Hitler Youth school named after Holocaust survivor

"I am not a person who loves vengeance, but this is certainly the sweetest revenge possible against the Nazis," says 93-year-old Holocaust survivor Solomon (Sally) Perel, who has recently returned to the northern German town where he spent 3.5 years as a member of the Hitler Youth, 73 years after World War II. This time, however, he was there to attend a festive ceremony in his honor after one of the city’s schools was named after him—the Comprehensive School of Sally Perel.

 

Perel was born in the town of Peine in Lower Saxony to a Jewish family that emigrated from Russia. When the Nazis came to power and passed the Nuremberg Laws, the family's shoe store was looted and Solomon was expelled from his school. This prompted the family to move to the Polish city of Łódź in 1935.

the 93-year-old Holocaust survivor

After the German invasion of Poland, Solomon, along with his brother Yitzhak, escaped to the Soviet part of Poland, where he was placed in a Komsomol-run orphanage, while his brother decided to continue to Vilnius in Lithuania.

When the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Solomon escaped the orphanage but was eventually captured by a German army unit. But thanks to his fluency in the German language, he managed to convince his captors that his name was Josef Perjell, and that he was a German citizen living outside Germany.

Because he was still a minor, he was enrolled into the Hitler Youth boarding school in Braunschweig, a city in northern Germany, where he spent 3.5 years. He was in constant danger because he was a circumcised Jew and had to hide his real identity throughout his time there.

"I was there from the age of 16.5 until the age of 20. I lived there using a made-up name and a false identity, so no one would find out I was a Jew. In boarding school, I attended classes on racial theory and went through pre-military prep. I never showered with other students, so they wouldn't find out I was circumcised, or I showered while facing a wall or while wearing underwear. I was creative," Solomon explains.

Perel in Braunschweig

 

“Fortunately, no one ever suspected me, as had they ever suspected me, it would've ended very badly for me. Fortunately, they also never asked me during medical examinations why I was circumcised. That place symbolizes the lion's den for me. Every night I went to sleep hoping my identity would not be uncovered,” the 93 year old continues.

Toward the end of the war, Hitler ordered all the Hitler Youth members to enlist, and Solomon was drafted into the army’s infantry, where he was a bazooka operator. Fortunately for him, his unit quickly fell into the hands of the US military.

"Fortunately, I didn't manage to start fighting. And even if I had, I would not have shot at Americans," he says, adding that because he was a junior conscript soldier, he was released and not taken as a prisoner of war.

He later reunited with his brother Yitzhak and learned of his parents’ death. They could not find their sister, who fled to Russia. 

After the war ended, Solomon reclaimed his Jewish identity and briefly served as an interpreter in the Soviet Army. He immigrated to Israel in July 1948, enlisted in the newly-formed IDF, and fought in the War of Independence.

Many years later, he wrote an autobiographical book in German, which was later translated into Hebrew and published in 1991 under the title: "Ich war Hitlerjunge Salomon" ("I Was Hitler Youth Salomon").

In 1990, a film was made based on Solomon's life, titled “Europa Europa.” The film won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1991 and was nominated for the Academy Award. In 1994, a new edition of the book, titled "Europa Europa," was published in Hebrew.

Braunschweig

 

Nowadays, Solomon Perel spends his time retelling his life story all around the world, working to deepen awareness of the Holocaust. He also frequently meets with delegations brought to Israel by the Foreign Ministry. He has a wonderful sense of humor and a rare ability to charm an audience.

In early September, Solomon received an email from the principal of a school in Braunschweig, telling him it was decided to name the school after him. Over 1,000 students aged 5 to 13 attend the school.

The decision was approved by the school board and passed unanimously by the members of the city council—including the representatives of the far-right Alternative to Germany (AFD) party. 

"This is the first school in Germany named after a Jewish Hitler Youth member," Perel says.

Perel was joined at the ceremony in Braunschweig by his two granddaughters and his niece, Naomi Barkin, who also spoke on behalf of the family.

Solomon was met with a lot of love at the ceremony. When he entered the hall, the crowd stood up and cheered him on. Some students even approached him and asked to take selfies with the 93 year old.

School students ask to take a selfie with Perel

The crowd jumped to its feet again after Solomon's speech, with the standing ovation lasting for several minutes. The principal then presented Perel with a key to the school.

Solomon also visited what remains of the Hitler Youth boarding school, where he spent over three years of his life.

“Everyone dreams about something, but this is beyond anything I have ever dreamed of. It is a great honor for me,” Holocaust survivor exclaimed in his speech.

“I am very active in Germany on the subject of the Holocaust, and this is the highlight of my work. This is a victory for the will to live over evil. I fought and won the right to live—which is what the Nazis tried to deny me as a Jew," he concluded.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Hitler Youth school named after Holocaust survivor : https://ift.tt/2SDuxnE

PM, chief rabbi at odds over Pittsburgh synagogue

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that the 11 Jewish victims of the Pittsburgh shooting attack were killed in a "synagogue," taking a veiled swipe at the country's ultra-Orthodox chief rabbi, who had refused to designate the Conservative Jewish congregation as such.

The exchange exposed some of the recent strains between Israel and the more liberal Jewish Diaspora, even in the wake of the deadliest anti-Semitic attack against Jews in US history.

