Feds: Neo-Nazi plot targeted civilians, nukes and synagogues

Federal prosecutors said a neo-Nazi arrested after agents found bomb-making materials in his Florida apartment while investigating the slayings of his two roommates planned to use the explosives to harm civilians, nuclear facilities and synagogues.

Court documents filed Monday say a third roommate arrested in the killings told authorities that 21-year-old Brandon Russell had been targeting the sites.

(File photo: EPA)

The murder suspect, Devon Arthurs, was arrested last month after telling police he fatally shot 22-year-old Jeremy Himmelman and 18-year-old Andrew Oneschuk because they were neo-Nazis who disrespected his recent conversion to Islam.

Arthurs told police Russell was not involved in the shootings, but that he was planning a bombing.

The documents also stated that police found two rifles, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and a skull mask in Russell's car.

Russell admitted to making the HMTD, but claimed he had been a member of a college engineering club and that the substance was for "setting off model rockets and balloons," the documents stated. Agents said they found nothing related to rockets in the apartment.

On May 20, after speaking with authorities, Russell said he wanted to leave town and visit his father in Palm Beach and left the Tampa area while an arrest warrant was being prepared. Contacted by law enforcement, his family said they hadn't heard from him.

Russell had picked up a friend, another self-described neo-Nazi, William James Tschantre, 20, who was identified in a Monroe County Sheriff's Office report. Tsanchtre told the agents that he grabbed his life savings, $3,000, quit his job and left with Russell.

Devon Arthurs (Photo: AP)

The pair told agents they stopped at a sporting goods store and purchased rifles and ammunition before heading south.

"According to Russell's friend, they had no specific destination in mind and had no plans to hurt anyone or do any harm," the court documents state.

The next morning, Russell was arrested by Monroe County sheriff's deputies at a Burger King in Key Largo after the FBI had issued a "be on the lookout" advisory. In his car, according to court filings, they found two rifles, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, binoculars and a skull mask.

In arguing for his bond, which was granted by the court pending a decision on the details of his release, Russell stated that the rifles and ammunition he purchased could be used for hunting. His attorney, Ian Goldstein, said he would comment after a hearing the judge scheduled for Tuesday afternoon to announce the conditions of Russell's release.

Prosecutors have asked the court to reconsider, arguing that Russell's bomb-making materials and flight were cause enough to keep him behind bars. Russell is charged with unlawful storage of explosive materials and possessing a destructive device and unregistered firearm.

"Detonating this type of bomb could easily cause a vehicle to explode, killing all of the occupants and causing grave damage within a large distance around the explosion site," Acting U.S. Attorney W. Stephen Muldrow wrote.

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Einstein letters on God, McCarthy, Israel go up for auction

A collection of letters written by Albert Einstein is set to go to auction next week, offering a new glimpse at the Nobel-winning physicist's views on God, McCarthyism and what was then the newly established state of Israel.

The five original letters, dated 1951 to 1954 and signed by Einstein, reveal a witty and sensitive side of the esteemed scientist. They were sent to quantum physicist David Bohm, a colleague who fled the United States for Brazil in 1951 after refusing to testify about his links to the Communist Party to the House Un-American Activities Committee.

(Photo: Getty Images)

Bohm's widow's estate put the documents on the block after she passed away last year. One of the yellowing pages, bearing Einstein's signature and embossed seal, and a handwritten general relativity equation, opens at $8,000 and is expected to sell for at least twice that. In all, the collection is expected to fetch over $20,000.

Einstein and Bohm became friends when they both worked at Princeton University. Their letters touch on quantum physics, the nature of the divine and Bohm's miserable time in Brazil.

"If God has created the world his primary worry was certainly not to make its understanding easy for us," Einstein assured Bohm in February 1954, a year before his death.

In another letter from February 1953, Einstein compares "the present state of mind" of America gripped by McCarthyist anti-Communism to the paranoia in Germany in the early 20th century under Kaiser Wilhelm II. Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s led a hunt for alleged communist traitors he believed worked in the government and the army.

Bohm, who left the United States in the midst of the so-called Red Scare, conveyed dismay and displeasure about living in Brazil, where he was working at the University of Sao Paulo. He said he had trouble adjusting to the local food.

Einstein, then 75, offered sympathy to his younger colleague for the "instability of your belly, a matter where I have myself extended experience." He suggested getting a good cook.

Einstein said the foreseeable future didn't portend a "more reasonable political attitude" in the United States, and that Bohm ought to hold out in Brazil until he gets citizenship before leaving for a more "intellectual atmosphere."

