UK's Haredi public vs. ministry— we won't teach about LGBT community

Britain's ultra-Orthodox teachers and parents warn of taking Haredi education underground — or even leaving the country — if new legislation that obligates instructing teens about the LGBT community is enforced, reported The Guardian.

  

Under Britain's 2010 Equality Act, independent secondary schools will be obliged to teach about gender reassignment and sexual orientation. In primary schools, children should be “aware of the ways in which people can be different and be respectful of those differences”. Schools that refrain from implementing this new policy received a shut-down warning from Ofsted, the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills, and Haredi politicos are working hard to annul the edict, while considering alternate options like home schooling, underground Haredi schools and even leaving the UK.

Celebrating Purim in a London Haredi community (Photo: Getty Images)

“Many members of the community would choose to leave the United Kingdom for a more hospitable jurisdiction rather than comply with such an obligation to mention homosexuality or gender reassignment in a positive context at school,” said a letter recently sent by Shraga Stern, a Haredi parent of seven. “We teach our children, at home and in school, to respect every person, but we will not teach them about LGBT issues,” he told the UK's Observer newspaper.

According to Stren, his children's schools might choose to deny the new guidelines as a “badge of honor.”

When Stern was asked what he and his family would do if the new curriculum is enforced, he said leaving the country was an option, either to New York, where the yeshivas are free to teach without supervision, or to Israel – "depending on whether the Haredim make it into Netanyahu’s next coalition government," assuming he wins the April 9th elections

The Guardian quoted the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR), that estimated that some 2000 children study in the UK's Haredi school system, both state funded and independent institutions included, as well as large number of Haredi boys who study in unregistered yeshivas. All keep traditional religious values and don't expose their students to any kind of content regarding same-sex couples, gender reassignment and the LGBT community.

Rabbi Avrohom Pinter, headmaster of Yesodey Hatorah, a state-funded girls’ secondary school in London's Stamford Hill that was classed as inadequate by Ofsted inspectors in June 2018, said the school is "totally opposed to homophobia. The issue for us is maintaining the innocence of our children. We feel society is sexualizing children at an early age and we don’t want to do that.”

The school was deemed inadequate after Ofsted found their books to be heavily censored, having deleted references or images that the school considered inappropriate like references to human or animal reproduction, and images showing bare ankles and wrists — as well as passages from Sherlock Holmes, the famous British detective stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. 

The Guardian cited Pinter, who said “many parents are concerned about children going to libraries. We need to provide a safe space.” The headmaster added that “sometimes we might have gone a bit overboard in our redactions to gain the confidence of the parents. We’re reviewing it all now.”

Uban Garbarchik, a Stamford Hill resident and a journalist, told Ynet that the British education system "is trying to coerce them to get a western education," and added that it's not only about the LGBT community issue — "they also firmly demand that yeshiva students learn a core curriculum."

Garbarchik said this is not only a Haredi problem, and that Christian and Muslim schools "also suffer from supervisors who demand them to teach subjects they object."

“Most faith schools – state and independent – see no contradiction between teaching the tenets of their faith and the legal requirement to promote British values, including respect for democracy and the rule of law or to encourage respect for people with different characteristics such as those of a different faith, sexual orientation or race," said Ofsted spokesperson.

“However, for the small minority who will not comply with the law, it is Ofsted’s duty to report those failings so that action can be taken to improve or close these schools.”

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As Brexit looms, UK Jews seek sanctuary in Germany

Simon Wallfisch grew up in London as the grandson of an Auschwitz survivor who swore to never return to the country that murdered her parents and 6 million other Jews. But more than 70 years after the Holocaust, Brexit has prompted Wallfisch and thousands of other Jews in Britain to apply for German citizenship, which was stripped from their ancestors by the Nazis during the Third Reich.