Flowers outside the Tree of Life synagogue (Photo: AP)

 

The shooting has drawn fierce condemnations and calls for unity among Jews in Israel and around the world. Several ultra-Orthodox Israeli newspapers, however, refrained from calling Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue a Jewish place of worship since they don't recognize non-Orthodox denominations, instead mostly referring to it as a "Jewish center."

Similarly, Chief Rabbi David Lau told a local newspaper that the shooting attack was "unforgivable" but also referred to the Conservative synagogue merely as "a place with a profound Jewish flavor."

Chief Rabbi David Lau

  

In a tweet, Netanyahu seemed to rebuff him.

"Jews were killed in a synagogue. They were killed because they are Jews. The location was chosen because it is a synagogue. We must never forget that. We are one," he wrote. Israel's ultra-Orthodox authorities maintain a strict monopoly over daily Jewish life in Israel, including oversight of weddings, divorces, conversions and burials. They often question the faith and practices of the more liberal Reform and Conservative streams of Judaism, to which most American Jews belong.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Photo: Emil Salman)

  Netanyahu's coalition government relies on the support of key ultra-Orthodox parties and he has often had to capitulate to their demands on matters of religion and state. The ultra-Orthodox establishment views other strains of Judaism as too lax and is deeply opposed to interfaith marriage and the ordination of women and gays, while American Jews have increasingly felt that they haven't been valued in Israel as equals despite their ardent backing and identification.

A government decision to scrap plans for a mixed-gender prayer area at Jerusalem's Western Wall, and insults hurled at those pushing for it, has led American Jewish leaders to warn that it could undermine their long-standing political, financial and emotional support for Israel.

The recent passing of the controversial Nation-State Law enshrining the state's Jewish character, which critics at home and abroad say has undercut the country's traditional democratic values, has also irked American Jews, who increasingly find themselves at odds with the government's nationalist, religious and pro-settlement bent.

Scene of the shooting after the attack (Photo: AFP)

 Yair Lapid, head of the centrist opposition Yesh Atid party, said the tragic shooting should serve as a reminder to "those who claim the Reform and the Conservative are not real Jews." He called on the government to restore the mixed-gender prayer site and to recognize the conversions of all strains. "The state of Israel bows its heads for their deaths, but this is not enough. Not only in their deaths are they Jews like us, but in their lives. Not only in their deaths should the government respect them, but also in their lives," Yapis said.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

PM, chief rabbi at odds over Pittsburgh synagogue : https://ift.tt/2EOXKcM

Anti-Semitic incidents were on the rise even before shooting

[unable to retrieve full-text content]

Following the deadly Tree of Life Synagogue attack, Anti-Defamation League releases data showing that recently anti-Semitic violence saw a sharp rise not only in Europe but in United States as well; online harassment aimed against Jews also on the increase. Anti-Semitic incidents were on the rise even before shooting : https://ift.tt/2qhLdED

Man who foiled Nazi nuclear plan dies aged 99

The leader of a daring World War Two raid to thwart Nazi Germany’s nuclear ambitions has died aged 99, Norwegian government officials said on Sunday.

 

Joachim Roenneberg, serving behind enemy lines in his native Norway during the German occupation, in 1943 blew up a plant producing heavy water, or D2O, a hydrogen-rich substance that was key to the later development of atomic bombs.

 

WW2 Norwegian resistance fighter Joachim Roenneberg holds up a Union flag (Photo: Reuters)

 

 

Picked by Britain’s war-time Special Operations Executive to lead the raid when he was only 23 years old, Roenneberg was the youngest member of Operation Gunnerside, which penetrated and destroyed key parts of the heavily guarded Norsk Hydro plant.

The subject of books and documentaries as well as movies and a TV drama series, the attack took place without a single shot fired. To Roenneberg’s team, however, the stakes could not have been higher. An earlier raid failed to even reach the site, with dozens of attackers captured and killed, and Gunnerside members later described their own assault as a near-suicide mission.

Parachuting onto a snow-covered mountain plateau, the small group teamed up with a handful of other commando soldiers before skiing to their destination, penetrating the plant on foot and blowing up the heavy water production line.

Describing a pivotal moment, Roenneberg later said he made a last-minute decision to cut the length of his fuse from several minutes to seconds, ensuring the explosion would take place but making it more difficult to escape.

While a manhunt ensued, the group fled hundreds of kilometers across the mountains, with Roenneberg skiing to neighboring Sweden, a neutral country in the war, two weeks later.

While historians doubt that Adolf Hitler’s Germany would have been able to produce a nuclear weapon in time to stave off defeat, they also recognize that the risks were much harder to quantify in 1943.

 

Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg (Photo: Reuters)

 

For the Gunnerside crew, this hardly mattered at the time; only much later did they learn the true purpose of the attack they were asked to carry out.

Born in 1919 in the town of Aalesund, Roenneberg fled to Britain after the German invasion of Norway in 1940, receiving military training before returning home for several missions during the war.

After the 1945 liberation he became a radio reporter but rarely spoke of his wartime achievements. Later in life he gave speeches and lectures well into his nineties, warning against the destructive force of totalitarianism.