One idea that came up was relocating to Israel, which had declared independence in 1948. But despite Einstein's ties to Israel's Hebrew University, he believed the country offered limited opportunities. Einstein himself declined an offer in 1952 to become Israel's president, though he served remotely on the Hebrew University's first Board of Governors and left his papers to the school in his will.

"Israel is intellectually active and interesting but has very narrow possibilities," the Nobel laureate wrote. "And to go there with the intention to leave on the first occasion would be regrettable."

(Photo: courtesy of the Albert Einstein Archive)

Despite Einstein's counsel, Bohm, who was Jewish, left Brazil for Israel in 1955, where he taught at Haifa's Technion Institute of Technology for two years. There he met his wife, Sarah Woolfson. They married in 1956. A year later the couple moved to the United Kingdom, where Bohm taught at Bristol University until his death in 1992.

Mrs. Bohm returned to Israel after her husband's death and resided in Jerusalem. She died in April 2016 and her estate put her husband's letters from Einstein up for sale at Winner's auction house in Jerusalem.

Roni Grosz, curator of the Albert Einstein Archives at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, home to the world's largest collection of Einstein material, said copies of the Bohm letters were already in the archive and that there was "nothing extraordinary" about them. But he said anything connected to Einstein tends to generate interest.

"There's today tremendous interest in all things Einstein. Einstein documents, letters, drafts are being on sale all the time," he said. "There's barely a month that passes with no Einstein documents in auction or in sale."

The auction, which includes copies of other letters sent by Einstein and correspondence by fellow Nobel laureate Louis de Broglie, will be held on June 20, though early bids are being accepted online.

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Warsaw mayor faces summons on estate returns

Warsaw's city mayor and other officials will be summoned this month to testify before a special state commission investigating questionable restitution of private property that was seized under communism, the deputy justice minister said Monday.

The commission was formed recently in response to growing outrage at the returns, which concern highly valuable plots and buildings, in Warsaw and some other cities, that were seized by the state from private owners—Poles, Jews and others—under a 1945 communist-era decree.

Warsaw

Democratic Poland opened the possibility of the return of property, but in many cases the process has gone wrong, the rightful heirs have been tricked out of their rights and the tenants evicted by the new owners, sometimes with nowhere to go.

The commission led by Deputy Justice Minister Patryk Jaki will review cases. It has the power to take wrong decisions to court to seek their reversal or compensation for the rightful inheritors. It is beginning with restitutions in Warsaw. Jaki said Monday that the first hearings will be June 28-30 and will concern a building in Twarda street from which a renowned high school was evicted. Warsaw Mayor Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz refused to appear and had questioned the commission's authority. The panel wanted to know to what extent she was aware of the irregularities that had been described in the media. A house returned to her family was among those investigated. Some other city officials have been put under arrest on suspicion of helping in the irregular restitutions and will be brought before the panel.

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US Holocaust museum seeks funds to preserve war diaries

A.C. Strip has long understood the significance of the diary his older brother kept as they fled the Holocaust with their parents. He turned it into a self-published book that he gave to his brother as a 90th birthday gift. But Strip never considered the diary to be an important historical document. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum is making him rethink that.

Strip's brother's journal is one of more than 200 diaries written by Holocaust victims and survivors the museum hopes to digitize and make available to the public with the help of its first crowd-funding campaign. The museum is seeking $250,000 for the project and will begin soliciting donations through Kickstarter on Monday, the birthday of the most famous Holocaust diarist, Anne Frank.

A page of Joseph Stripounsky's diary with a sketch showing "Master Teddy Bear," is shown at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, Wednesday, June 7, 2017 (Photo: AP)

 

The diary has forced Strip to confront painful memories. On a recent visit to Washington to be interviewed for the project, he found it too difficult to tour the museum. But he visited the nearby National Museum of African American History and Culture and gained some perspective on what the Holocaust Museum is trying to accomplish.

"I had forgotten some of these things in my own lifetime, all these stories about people like me and my family," Strip said. "The African-American museum is bringing these things to life that will not permit people to forget, and the Holocaust Museum, their job is not to permit people to forget."

Curator Kyra Schuster, shows diaries laid on a table at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, Wednesday, June 7, 2017 (Photo: AP)

Strip, a native of Antwerp, Belgium, was 5 and Joseph 17 when their family fled the Nazis. Then known as the Stripounskys, they escaped across the border to France and spent a year holed up with a farming family in a small village before going to Spain, Portugal and, finally, the United States.