Protests against Brexit in London (Photo: EPA)

“This disaster that we call Brexit has led to me just finding a way to secure my future and my children’s future,” said Wallfisch, 36, a well-known classical singer and cellist who received his German passport in October. “In order to remain European I’ve taken the European citizenship.” Britons holding dual citizenship from an EU country like Germany will retain the privilege of free movement and work across the soon-to-be 27-nation bloc. Many Britons whose ancestors came from other parts of Europe have been claiming citizenship in other EU member states so they can keep ties to the continent. But for Jews whose families fled Germany to escape the Nazis, the decision has meant re-examining long-held beliefs about the country. Wallfisch’s grandmother, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, was 18 in December 1943 when she was deported to Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp in occupied Poland where more than 1 million Jews were murdered. She survived because she was a member of the camp’s girls’ orchestra. As a cellist, she had to play classical music while other Jews were taken to the gas chambers. In November 1944, she was taken to Bergen-Belsen — the concentration camp where diarist Anne Frank died after also being transferred from Auschwitz at about the same time — where she was eventually liberated by the British army in April 1945.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews in London's Stamford Hill neighborhood (Photo: Getty Images)

Lasker-Wallfisch immigrated to Britain in 1946, got married and had two children. Her career as a famous cello player took her around the world, but it took decades until she overcame her hatred enough to set foot on German soil again in the 1990s. In recent years, Lasker-Wallfisch, 93, has become a regular visitor, educating children in Germany about the Holocaust.

On Sunday’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Lasker-Wallfisch, her grandson Simon and her daughter Maya Jacobs Lasker-Wallfisch performed for the first time together on stage at the Jewish Museum Berlin in commemoration of their family. They played music with other members of their extended family and read letters from the past as a tribute to those who survived and those who perished in the Shoah.

Before the show, the three generations sat together on the red couch in the museum’s dressing room and told The Associated Press about the emotional thoughts that went into the younger two’s decision to take German citizenship. “We cannot be victims of our past. We have to have some hope for change,” said Maya Jacobs Lasker-Wallfisch, a 60-year-old London psychotherapist who is Simon’s aunt and is still waiting on her German citizenship to be approved. “I feel somehow in a strange way triumphant. Something is coming full circle.” Her application is one of more than 3,380 requests that the German Embassy in London has received since the Brexit referendum in June 2016. In comparison, only around 20 such requests were made annually in the years before Brexit. Article 116 of the German Constitution allows the descendants of people persecuted by the Nazis to regain the citizenship that was removed between 1933 and 1945.

The Holocaust Museum in Berlin (Photo: Marko Priske)

More than just retaining the ability to travel easily from country to country or maintain business ties, Jacobs Lasker-Wallfisch said there are other, more emotional reasons to acquiring German citizenship, with Britain due to leave the European Union on March 29. “I feel an aliveness here (in Berlin) that I have not experienced before, but it totally makes sense because after all I am German,” Jacobs Lasker-Wallfisch said. She added that if the country behind the Holocaust is now one that welcomes the descendants of the victims, “that’s a good thing.” But Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who lived through the horrors of the Holocaust, remained skeptical and pessimistic. “Jewish people never feel secure,” she said to her daughter and grandson, reminding them of her own past. “I had German nationality — it did not buy me security.”

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The Chamber of the Holocaust, Israel's obscure memorial

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Six-room cellar, located beside a tomb some believe to be the burial place of the biblical King David, was established in 1949 by Holocaust survivors who came to Israel as refugees. The Chamber of the Holocaust, Israel's obscure memorial : http://bit.ly/2RQfQkC

Drawings by children in Nazi camp speak of dreams

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Some 4,500 paintings drawn by children amid brutal conditions at the Theresienstadt death camp in 1943-44, during secret art classes, are on display at Prague's Pinkas Synagogue in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day. Drawings by children in Nazi camp speak of dreams : http://bit.ly/2SbCwLx

Israeli Holocaust survivor celebrates birthday and liberation from Auschwitz

As the world commemorates the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on International Holocaust Remembrance Day Sunday, death camp survivor Cipora Feivlovich marks her own personal milestone as she turns 92. Feivlovich has spent her most recent birthdays recounting to audiences in Israel and Germany her harrowing experiences in the camp, where her parents, brother and best friends all perished. Despite witnessing daily atrocities and fearing that the toxic food and injections she was given would make her infertile, she eventually married her husband Pinchas, a fellow orphaned survivor, and started a new family. Today she has dozens of grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren.