Norway’s Prime Minister Erna Solberg on Sunday praised Roenneberg for his work both during and after the war.“He is one of our great heroes,” she told news agency NTB.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Man who foiled Nazi nuclear plan dies aged 99 : https://ift.tt/2R56LiS

Goldhar, a tale of survival

Why didn’t you leave Poland for Israel with Dr. Shor's family in 1946, and stayed in a displaced persons' camp instead? I ask Cela Goldhar. “I stayed so I could wait for my parents, I believed that my mother was looking for me,” she answers with a wry smile.

Cela Goldhar (née Armal) was eight years old when the World War Two ended for her in 1944. A beautiful Jewish girl with curls the color of Polish wheat, and eyes the color of the Polish skies. She knew how to cross herself, to say the thanksgiving Catholic prayer, and to call the Polish family with whom she hid under an assumed named “Grandma” and “Grandpa.”

Mitchell and Cela Goldhar, with Ribzinski (middle)

Her parents were a vague memory: when she was five years old, the Nazis captured her town Styri (which was one third Jewish, one third Polish and one third Ukrainian) and when she was five and a half her parents, possibly only her mother, handed her over to a 40-year-old Polish teacher, Anila Dembinski, to be smuggled out of the Ghetto to the Aryan side.

 

Anila, married with a two-year-old daughter, Barbara, hid Cela in their apartment for a number of months, until the neighbors began to suspect and snoop around. The punishment for those hiding Jews was immediate execution—for them and their entire immediate family.

Anila took Cela by overnight train to her parents Mikolai and Helena Sayovski, who raised her as their granddaughter in the town of Czortkow.

After the Red Army freed the town in 1944, local Holocaust survivors began to search for Jewish children that were hidden with Poles and Cela was found by Dr. Israel Shor.

“I saw him wandering around the house with rabbis,” recalls Cela, today a fragile woman 82 years of age.

The Shor family, who survived the Holocaust by hiding in the basement of a Polish family, took Cela in. In 1945 they moved to the large Polish city of Krakow, before moving on to the land of Israel.

Cela insisted on staying in the destroyed Poland while pining for her parents. For two years she was moved to three different orphanages and held on to the one and only prewar picture she had of herself and her parents taken in the summer of 1939. A happy, smiling, loving family. All, with the exception of Cela, were murdered during the Holocaust, in all probability at the Belzec concentration camp, to which about a half million of eastern Galicia’s Jews were sent.

Cela her parents in the summer of 1939

 

Finally, Cela says, “I gave up on waiting. I sent letters to the addresses in America that Dr. Shor left with me when we separated on his way to the land of Israel. Based on their last names, they could have been my distant relatives.”

The distant relatives agreed to adopt her, and sent her a ticket for the Polish cruise ship "Stephan Batori". The ship docked at Ellis Island at the entrance to New York harbor. Cela disembarked and met Tovi Greenberg from the adopting Canadian family.

“This was the fifth family in my mother’s 11 years of life,” says her son Mitchell Goldhar. "First her real family, then the Polish family Dembinski, after that the Sayovski Polish family and then the Shor Jewish family and finally the Jewish Canadian family Greenberg.”

Upon her arrival in Canada, Cela Armel distanced herself from Poland and everything Polish. “I did everything I could to forget,” she recalls. “I did not want to remember.” She even forgot the language, or made herself forget it.

She married Leo Goldhar and the couple had three children, a daughter, Karen, and two sons, Steven and Mitchell.

Mitch Goldhar is a wealthy Canadian entrepreneur, businessman and real estate mogul (his net worth is estimated to be about $2.4 billion), who became known in Israel when he purchased the Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer club in 2009 . Since then, his name has been popping up from time to time in the media in the context of sports business.

He recently brought the 78-year-old Barbara Ribzinski, the daughter of Anila Dembinski, to Israel in his private plane along with Pavel, one of her grandchildren.

After careful examination, Yad Vashem declared Anila Dembinski and her parents Mikolai and Helena Sayovski—all since deceased—to be Righteous Among the Nations. Barbara received the awards for them at a ceremony attended by the Canadian and Polish ambassadors, after which memorial plaques in their honor were unveiled at the boulevard of the Righteous Among the Nations in Jerusalem.

“In addition to blurry memories, we had a letter sent by Dr. Shor from Israel to my mother Cela in 1957, which had a short description of her being given to the Polish teacher in the Styri public school during the German occupation. The letter also describes her transfer to another town where the mother of the teacher lived, and her being found in 1944 by Dr. Shor himself.

"'I did not have any acquaintance with your parents,' Shor emphasized in his letter to my mother. This was the initial drive for the search,” Mitch Goldhar explained what fueled his hunt for the family that saved his mother.

How did you find Barbara?

“We began searching for the family on our own with the help of organizations and lawyers that specialize in this type of things. The breakthrough only came in 2004. We, my mother and I, went to Warsaw to the offices of the Jewish Historical Institute, armed with a fading black-and-white photo of Cela with her friends in the orphanage. There, in the department for Jewish children who were hidden with Polish families, we met an elderly woman who asked to look at the photo. Something in my mother’s face aroused memories for her. She looked at it and said, 'this is my orphanage, I was also there, here I am in the picture. I am Basha do you remember?'"

Cela remembered. Basha was her friend when the two were in the orphanage outside Warsaw. The childhood relationship was renewed: every year Cela Goldhar flew in her son’s private plane to meet with Basha in Poland. They often speak on the phone.

Despite this lead, the mystery remained unsolved until about six years ago, when Barbara’s family tree was uploaded to a Polish website.