Joseph—who later became an engineer, settled in New Jersey and lived to 91—chronicled the journey in meticulous detail, using four notebooks. He accented his writing with sketches, maps and newspaper clippings. One sketch shows "Master Teddy Bear," a stuffed animal the family bought for young A.C.

A page of Joseph Stripounsky's diary shows a pocket created on a page with extra pages inserted inside, at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, Wednesday, June 7, 2017 (Photo: AP)

Strip, 81, a lawyer who lives in Dublin, Ohio, broke down in tears several times while discussing his family's journey in a telephone interview. While his immediate family got across the Belgian border, two aunts and two uncles didn't make it. Their papers were Czech, not Belgian, and they were later killed by the Nazis. Two of Strip's orphaned cousins later joined his family in the US and were raised by his parents. He considers them his brothers.

"Our family, like so many others, got beat up pretty bad," he said.

The diary project is important because Holocaust survivors are rapidly dying off, museum officials said. If the Kickstarter campaign succeeds, the money would mostly pay for the work needed to translate, catalog and digitize them. The museum has diaries written in 18 languages.

Curator Kyra Schuster, shows diaries laid on a table at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, Wednesday, June 7, 2017 (Photo: AP)

"We're living in scary times. Holocaust denial has been on the rise. Anti-Semitism and hatred is extremely worrisome. It's on the front of a lot of minds, certainly this institution. These diaries, these first-person accounts, testimonies, this is the evidence," said Dana Weinstein, the museum's director of membership and new audience engagement. "This evidence will stand as proof that the Holocaust happened."

Many of the diaries were much shorter than Joseph's, kept on scraps of paper or scrawled onto family photographs. The museum received one diary from Warsaw, Poland, that had been hidden behind a radiator in a bombed-out building. It looked like a deck of cards, but it turned out to be four sheets of paper that were folded many times. The author was a woman known as Deborah—it could have been an alias—and that's all the museum curators know.

Strip's brother was careful to write down everything. His maps were so accurate that, during a trip to France two years ago, Strip was able to use them to find the village and the farmhouse where his family hid.

A page of Joseph Stripounsky's diary with a sketch showing a map, is shown at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, Wednesday, June 7, 2017 (Photo: AP)

The last name of the family they stayed with was Mech. Strip visited the mayor's office and asked the secretary if anyone with that name still lived in town.

"She went to the computer, picked up the telephone, came back and said, 'One of Mr. Mech's children will be here in 5 minutes,'" Strip said. "Five minutes later, a very nice gentleman, 62 years old, who wasn't born at the time I was there but who knew the whole story, came in, took one look at me and he started crying."

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US First amendment lawyer defending neo-Nazi website publisher

A Las Vegas-based lawyer specializing in free-speech cases is representing the publisher of a leading neo-Nazi website who has been sued for orchestrating an anti-Semitic online trolling campaign against a Montana family.

Marc Randazza told The Associated Press on Friday that his law firm is defending The Daily Stormer's founder, Andrew Anglin, against afederal lawsuit that real estate agent Tanya Gersh filed against him in April.

"Everybody deserves to have their constitutional rights defended," Randazza said. "Nobody needs the First Amendment to protect Mr. Rogers. That's not what it's there for."

Gersh is represented by attorneys from the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups.

White supremacists 'hail Trump' with Nazi salute (File photo)

Gersh's suit claims anonymous internet trolls bombarded her family with hateful and threatening messages after Anglin unleashed a "campaign of terror" by publishing their personal information, including her 12-year-old son's Twitter handle and photo. In a string of posts, Anglin accused Gersh and other Jewish residents of Whitefish, Montana, of engaging in an "extortion racket" against the mother of white nationalist Richard Spencer. The suit accuses Anglin of invading Gersh's privacy, intentionally inflicting "emotional distress" and violating a Montana anti-intimidation law. Randazza, who said Anglin never directly sent any messages to Gersh, argued the suit's allegations "leave room for disagreement" over whether Anglin did anything wrong. Randazza's clients have included adult entertainment websites; the 8chan online message board, a popular forum for racist internet trolls; and Mike Cernovich, a right-wing author and attorney who has promoted a conspiracy theory about Democrats running a child-sex slavery ring from a Washington pizza restaurant's basement. "If it's unpopular and people want to shut it up, then we have represented them," Randazza said.