Cipora Feivlovich

 "When we first met after the war he asked me if I thought I could have children after everything I went through in Auschwitz. And I said 'I don't promise anything. What the Lord gives is what will be,'" she recalled from her home in Jerusalem. "We understood each other. He always said he was lucky to marry me since I understood him." But for the following decades, as he obsessively wrote and lectured about his six-year Holocaust ordeal in multiple concentration camps and the trauma of losing eight siblings and his entire extended family, she kept quiet to try and raise their three children in Israel in relative normalcy. Only in the 1990s, long after the kids had moved out, did she finally start processing her own troubled history. Six million Jews were killed by the Nazis and their collaborators during the Holocaust, wiping out a third of world Jewry. Israel's main Holocaust memorial day is in the spring—marking the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. The United Nations designated January 27 as the annual international commemoration, marking the date of Auschwitz's liberation in 1945, the day Feivlovich turned 18. She grew up in a Transylvanian village with a large Jewish population and lived a normal life until she was 14, when she and the other Jewish students were kicked out of school. She said her family holed up in their home for the following years, fearful of their anti-Semitic neighbors, and naively waited for the storm to pass. But then the Nazis arrived in 1944, took them away in the middle of the night and crammed all Jewish residents into the local synagogue. "Two days we sat on the floor, you couldn't leave for the restrooms so people relieved themselves where they are sitting," she recalled. "On both sides of the street the non-Jews were standing and clapping their hands saying: 'Bravo, we are getting rid of the Jews.'" After a brief stay in a Hungarian ghetto, they were deported on the three-day train ride to Auschwitz, with each cattle wagon packed shoulder to shoulder. "My grandfather died there while standing. We couldn't even lay him down. And in that miserable state we got to our final destination," she said. There, they were greeted with barking dogs, screams and a warning: "Young mothers, hand your babies to grandmothers or aunts and maybe you will live."

Cipora Feivlovich

Feivlovich and her younger sister were thrown to one side, the boys to the other. They never saw their parents again. The girls were ordered to strip. Their hair was cut and they were hosed with freezing water and marched outside naked, shivering with cold and shame. "The Nazis are teasing us, spitting on us and watching us there miserable," she said.

After finally getting dresses to wear, they were approached by a tall man in a polished uniform who introduced himself as Josef Mengele, the notorious Nazi doctor. He pointed to a huge chimney spewing thick black smoke and told them anyone not essential to the Third Reich would go straight to the crematorium.

"I'm holding my sister's hand, and we are shaking and crying and I ask: 'Is this possible?'" she remembered.

 

A Holocaust survivor shows the number on his arm as he visits the Auschwitz death camp as part of the 2018 March of the Living (Photo: AFP)

Starved and exhausted, she and hundreds of other Jewish prisoners were presented with a large liquid-filled barrel. "The moment we took that first sip in our mouth, everyone started screaming insanely. It was like a million pins in your throat. You couldn't swallow the soup," she remembered. "But we learned to drink that poisoned soup since there was nothing else to eat." She said they were told it was laced with toxin to help kill off the Jewish race and prevent it from reproducing. Feivlovich said she believed it since she stopped menstruating for a long time after. Those already pregnant faced an even worse fate. In one case, a pregnant relative named Sarah was not allowed to go to the infirmary and forced to give birth on the floor. Usually, the Nazis took Jewish newborns away, never to be seen again. But in this case, they ordered the mother to drown her own baby in a pail of water. By the time Auschwitz was liberated, she had already been transported to forced labor in a German armament factory. Even there she wasn't safe. The camp commander ordered her to receive a mysterious injection for talking back and refusing to make the Christian sign of the cross on herself. She awoke after two days. By then, the war was winding down. The Nazis disappeared and soon an American tank broke through. Yiddish-speaking soldiers comforted the emaciated inmates.