In our meeting in Tel Aviv, she tells me, “I didn't even have a clue of what my parents and their parents did during the war. My father was arrested in the Soviet Union during the dark Stalinist years, sent to a gulag work camp, and there he died of starvation and torture. My mother died in 1956 when I was 16. She did not tell me anything about her heroic acts; her life in Communist Poland was difficult enough. I was completely thrown when the lawyer hired for the search by Mitch Goldhar called me to verify I am in fact the daughter of the saviors of the Jewish girl. My family’s past hit me like a bolt out of the blue.”

How did you respond?

 

"With happiness and pride. I am proud of the actions of my parents and grandparents, and I am happy the girl they saved has a large family and is living a long life. My family’s sacrifice was not in vain.”

It would not be remiss to note here that the provision of safe harbor to Jews is not considered by many Polish anti-Semitic groups to be an act of heroism, rather as treason to the Polish people. Often saviors hid their past out of fear of social ostracism.

In May 2016, the two families met in Barbara Ribzinski’s current town of residence Zeszow, in the southeast of Poland, along with her children and grandchildren. Barbara and Cela fell into each other’s arms. “I felt as if I suddenly found a lost sister,” Barbara relates. 

I asked her about the anti-Semitism in Poland. “In my social circle, there is no anti-Semitism,” Ribzinski says. “We do not care who is Catholic and who is Jewish—all are people, all are equal. We deeply regret what the Germans did to them in the Holocaust, and we are deeply amazed at the achievements of the Jewish State. It is unbelievable what you have done with this piece of desert.”

Her grandson, Pavel, a computer graphics professional, adds, “In my circles, we see Israel as an exceptional model of technology and knowledge. We are excited by it.”

“This is a pure and noble family,” says Mitch Goldhar. “Wonderful people, they discuss Israel with a spark in their eyes. You feel the natural warmth. Despite the language barrier that separated them, Barbara and Cela immediately clicked. Look at how they are hugging each other.”

I looked. Two elderly women falling into each other’s arms, as if it hadn't been 75 years since they played together during a time which neither of them could remember. 

In an interview with Nahum Barnea in the summer of 2011, Mitch Goldhar talked about his businesses in Canada (commercial real estate and shopping centers), about his partnership with the large retail corporation Walmart and his motivation to buy the Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer club. Since then, he expanded his real estate business and change the control structure in them, expanded his fields of investment, and succeeded beyond expectations—his personal wealth almost doubled.

You serve as an active chairman of a real estate fund that has hundreds of shopping centers across Canada, valued at $9.5 bilion, and it is expanding to additional centers. Does this mean you are not concerned by online sales?

“I'm following the development of online commerce with great interest. I'm not ignoring it, nor am I burying my head in the sand. However, as of now, and for the near future, Canadian consumers like to shop at shopping centers. We have 98 percent occupancy, also due to more than 100 Walmart stores. As for the future, physical retails space, the area of stores in shopping centers, will shrink. That is clear.”

From a business perspective, Goldhar assures, this will also have its advantages: former retail space will be converted into offices and residences. The location of our shopping centers, he explains, is excellent: exclusive residential towers will be built on the huge parking lots that are characteristic of shopping centers. The real estate mix is already changing, according to him, but at a pace “much less dramatic than reported in the media.”

Israelis, as you surely saw yourself, love shopping centers, but also shop online. Will this combination continue?

“Retail commerce is changing form and developing, not retreating. The greater picture is very complicated, multifaceted. Shopping centers will not disappear. With time, and I mean not much time, a new balance will emerge between them and online commerce sites. Let’s not issue a verdict too quickly.”

In view of his real estate business, his successes with Maccabi Tel Aviv are much less impressive, and he does not hesitate to admit this. Maccabi today, he says, has things I am happy with and things I am not happy with.

Are you disappointed with your investment in Maccabi?

"No, I am not disappointed. We made progress in a number of areas—management, team spirit, a new team culture. However, from my perspective, we have not made enough progress.”

When he talks about Maccabi, Goldhar chooses his words carefully and refrains from harsh statements.

He does not disclose the sum of money that he has transferred to date for the financing of the team. However in answer to my question of whether—in view of the lessons of the last few years which did not bring Maccabi Tel Aviv the expected success—would he still have bought the team, Goldhar answered, with a definite “Yes”. Maccabi is for him, as he states, “A very long term investment. An ongoing personal social and management challenge. I am eager for its next stage”.

When I point out that the return on investment to date in “Not so great” Goldhar angrily corrects me. Not true, he says, I was able to receive a very high personal return on my investment in Maccabi. In sports, he adds, as with conquering outer space not everything is measured in monetary terms. In front of our eyes “a generation of Israeli children that will be positively affected by the Club’s values - reciprocity, partnership, dedication, adherence to rules and putting the team first over the individual”. I would wish that Israeli children would see Maccabi as a source of pride and identification”.

What about the racism issue on Israeli footballs fields?

Racism in sports is the malignant disease of our time and should be eradicated at the source. In Maccabi we have zero tolerance for racism of any sort. If we choose for professional reasons, to add an Arab player to the team, his ethnicity will not be a factor in our considerations”.

