship t-shirts. They were greeted by a gaggle of boisterous Israeli student volunteers, waving flags and chanting Hebrew folk songs. One of the new arrivals, Serghey Lanovyy, said it made no difference to him that his Aliyah was funded by Christians. “Religion is religion. You can believe whatever you want but if people need help, they need help,” he said.

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Macron meets French Jewish group amid anti-Semitism concerns

A heated debate that has split French intellectual circles over whether to publish anti-Semitic pamphlets of a renowned writer will reach French President Emmanuel Macron when he addresses a leading Jewish group Wednesday.

 

Macron will be the guest of honor at Wednesday's annual dinner by the group CRIF, whose leaders plan to question the president about fighting anti-Semitism online and recent attacks on French Jews or Jewish sites.

 

French President Emmanuel Macron (Photo: Reuters)

Macron has pledged to fight persistent anti-Semitism in France, which has the largest Jewish community in the world after Israel and the United States. Leaders of the French Jewish community also want to take advantage of the president's presence and media coverage of Wednesday's dinner to call broader attention to a controversy that has inflamed the French publishing, cultural and academic circles for three months. Gallimard, one of the largest, most influential and most prestigious French publishing houses, said in December it planned to republish a series of three fiercely anti-Semitic lampoons written between 1937 and 1941 by noted French writer Louis-Ferdinand Celine, for the first time since World War II.

Macron with PM Netanyahu (Photo: Amos Ben-Gershom/GPO)

Born Louis Ferdinand Destouches, Celine opposed reprinting them until his death in 1961. Celine was convicted as a collaborator and declared a national disgrace in France after the war, before being granted amnesty. The writer is best known for "Journey to the End of the Night," his much-acclaimed 1932 first novel written in a groundbreaking style, still frequently studied by French high school students. A heated controversy erupted in literary circles over the publication, between those who advocate total freedom of speech and those who warn against the dangers of such texts in the context of rising anti-Semitism. Antoine Gallimard, president of the publishing house, recently decided to suspend publication, while insisting he hasn't given up on the project. Proponents of reprinting argue that the texts already are easily accessible on the internet, that it is preferable that they be published with historical comments explaining their danger, and that this would no longer hide the darkest face of the writer.

Serge and Beatte Klarsfeld (Photo: AP)

Opponents note that anti-Semitism is considered a legal offense in France. Famous Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld demanded that the publication plans be abandoned and, if not, threatened to ask a court to decide on a "preventive ban." CRIF, the Jewish group, expressed its "deepest concern," saying Celine's texts were an "unbearable incitement to anti-Semitic and racist hatred." At Wednesday's dinner, CRIF intends to distribute a booklet written by two recognized specialists of Celine's work to hundreds of guests present -- including Macron. "Celine was not a socialite anti-Semite, but a pro-Hitler anti-Semite," Marc Knobel, the CRIF's director of studies who came up with the idea of ordering the booklet, told The Associated Press. "His pamphlets are appalling, they are crime-inducing. With them, Celine expressed his execration for the Jews, called for putting the Jews to death." Macron hasn't taken a stance on the issue yet. But Frederic Potier, head of a government racism and anti-Semitism watchdog, met Antoine Gallimard and asked him for "guarantees" on the historical quality of the edition being prepared. The latest official figures show that anti-Semitic violence increased by 26 percent last year in France and that criminal damage to Jewish places of worship and burials increased by 22 percent. Two attacks were particularly deadly. In 2012, three children and a teacher from a Jewish school were killed by Islamic extremist Mohammed Merah in Toulouse. In 2015, four customers of a Paris kosher supermarket were killed by another Islamic extremist, Amedy Coulibaly.

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New Yorkers complain of matzah bakery smoke suffocation

Several dozen residents of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, are demonstrating this week against the Satmar community and its Matzah factory, which they say is causing severe air pollution that harms their health and quality of life.

 

With Passover only three weeks away, Satmar's matzah factory is working diligently to provide the ultra-Orthodox community of Brooklyn and the surrounding area with strictly kosher matzah (hand-baked unleavened bread), but the non-Jewish residents of the neighborhood have voiced serious complaints.

The local media is covering the story and residents told local network WPIX that the plant emits what they describe as "toxic coal smoke," especially during the morning hours, and requires them to wear masks on the way to the subway. According to them, they have been complaining about this nuisance for seven years to the authorities, but they have not received any response.

Residents using masks (Photo: PIX11)

The JBN website explains that while baking the matzah, the plant burns coal and wood, which causes the heavy emission of smoke. "It smells like burnt rubber, a terrible smell," says Marino Ferreras. Being asthmatic, he says he was forced to wear a gas mask.

Another resident of the neighborhood, Rosa Ortiz, told WPIX that the smoke was harming her nine-year-old son who suffers from asthma. "The smoke wakes us up in the middle of the night, and we feel like our apartment is on fire," she says.

Matzah bakery smoke fumes, protest (Photo: PIX11)

The incident has strained relations between the ultra-Orthodox residents and their non-Jewish neighbors. The factory refused to comment, but a neighborhood resident Yidi Warberger claimed that "these demonstrators are here just to make a fuss. There's no problem here, they use only clean wood and coal."

 

File photo. Matzah baking (Photo: Moti Kimchi)

Some of the demonstrators claimed they have no interest in closing the factory, but only in ensuring that its workers "behave responsibly, like neighbors," as Andrew Rayne says, "so that we can sleep with open windows and not wake up to the apartment shrouded in smoke."

During the demonstration, one of the protesters clarified to the ultra-Orthodox residents who gathered in the area that they took no issue with the community members "It's not because of you, it's not about you, nor about the factory workers."

Residents living near the site presented PIX11 with video clips documenting the smoke emitted from the factory and the ash-filled garbage cans along the street. They also say that about a year ago, the bakery was severely damaged by a fire that broke out after a wood-burning stove that was used for the first time.

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