Auschwitz inmates folliwng their liberation in 1945. (Photo: AP)

Some 200,000 elderly survivors remain in Israel today, with a similar number worldwide. Feivlovich said in recent years her birthday has become "obligating," particularly since her husband passed away in 2007. "My husband demanded of me: Don't stop talking about the Holocaust, because if we don't speak about it there will be enough Holocaust deniers after us," she said. "It is true that 74 years have passed but we are still living and we are here."

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Global anti-Semitism report: 2018 saw most deadly attacks on Jews in 25 years

Anti-Semitism around the world reached record highs in 2018, according to a new report released Sunday by Israel's Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, to coincide with International Holocaust Memorial Day.

The 2018 Global Anti-Semitism Report details anti-Jewish sentiment worldwide, and presents the Disapora Ministry's major initiatives to combat and monitor anti-Semitism around the world.

According to the report, 13 Jews were killed in three separate deadly anti-Semitic attacks in 2018, which the ministry says is the highest number of Jewish fatalities in racially motivated attacks since the Argentine Jewish community was targeted in the 1990s.

Mourners embrace at the scene of a brutal attack at a Pittsburgh synagogue that claimed 11 lives in (Photo: EPA)

 

Presenting the report to the cabinet on Sunday, Diaspora Affairs Minister Naftali Bennett highlighted the rise in attacks on Jews around the world, and urged nations to act against the phenomenon.

A swastika drawn on a Holocaust memorial in Saloniki, Greece

 

"The year 2018 saw record highs of anti-Semitism in the streets, online, and in the political arena, around the world," Bennett said. "The Ministry of Diaspora Affairs will continue to work to build bridges with Jews around the world, and to eradicate anti-Semitism through legal, diplomatic and public diplomacy channels. Especially this week, when the world marks International Holocaust Memorial Day, I call on governments around the world to act: rid your societies of anti-Semitism, and take harsh stance against the hatred of Jews." 

nti-Semitic and anti-Israel graffiti on a Jewish community center in Spain

The report also found a direct link between anti-Semitic attacks and anti-Israel sentiment, saying that "70% of anti-Jewish attacks were anti-Israel in nature." It said anti-Jewish incitement was at its height during the May 2018 move of the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and during the frequently violent Hamas-led protests at the Gazan border fence with Israel.

Anti-Semitic poster distributed during the Yellow Vest protests in Paris in 2018

The report also highlighted anti-Semitic attacks in Europe, in particular the UK, where it said such incidents "have reached an all-time recorded high." The report also pointed the finger at repeated allegations of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn, which it said had led " significant numbers in the Jewish community express deep concern for their future in the country."

Anti-Israel protesters at a demonstration in support of Jeremy Corbyn in London (Photo: Reuters)

The document also cited a European Union survey that found that 85% of European Jews believed anti-Semitism to be a problem in their countries and that 89% of respondents thought there had been a rise in anti-Semitism in their countries in the last five years. As a result, the survey found, 38% of European Jews had considered or were considering leaving the countries in which they lived.   

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DNA proves Hitler's deputy wasn’t replaced with double, did die in prison

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For decades, conspiracy theories have revolved around the identity of Nazi war criminal Rudolf Hess, who was caught after flying to Scotland in 1941 and hanged himself in his Berlin cell in 1987. DNA proves Hitler's deputy wasn’t replaced with double, did die in prison : http://bit.ly/2UhDF1u

Dreaming of the Land of Israel in the horror of the Holocaust

Poland, 1941. While the Jews of Europe had already been forced into the ghettos, and before their transfer to the extermination camps, community leaders in the Lublin ghetto sought to maintain their Jewish character and way of life, and also dreamed of the Land of Israel.

 

A rare document has been found in the archives of the Shem Olam Holocaust Institute, which was sent out in October 1941 by the Jewish Council of the Lublin ghetto, detailing the curriculum they wished to impart to the children of the ghetto. According to the instructions of the Judenrat – the Jewish administrative agencies in the ghettos who worked with the Nazis – any activity the Jews wished to carry out in the ghetto, whether cultural or religious, required the approval of the German authorities.

Document from Lublin ghetto (Photo: Courtesy of Shem Olam)

The detailed outline of the plan contains numerous topics related to the Land of Israel, including aliyah, familiarity with the land, the Hebrew language and more.