From his standpoint, the ownership of Maccabi is the same as integration into Israel without immigration to it. Goldhar: “Through Maccabi I am deeply involved in what is happening in Israel, not only in football and sports. I am exposed to many facets of Israeli life, even politics. I feel part of Israeli society”.

In the beginning of the week Mitch Goldhar invited his mother, Barbara and her granddaughter to watch a game between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Beitar Jerusalem. He had butterflies in his stomach, considering that the game was held in the opponent’s Teddy stadium, the concerns dissipated. At the end of the game (Maccabi won 2:0) thousands of spectators stood on their feet in the stadium and applauded Sela and Barbara, the Jewess and Pole at length.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Goldhar, a tale of survival : https://ift.tt/2PKzauu

Poland hands over site of future Warsaw Ghetto Museum

[unable to retrieve full-text content]

Former children's hospital that was within the ghetto's walls is expected to turn into a place where the Jews, who were imprisoned there before being sent to Treblinka death camp, will be remembered. Poland hands over site of future Warsaw Ghetto Museum : https://ift.tt/2PRtYEY

Anti-Semitic graffiti appear in Ukraine

Anti-Semitic graffiti appearing in several locations across Ukraine aroused the local Jewish community's concern.

David Roitman, a Jew who was born in Ukraine and immigrated to Israel, detected such a writing calling to "Kill the Jews," while visiting Odessa, one of the prominent cities in the east European country.

David Roitman next to spray-painted writing calling to 'kill Jews' (Photo: David Roitman)

Roitman immediately posted a photo of the racist graffiti on his Facebook page that gained thousands of shares. The writing was deleted the next day, and replaced by graffiti of three red hearts.

"My goal was for people to start talking about the ant-Semitic writings appearing across Ukraine, without fearing their neighbors will kill them, "Roitman told Ynet.

"We know what happens when people are silent. We've experienced it in 1933 and 1939," he added.

"Odessa is considered a main touristic location. Dozens of Israelis arrive here every year and dozens of Jews still reside in the city," Roitman elaborated.  

Graffiti calling to kill Jews began popping out in Kiev, Ukraine's capital, as well as in other cities throughout the country.

Writings calling to 'kill Jews' in Kiev (Photo: Eduard Dolinsky)

Eduard Dolinsky, executive director of Ukrainian Jewish Committee, also shared several of the racist writings on his Facebook page.

Roitman stressed that in the past most of the writings said, "Clean Ukraine of Jews," and "Throw the Jews out of Ukraine."

He explained that Ukraine and its Jewish citizens remained silenced, leading to a rise in anti-Semitism, with graffiti now calling to "kill the Jews."

According to Roitman, those who deleted the writing were the ones responsible for it, claiming there is to other way for someone to find it without prior knowledge of its location.

He called on the Jews of Ukraine to publish every hateful writing they come across on social media, and not to look the other way in order to eradicate the phenomenon.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Anti-Semitic graffiti appear in Ukraine : https://ift.tt/2Oxhmq5

Suspected hate crime in Sweden

After receiving anti-Semitic threats—such as “we are following you”, “you dirty Jewish cow'— the home of a Jewish politician was set on fire Tuesday in southern Sweden, prompting the Swedish-Jewish community to fear for their future.  

This is the second such event in Lund—a famous university city located 20 kilometers away from Malmö, Sweden’s third largest city, which has the highest rate of anti-Semitic incidents.

The scene of the crime in Lund (Photo: sydsvenskan.se)

The arson attack happened between Monday and Tuesday. Around 2am, unknown assailants threw flammable material into the politician's home, which consequently burned down entirely.

The woman is a known politician in the region, but chose to remain anonymous. Luckily, she was abroad at the time and no injuries were reported. Firefighters prevented the fire from spreading to several adjacent homes.

In the months prior to the attack, the politician received anti-Semitic threats, and filed a police complaint. Among other things, she received hate mail, calling her “a dirty Jewish cow” and threatening to “get" her.

 

Anti-Semitic graffiti sprayed in Stockholm, 2014 (Photo: Twitter)

Earlier this year, another Jewish political activist in Lund suffered from harassments as feces was thrown on his home, garbage was scattered on his doorstep, and his house was partially burned by another arson attack.

Swedish police are investigating these two cases as hate crimes, under the assumption that the crimes were probably committed by far-right individuals or neo-Nazis. The police are not ruling out the possibility of Islamists being behind the attack.

The local Jewish community believes the incidents are connected and that both cases should be dealt as anti-Semitic hate crime.

According to Aron Verstandig—chairman of The Official Council of Swedish Jewish Communities— and Fredrik Sieradzki— spokesperson for the Jewish Community of Malmö—it was an attack on Swedish democracy. "The police did not arrest a suspect. This is not the first arson attack against a Jew in the city of Lund, and the two people who were attacked are known as Jewish political activists," they said.

A source in the Jewish community said that, “it doesn't matter who is behind the attack—we fear that the victims were targeted because they are Jewish. The second attack had another agenda—to silence the politician."

The leaders of the Jewish communities in Sweden called upon the authorities to take firm steps against the rising anti-Semitism in the country, and said that the communities are assisting the woman who lost her home.

“Today many Jews are already wondering if they have a future in Sweden,” said Verstandig.

“I want to be frank. We are always on high alert that something might happen in Europe, and we have seen a rise of anti-Semitic incidents in Sweden in the past decade. Burning the homes of Jews is something new that we haven't seen here before, and we are very concerned, it definitely causes a stir in the Jewish community," Sieradzki added.