To this day, it is not known whether the plan was approved by the Germans and whether the children of the ghetto could learn about the Land of Israel, but the document offers a unique insight into the wishes of the Jews caught up in the Holocaust to adhere not only to the values and traditions of Judaism, but also to pass on to future generations the connection to the history and heritage of Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel), including the festival of Tu Bishvat, the holiday for the trees.

The curriculum details a study plan that covered the history of the Jewish people, the Land of Israel, and Jewish life during the First World War.

The remains of the Majdenek death camp, on the outskirts of Lublin, taken in 1978 (Photo: AFP)

With regards to the Land of Israel, the curriculum touches on aliyah, cities of the Yeshuv (the pre-state Jewish community), Jewish pioneers and natural resources and agriculture.

In March 1942, the Nazis began the transfer of the Jews of the Lublin ghetto to the extermination camps, while some were murdered where they lived.

Rabbi Avraham Krieger

"Despite already experiencing horrors at the cruel hands of German murderers, the desire of the Jews to maintain a spiritual life and preserve their heritage did not die," says Shem Olam founder Rabbi Avraham Krieger.

"Most of the stories from the time of the Holocaust deal with the dedication of the Jews to uphold their religion and to preserve their Judaism in an impossible reality," he says. "But this document offers us a rare insight into the strong desire to learn and pass on to the next generation an affinity and longing for the Land of Israel, its landscapes and the Hebrew language."

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Israelis to scour Danube for Holocaust remains with Hungary's help

Ukrainian shtetls make a comeback

Many famous Jewish writers have devoted themselves to bringing back to life the colorful shtetl, the Eastern European towns that were home to local Jews for hundreds of years. Today, following booming tourism in the footsteps of Hasidic sages, some have decided to revive the shtetl and bring Jews back to living in these towns, 77 years after the Holocaust decimated them and their long-time communities.

The Baal Shem Tov's grave site    (shiezoli)

In his famous book the Death of the Shtetl, Yehuda Bauer, one of the greatest Holocaust researchers of our time, describes seven famous shtetls that represent a mere fraction of the 3,000 and more towns—all of which have disappeared entirely. Others described daily life in the shtetl: Sholem Aleichem’s Boyberik in Tevye der Milkhiker resonated with us for more than a century, as well as famous works by Shmuel Yosef Agnon (from the town of Buchach), Isaac Bashevis Singer (from Bilgoray) and Elie Wiesel (from Siget)—all Nobel Prize winners who brought the Jewish town to life.

Mezhbizh, the city of the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidic thought (Photo: Yoel Rappel)

These writers gave us the colorful and vibrant picture of Jewish life, but also described the dismal poverty, religious zeal, community politics and relationships with the non-Jewish population: rural types, clergy, statesmen and rich regional lords.

Today, an attempt to recreate the old lifestyle, even if somewhat artificially, can no longer go unnoticed in the west of Ukraine. The old and the new mix in these renovated towns, abandoned during the war, when their 2.2 million Jewish residents perished.

The Baal Shem Tov's grave site (Photo: Shiezoli)

It takes a little under three hours to travel between Kiev and Mezhbizh, not a great distance in this vast country. But the city (that numbers 4 million residents) and the town (that numbers 2,000) boast totally different lifestyles. It’s hard to find a link between the luxurious houses of Khreshchatyk Avenue in Kiev and the busy Baal Shem Tov Mezhbizh Street, with its sign written in Hebrew and Ukrainian.

The path between the two, that only comes to life by the passing buses full of Jewish tourists, runs through the gray town of Žitomir, a focal point for the Jewish Enlightenment period. It’s worth visiting just to catch a glimpse of where Hayim Nahman Bialik, Israel’s national poet, lived as a young man. We visit the famous print house that operated in Žitomir, and continue to Bardichev, once called the Jerusalem of Volhynia, that lies 40 kilometers away and was known as the city of Rebbe Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev. His grave stands out in a cemetery whose tombstones are shaped like boots, and attracts thousands every year. The streets of Berditchev are empty, its shops closed and its residents gray and grim-faced. We continue on the narrow path that leads to Mezhbizh, the city of the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidic thought, whose birthday in the Hebrew month of Elul (usually August-September) draws great crowds.

Tourists visit Mezhbizh (Photo: Jeffrey Sachs )

The Baal Shem Tov lived in this forsaken town for more than 20 years, where he started his work. But what did he see in Mezhbizh? Today’s town is a gloomy relic of the past’s glory. Some 250-300 years ago it wasn’t a small and poor town, but rather one of the greatest cities in Ukraine. It numbered 5,000-10,000 people—five times the number of its residents today. Mezhbizh was a regional center, from which the spiritual and social movement that revolutionized Judaism—Hasidic practice—spread and made its mark on the Jewish people. The Pantheon, a Hasidic cemetery, was built near the Baal Shem Tov’s grave. It still draws tens of thousands of Hasidics pilgrims every year, as it did decades ago, when this place was still a Jewish town. In the past, Jewish residents made up a third of the town, huddled around the Rebbe's Synagogue and other Torah institutions that served the thousands of Jews who came to to express their devotion to him and to later Hasidic Rebbes. This magnificent kingdom was all destroyed during the Holocaust. No Jews were left in Mezhbizh.

The Baal Shem Tov's grave (Photo: Yoel Rappel)

Today, most of the Jewish incoming tourism to Ukraine comes from Israel. Hasidic tourists comprise the majority—and at times use the visit as an excuse to go abroad, since the Halacha (Jewish law) forbids traveling for entertainment. The more tourists there are, the more tourism infrastructure that highlights Jewish interests is needed. Besides tourists that come to prostrate themselves on the graves of the sages (in Uman, Mezhbizh and Berditchev ), there is a growing number of tourists who go on seminars in the footsteps of Hebrew literature, the fathers of Zionism and Hasidic history. So many pillars of Jewish and Zionist history in such a desolate region. The developments in the infrastructure of Jewish sites is evident. Uman stands out, followed other Rebbe’s graves in Mezhbizh, Sadigura by Chernivtsi, and Belz, located in north western Ukraine, among other sages’ grave sites renovated in recent years. The map of the sages' graves in Ukraine has grown to include more sites than anywhere in Israel. The massive stream of tourists has even led to the surprising initiative—to renew the Mezhbizh shtetl and renovate old Jewish homes abandoned decades ago.

Old Jewish homes in Mezhbizh (Photo: Yoel Rappel)

Walking through the streets of the old shtetl, you wonder, who would want to live here? Will this tiny Ukrainian town ever again be home to a Jewish population? And how will the local population receive the old-new residents? The 500m stretch between the Baal Shem Tov’s grave site and his Torah institutions is surrounded by old mud and straw homes, fenced off in order to prevent people from entering. More than 10houses are on their way to being renovated, and becoming homes for Jewish families who want to return to the town. What will their children do, roaming in the old shtetl streets? No one seems to have considered that. Hasidic people who have already left Israel and made Mezhbizh their home are quick to tell about the new Jewish town that’s being built. There is already a large Jewish hotel, a Kosher restaurant, a yeshiva and Torah institution, all located in proximity. In two to three years, promise the entrepreneurs, the shtetl will have a Jewish-Israeli street with two or three renovated synagogues. The town, forsaken like thousands of others 77 years ago, is about to be resurrected.

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Where did all the Jews from the Arab world go?

Some quarter million Jews emigrated from Arab countries in the years surrounding 1948, with the establishment of the State of Israel. Most came to Israel and helped build the country, but thousands more immigrated to other countries and established Sephardic Jewish communities, sometimes in unusual places.

 

A study conducted by Beit Hatfutsot on behalf of Ynet sheds some light on the matter. Jews began leaving Arab countries even before the establishment of Israel, and more left as the conflict between the Arab countries and the nascent Jewish state intensified.

 

Yemenite Jews (Photo: Reuters)

From some countries, the process was quick and most of their Jewish population left within a few short years. But in others, it was a drawn out process in which the Jews left in various waves.