The Gothenburg Synagogue in Sweden, attacked last year with Molotov cocktails. (photo: AP)

“We have very good security measures and we are prepared for the possibility that events like these can recur."

Robert Singer, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Vice-President of the World Jewish Congress, condemned the arson and said that, “this is a very serious event which should not go unanswered”.

“The World Jewish Congress calls upon the Swedish authorities to quickly investigate and bring the perpetrators to justice,” he said. “These attacks are heinous and deserve a firm condemnation. Relentless efforts must be made in order to stop these incidents from recurring,” Singer added.

According to Singer, the World Jewish Congress has accepted the community's request and decided to assist the politician with renting an apartment and funding her psychological treatment.

"The World Jewish Congress is supporting the victim and will continue to work closely with the Jewish community, in order to build strong community ties and protect their safety,” Singer claimed.

“In the past year I have met with state and police officials to discuss this matter. We hope that the new government will protect the Jewish community," he concluded.

Last December, two Palestinians and a Syrian man threw Molotov cocktails at a Jewish synagogue in Gothenburg, Sweden, in protest of US President Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The fire was put out and a minor damage was caused.

The three were convicted and sent to prison: two of them received a two-year prison sentence and the third was sentenced to 15 months.

One of the Palestinians, age 22, was supposed to be deported after he completed his sentence, but the Court overruled this decision, saying that Israel would take vengeance on him and that his basic human rights will be hurt.

Israeli officials were outraged by the decision, and the Swedish Attorney General transferred the case to the Swedish Supreme Court.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Suspected hate crime in Sweden : https://ift.tt/2CqAaA2

Israeli caught urinating in Auschwitz fined $1,350

A 19-year-old Israeli who was caught last March urinating near the Auschwitz concentration camp’s crematorium is ordered by a Polish court to pay a fine of $1,350 (5,000 zloty).

 

The young man, known as Zeev K., toured the camp together with a group of Israeli tourists from Israel when he was caught by the Polish tour guide urinating near the building of what used to be the concentration camp’s crematorium.

The tour guide alerted the police who arrived at the scene and took the 19 year old for questioning—which lasted several hours.

Auschwitz concentration camp’s crematorium (Photo: AP)

Comment provided by Auschwitz said, "At the site of the former Auschwitz II-Birkenau site, a young person from Israel was indeed spotted urinating while standing on the monument that commemorates all victims of the camp.

"The monument is located between the ruins of the gas chambers and crematoria II and III. This extremely sad and disturbing incident was immediately noticed by our staff and other visitors. Our security intervened and police was called," stressed the statement.

(Photo: AFP)

In his interrogation, the Polish report said, he admitted to committing the act and said he would accept any punishment levied on him.

The Foreign Affairs Ministry added he was released and allowed to return to Israel.

However, the legal proceedings against the teenager continued and he was indicted in the nearby town of Oświęcim.

Polish law prohibits the desecration of monuments and historic memorial sites.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Israeli caught urinating in Auschwitz fined $1,350 : https://ift.tt/2yJ70c3

Bomb targets Russian Jewish community leader

An explosive envelope sent to the president of the Jewish community of Tatarstan in Russia, Mikhail Skoblionok Abramovich, went off Monday morning in Kazan, capital of Tatarstan, wounding the president and his aide, who were evacuated to a local hospital.

 

The police has launched an investigation, and it is not yet clear whether the motive was criminal or anti-Semitic.

However, sources familiar with the investigation said the case is being investigated as an attempted murder.

Skublinikur's desk, following the explosion (Photo: Business Gazeta)

The CEO and Executive Vice President of the World Jewish Congress (WJC), Robert Singer, said he trusts local authorities to find the assailant.

"I was very worried to hear about the explosion targeting the head of the Jewish community in Kazan, Tatarstan. I wish to extend my best wishes to Mr. Skoblionk and his family and hope for a speedy recovery," Singer said.

  

Tatarstan, Russia (Photo: Business Gazeta)

 

"I have known Mr. Skoblionok for more than 25 years, and have seen that the rebirth and well-being of his community was and is, to a large extent, thanks to his personal involvement. We fully trust that the local authorities are doing all in their power to investigate and ensure that the perpetrators behind this evil and sickening act are brought to justice as soon as possible,” he added.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Bomb targets Russian Jewish community leader : https://ift.tt/2PCC4kT

Haredi man attacked while walking to NYC synagogue

Lipa Schwartz, an American ultra-Orthodox Jew, was attacked in New York City on Sunday while walking to the synagogue.

  

The attack took place at 7:30am, in Brooklyn's Borough Park neighborhood.

Schwartz, 62, was on his way to the synagogue at 13th Avenue and 46th Street, carrying his tallit and tefillin, when a black vehicle pulled up next to him.

 

CCTV footage of the attack    (צילום: ארגון השומרים)

The driver, who appeared Middle Eastern, got out and chased Schwartz until catching up with him and assaulting him, punching him in the face and and yelling at him.

Schwartz tried to defend himself and was able to escape, but was followed by his attacker.

"I knew it’s either I fight myself out of this, or I might be dead,” Schwartz told local media.