The bottom line is that of the million or so Jews who lived in Arab countries in 1947, only a few thousand are left today. Hundreds of years of history disappeared, almost instantaneously.

As opposed to most Moroccan Jews who left quietly, Jews of other countries did not have such an option. In Yemen and Iraq, most Jews left in operations organized by the State of Israel, often with the assistance of local Zionist movements. Many of those who did not join the mass exodus were left behind until this very day.

For most Jews, Israel was the natural and preferred destination. The excitement stemming from the very establishment of an independent Jewish state in the land of Israel was immense and was articulated the realization of generations of longing and prayers for the return to Zion, out of a desire to be part of the Zionist enterprise.

There were other factors as well, often personal. Those who had family members who were already settled in other countries and were capable of financially supporting their relatives, often joined them instead of immigrating to Israel.

In addition, wealthy or well-educated families, such as those who mastered English or French or had professions that would enable them to easily integrate into western countries, often preferred to immigrate to countries other than Israel, at least initially.

The 6,000 or so Jews who lived in Libya in 1967 were transported to Italy due to the dangers they faced following the 1967 Six-Day War. Most of them then immigrated to Israel.

Jews in Tripoli, Libya, 1946 (Photo: Beit Hatfutsot)

Some Jewish communities from Arab lands left and settled in other countries long before the State of Israel was established. Jews from Morocco settled in the Amazon in northern Brazil and Peru during the 19th century rubber boom.

The Sephardic community in the Canadian province of Quebec numbers some 25,000 today, mostly in Montreal. Many Jews left Morocco in the late 1950s and as French speakers found a home in the French-Canadian province.

Jews from Syria settled in various communities in Latin America, such as Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo and Panama, around the turn of the 20th century.

Sephardic synagogue in Guatemala City (Photo: Beit Hatfutsot)

There were also communities of Jews from Iraq who settled in India and the Far East, or in England, where Yemenite Jews from Aden settled.

In most of the places where the Jews settled they established a traditional synagogue and made an effort to preserve the religious and cultural customs from their land of origin. Their customs served as an anchor to preserve their identity among the subsequent generations. As for language, many Jews spoke a unique Jewish-Arabic dialect which was different from that of Jews from other locations. The Baghdad dialect was different from that of the Jews of Tunis or Yemen. In countries that were colonized by France, many Jews adopted the French language. Many of those locations had Jewish schools founded by the Alliance Israélite Universelle, a Paris-based international Jewish organization founded the French statesman Adolphe Crémieux to safeguard the human rights of Jews around the world.

Tunisian Jews immigrating to Israel in the 1940s (Photo: Beit Hatfutsot)

Most first-generation emigrants continued speaking their native language, at least at home. In Israel however, there was immense pressure to learn and adopt Hebrew. Arabic speakers were also viewed with suspicion, as it was this language of the enemy. Consequently, most first generation immigrants abandoned their mother tongue, aside from a few words and expressions, and failed to pass it on to the next generation. In general, Jews who immigrated to Latin America adopted Spanish (or Portuguese in Brazil) and Jews in the United States adopted the English language. In recent years, there has been a renewed interest by many in the language of their ancestors and some have begun using the languages spoken by their parents or grandparents in their origin countries. While most Yemenite Jews immigrated en masse to Israel, Jews from Egypt dispersed around the world. More than 15,000 Egyptian Jews settled in South America, the reason being that Egyptian Jews left in a number of waves, influenced by a variety of factors affecting the community as well as the connections formed with the different destination countries over the years. The Jews who remained in Egypt for financial reasons lost all, or most, of their possessions when Nasser nationalized the property of the wealthy in 1961. Following Egypt’s defeat in the Six Day War, there were anti-Jewish disturbances and all but 2,000 Jews left the country.

Egyptian Jews on the way to a wedding, 1947 (Photo: Beit Hatfutsot)

There are many Jews of Tunisian or Moroccan origin in Israel, but most Algerian Jews settled in France; some 130,000 compared to only 30,000 who chose to settle in Israel. In France, the Jews mostly settled in Marseilles, Paris and Strasbourg. Algeria was distinct from the other North African French colonies in that it was like France proper and its Jews carried French citizenship. Dr. Yosef Sharvit, a lecturer at Bar Ilan University and an expert on Algerian Jewish history, explains that Algerian Jews were the only ones among the Diaspora communities to be criticized for not immigrating en masse to Israel.

The Jews of Syria can be divided into two separate communities: the Jews of Damascus (Shami) and the Jews of Aleppo (Halabi) and each have their own traditions. Jews from Aleppo began immigrating to Mexico in 1912 and established the Magen David synagogue and community. Those that remained in Syria were more inclined to Zionism and many moved to Israel before 1948, some even as early as the 19th century.

 

Syrian synagogue (Photo: AP)

Many Syrian Jews left the country during the 19th century due to a deteriorating economy. The opening of the Suez Canal eliminated the traditional land routes for trade and affected many Jewish businessmen. At first, many Jews moved to Beirut (then still part of the Syrian province of the Ottoman Empire) and from there to Egypt where the economy was boosted by the canal, before leaving to western countries. Those that remained in Syria after 1948 had difficulty leaving the country. Only in 1992 did the Assad regime allow Jews to freely emigrate, and most left.

Show trial of Iraqi Jew Shafiq Ades in Basra, 1948 (Photo: Beit Hatfutsot)

Iraq had one of the most ancient Jewish communities in the world. In 1948, the community was relatively prosperous and had a profound impact on the local culture and many did not think of leaving. But after Israel’s declaration of independence, Iraq sent troops to fight alongside the invading Arab countries and anti-Jewish sentiments soared. Local Jews were persecuted, blackmailed and many were accused of espionage and fired from civil service jobs. The Iraqi government allowed Jews to emigrate, mistakenly believing that only a handful would leave, but most of those who left lost much of their property. About half of those who remained eventually settled in London. When Saddam Hussein came to power almost all of the remaining Jews fled to Iran (under the Shah) and then to Israel.

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Where did all the Jews from the Arab world go? : http://bit.ly/2VrltDY

Italy gallery urges Germany to return painting stolen by Nazis

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Director of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence urges Germany to return a Dutch masterpiece stolen by Nazis in World War II by hanging a black and white photo of the work with the label 'Stolen' in three languages. Italy gallery urges Germany to return painting stolen by Nazis : http://bit.ly/2VzOEVA

German cinema offers free Schindler's List screenings to far-right party members

A cinema in Germany sparked a political row after it offered members of the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) free entry to screenings of the movie Schindler’s List. The movie tells the true story of German industrialist Oskar Schindler, who saved the lives dozens of Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe. The Cinexx movie theater in the town of Hechenberg decided to screen the film on January 27, which is International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

 

Cinexx made the offer to members of AfD, which has 12 percent of the seats in the German parliament, as party officials previously made disparaging statements about the Holocaust. The AfD members did not view the offer favorably, and reacted in an angry manner and claimed they were being persecuted. 

Footage from the Shindler's List film

  

"This is another example of discrimination when it comes to people who hold different political views," the party said via their Twitter account.

One right-wing blogger hinted that public relations stunts aimed against the AfD members may lead to violence.

"I would advise not to overreact, but at some point, someone is going to turn on you .. . there are a lot of crazy people out there and it’s easy to make homemade explosive devices,” said the blogger.

Oskar Schindler

In the wake of the political storm over the offer, the cinema issued a statement saying they didn’t mean to “slander” the far-right party.

"We didn’t try to suggest that AfD voters are Nazi sympathizers. If they need clarification about certain historical events, it’s up to them, but in the past they’ve shown contempt for the events depicted in the movie,” the statement said.

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German cinema offers free Schindler's List screenings to far-right party members : http://bit.ly/2VsXqo0

German-Jewish author Edgar Hilsenrath dies at 92

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Acclaimed German-Jewish writer Edgar Hilsenrath, known for his grotesque story about an SS member who pretends to be Jewish after the war, dies at 92. German-Jewish author Edgar Hilsenrath dies at 92 : http://bit.ly/2GQHUz5