CCTV footage of the attack. (Video: Hashomrim)

 

The NYPD was called to the scene and arrested the attacker, 37-year-old Afzal Farrukh of Staten Island, who was charged with assault, hate crime, harassment and more.

The Hatzolah aid organization of Borough Park evacuated the victim to the hospital, where he was treated for cuts and bruises to his head.

“Baruch Hashem, I’m out of the hospital with some minor bruises, but the trauma of being attacked by someone … will stay with me forever,” Schwartz said. 

     

A man who was trying to help the victim was also chased by the attacker. (Photo: Hashomrim)

The event was documented by CCTV from various angles, that also show another Jewish man who tried to help the victim but was chased away by Farrukh.

Local media reported that Farrukh shouted anti-Semitic slurs towards Schwarz, saying that he hates Jews and wants to kill all of them. However, a source at NYPD told the media that Schwarz provoked the attack, after he responded to Farrukh's slurs by crossing the road and hitting his car. The Anti Defamation League published earlier this year that between January 1st-September 30th, 2017, 1,299 anti-semitic incidents happened in the US—a dramatic 70 percent increase to the previous year, including physical attacks, vandalism and attacks on Jewish institutions.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Haredi man attacked while walking to NYC synagogue : https://ift.tt/2pRvVpI

Famous Nazi hunter couple receives top French honors

France's most famous Nazi hunters, Serge Klarsfeld and his German wife Beate, received top honors in a ceremony led by French President Emmanuel Macron this week.

Serge Klarsfeld, 83, received the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor, France's highest award, while the 79-year-old Beate Klarsfeld received the National Order of Merit, having already been decorated with the Legion of Honor in 2014, with the rank of Grand Officer. The Chief Rabbi of France, Haim Korsia, was among those who attended the ceremony at the Elysee Palace limited to family and close friends and associates.

The couple in 1979; Famous for locating the notorious Nazi criminal Klaus Barbie (Photo: AP)

Born September 17, 1935, in the Romanian capital Bucharest, Serge Klarsfeld escaped the Holocaust after his family moved to France but saw his father taken away to die in the Auschwitz Nazi concentration camp. He was naturalized in 1950, and 10 years later, while studying at the prestigious Science-Po university in Paris, Klarsfled met Beate Kuenzel, the daughter of a former German soldier, on a metro platform. The two, who married three years later, decided to bring fugitive Nazis to justice, a mission they pursued for more than half a century.

Emmanuel Macron giving the Klarsfeld's France's highest honours

  In one of their most high-profile cases, the Klarsfelds found the notorious Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, a former Gestapo officer known as the "Butcher of Lyon" for his wartime torture of prisoners, who had escaped to South America. In 1971, the Klarsfelds revealed that Barbie was living in Bolivia, and in 1983 he was extradited to France. Four years later he was convicted in a trial, and later died behind bars.

(Photo: AP)

  They also pursued members of France's collaborationist Vichy regime, including Rene Bouquet, Jean Leguay and Marice Papon—despite obstruction from president Francois Mitterrand. Mitterrand's successor Jacques Chirac finally recognized France's role in the deportations, a declaration Serge Klarsfeld said owed much to his and Beate's campaigning. "Neither could have succeeded without the other," their daughter Lida once said.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Famous Nazi hunter couple receives top French honors : https://ift.tt/2EjoYrs

Outcry as Jews create own group in German far-right party

'Free Gaza' sprayed on sukkah at Manhattan park

A public sukkah at the Carl Schurz Park on Manhattan's Upper East Side was vandalized on Sunday morning, with the words "Free Gaza" spray-painted three times on its walls.

  The NYPD's Hate Crime Task Force launched an investigation into the incident. "It's a slap in the face," Rabbi Ben Krasnianski, director of Chabad of the UES, told local media. "It's really very vicious. There is no room for this hatred in New York City."

Hate crime at Manhattan park

 

A group of locals covered the hateful writing with their own graffiti, writing "Shalom" and "Sukkah of Unity" on it.

"The only response we know, and the way we've responded for the last 3,800 years, is to respond to darkness with light, to hate with love and to negativity with positivity," Rabbi Krasnianski noted. The local Chabad House also held a street festival celebrating Jewish pride and solidarity on Monday night as another response to the hate crime, as well as to celebrate the last night of Sukkot.

The sukkah after the hate graffiti was covered

Assaf Weiss, the director of Programming and Operations at the American Jewish Congress, expressed concern of the "clear anti-Semitic act that took place in New York, a center of the Jewish community in the US." He noted the sukkah was erected by private Jewish citizens, who have no ties to the Israeli government and its actions. "Attributing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to all Jews is another example of modern anti-Semitism under the guise of 'political struggle,'" Weiss said. "According to the Anti Defamation League, there was a 57 percent rise in anti-Semitic incidents across the US in 2017 alone. This horrible act of vandalism is another example of the concerning rise in anti-Semitism, and it stresses the importance of Jewish activity and advocacy by organizations such as the American Jewish Congress across the world," he added.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

'Free Gaza' sprayed on sukkah at Manhattan park : https://ift.tt/2xRA9Su

Jews celebrate Simchat Torah holiday, ending festive period

Jewish men and women danced on Monday with scrolls of the Torah, celebrating the religious holiday of Simchat Torah (Rejoicing in the Torah) throughout Israel.

During the year, every Saturday in synagogue, devout Jews read a portion of the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. Simchat Torah marks the reading of the final portion and the start of the cycle for the next year.

(Photo: EPA)

(Photo: Idan Arbel)

On Simchat Torah valuable parchment scrolls are taken from their places of safe-keeping in synagogues into the streets and devout men and women dance with them.

(Photo: Idan Arbel)

(Photo: Shlomit Mantal)

The men also carry the scrolls around the synagogue in a series of seven circuits that symbolize the restart of the reading of the Torah.

(Photo: Oshrat Yitzhak)

In the ultra-Orthodox Mea Shearim neighbourhood, hundreds of rejoicers donning traditional fur hats and festive white, grey and golden robes packed the synagogues to celebrate the holiday, holding up Torah scrolls, singing and dancing.

(Photo: Reuters)

(Photo: EPA)

In Tel Aviv's popular Bograshov Street, Orthodox men and women gathered with the scrolls on the road, eating, drinking, dancing and singing.

(Photo: Eitan Elhadaz)

(Photo: Eitan Elhadaz)

Simchat Torah marks the end of the week-long festival of Sukkot and is the final holiday of almost a month of festivities that includes the Jewish New Year and the solemn fasting day of Yom Kippur.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Jews celebrate Simchat Torah holiday, ending festive period : https://ift.tt/2IuyF4N

Germany arrests 7 suspected far-right extremists

German police have arrested seven men on suspicion of forming a "far-right terrorist organization" in Chemnitz, where neo-Nazis attacked a Jewish-owned restaurant last month, officials said Monday.

Six of the men, all German citizens aged between 20 and 30, were arrested Monday by tactical police units in Saxony, the state in which Chemnitz is located, and Bavaria, federal prosecutors said in a statement.

Far-right demonstration in Chemnitz (Photo: EPA)

A seventh suspect— 31-year-old German citizen identified as Christian K. for privacy reasons —was arrested in a separate case last month.

The suspects are the alleged founders of "Revolution Chemnitz", a far-right group operating in the the eastern city of Chemnitz, where a violent far-right, anti-Semitic mob hurled rocks, bottles and a metal pipe at a kosher restaurant on August 27.

Far-right demonstration in Chemnitz    (צילום: רויטרס)

While chanting "get out of Germany, Jewish pigs", and “we are the people,” a slogan used by far-right supporters, the demonstrators smashed the restaurant's window and vandalized the entrance.

The owner, Uwe Dziuballa, suffered an injury to the shoulder during the attack, the reports said.

 

The kosher restaurant, which opened in 2000, has been attacked several times before.

The Jewish restaurant owner, Uwe Dziuballa (Photo: AFP)

 

Although prosecutors didn't specify whether the suspects arrested are definitely linked to the attack, they said the men wanted to "carry out violent and armed attacks against foreigners and political enemies" as part of a plan to overthrow Germany's democratic order.

Five of the men—Christian K. and four others identified only as Sten E., Martin H., Marcel W. and Sven W.—allegedly attacked several foreigners in the center of Chemnitz on Sept. 14, armed with bottles, weighted "sap" gloves and a taser.

(Photo: EPA)

 

Prosecutors said the attack was a "test run" for another attack the men planned for Oct. 3, Germany's national unity day.

German Justice Minister Katarina Barley cited the arrest as further evidence of the threat posed by far-right extremists. "If the allegations are further substantiated, then investigators will have succeeded in conducting an important blow against far-right terrorism," she told the Funke newspaper group.

Violent far-right riots have erupted in the city since a German man was stabbed to death, allegedly by asylum-seekers, on August 26.

A 23-year-old Syrian is being held in custody on suspicion of manslaughter in the aforementioned case. An Iraqi man is also being sought over the killing.

"This is a new level of anti-Semitism. It's impossible not to compare this to what happened in the 1930s," The German Federal Commissioner to Combat anti-Semitism, Felix Klein said.

Germany's Central Council of Jews, Josef Schuster (Photo: AP)

 

Germany's Central Council of Jews, Josef Schuster, said the attack shows "how strongly rooted right-wing extremism is in the region," adding that "attempts at appeasement and a lack of distancing from the right-populists play exactly into the hands of these forces.

The Chemnitz attack was the latest in a series of violent crimes by refugees that have garnered massive media attention and stoked anger at German Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision to allow in more than one million migrants and refugees since 2015. After the German man was stabbed to death in August, thousands of local citizens and violent far-right members have taken to the Chemnitz mainly at night, with some seen flashing the illegal Nazi salute. In several cases violent riots included attacks on police officers, journalists and passersby suspected of being migrants.

German chancellor Merkel condemned the demonstrations and said that the scenes from Chemnitz "convey a message of hatred towards innocent people."

“That was a horrible incident. What we saw afterwards is something that has no place in a state under the rule of law,” she told a news conference in Berlin.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel (Photo: AFP)

 

“We won’t tolerate such unlawful assemblies and the hounding of people who look different or have different origins, and attempts to spread hatred on the streets,” Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert told a regular news briefing.

"That has no place in our cities and we, as the German government, condemn it in the strongest terms. Our basic message for Chemnitz and beyond is that there is no place in Germany for vigilante justice, for groups that want to spread hatred on the streets, for intolerance and for extremism," Seibert concluded.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Germany arrests 7 suspected far-right extremists : https://ift.tt/2RhLenY