Daily Stormer founder Andrew Anglin

The Daily Stormer used a crowdfunding website, WeSearchr, to raise more than $152,000 in donations from nearly 2,000 contributors to help pay for its legal expenses. Anglin uses a mailing address in Worthington, Ohio, for his website, which takes its name from Der Stürmer, a newspaper that published Nazi propaganda. The site includes sections called "Jewish Problem" and "Race War." Other targets of The Daily Stormer and its "Troll Army" of readers have included prominent journalists, a British Parliament member and Alex Jones, a radio host and conspiracy theorist whom Anglin derided as a "Zionist Millionaire."

Neo-Nazi-alt right leader Richard Spencer (Photo: AP)

Gersh's lawsuit said she agreed to help Richard Spencer's mother sell commercial property she owns in Whitefish amid talk of a protest outside the building. Sherry Spencer, however, later accused Gersh of threatening and harassing her into agreeing to sell the property. Anglin's initial Dec. 16 post about Gersh urged readers to "take action" against her and other Jewish residents of Whitefish, posting their telephone numbers, email addresses and Twitter handles. "And hey—if you're in the area, maybe you should stop by and tell her in person what you think of her actions," he added.

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Cochin Jews reconnect with their cultural past

On Thursday, hundreds of members of the Cochin Jewish community and their descendants drove to Jerusalem, where the held a special ceremony that recounted their community's immigration to Israel.

 

More than 60 years have passed since their emigration from India and quick assimilation to the young state. It seems that out of all immigrant communities, the Cochin became the most integrated, and perhaps because of this, the story and heritage of their fascinating community remained known only to its members.

Cochin Jews (Photo: David Rubinger)

The ceremony in Jerusalem is the crowning glory of the renewed revival of the community in recent months. The awakening experienced by the Cochin includes a magnificent study of roots held simultaneously by hundreds of members of the community. The customs, the songs, the rich culture that only the older generation remembers are now reawakening. "We are an ancient community that, according to the Scriptures, came to India during the time of King Solomon," said community member Yoel Elias in an interview with Ynet. "We have a glorious heritage, and still many do not know about us, often thinking we are Yemenites or Ethiopians or something in the middle."

(Photo: David Rubinger)

Cochin is a district in the state of Kerala, home to a vibrant Jewish community of some 2,500 people, who lived in five towns: Erinculam, Kochi, Paror, Mala and Channamglam. The beginning of the Jewish settlement was in the time of King Solomon, when the Jews moved there for trade purposes. Jews came to Kerala after the destruction of the Second Temple, and later came the Paradesi Jews—foreign Jews in the local Malayalam language—in the 16th century after the expulsion from Spain. On ancient copper tablets dating back to 1000 CE, the charter of rights granted to the Jews of Kerala by the local ruler exempted them from taxes but bestowed on them all privileges enjoyed by the tax-payers, such as riding elephants, carrying lamps, parasols and accompanying orchestras in parades—things reserved for only the nobility.

The Jews of Cochin lived as a cohesive community, maintained a traditional lifestyle around the synagogues, and lived in harmony with the members of the other communities— yet dreamed of the Land of Israel and aspired to immigrate to Israel. In the 1950s, the entire community decided to sell its assets, purchase plane tickets, and finance their settlement in Israel. They did so even though they never suffered from harassment and, on the contrary, had good relations with the locals. "This is a community that dreamed of the Land of Israel, who prayed to come to Israel one day, who did not play musical instruments for 3,000 years because of the destruction of the First Temple," Elias recalled. "When they wanted to make music, they sang or clapped their hands, they did not use instruments. Our history is wonderful and interesting, but few people know it."

A few months ago, an idea quickly became popular with the entire Cochin community: some members of the community began to build a family tree on MyHeritage. Very quickly it grew, and now includes about 9,000 people.

"After two months of work, there are close to 400 people working at the same time to fill the family tree and to upload our entire family history to it," said Elias. "Suddenly there is an amazing inter-generational connection. More and more people joined in the task of building the tree, the young people began asking questions—who was Grandfather? What had he done with his life? This is amazing. People are beginning to take an interest in the story behind the people, and they upload content to the tree that was, until today, stashed in a drawer or bookcase."

 

(Translated & edited by Lior Mor)

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German woman returns to her roots, converts to Judaism at 81

At the age of 81, Mazal (Monica) Hartzfeld converted to Judaism.

The little girl from Düsseldorf, Germany, who spent her childhood in the dark days of Nazi Germany, came full circle in Gush Etzion in Israel, where she completed the conversion process via seminars by AMI, an organization which offers Judaism conversion seminars in Israel for those who are not Israeli citizens.

Mazal (Monica) Hartzfeld

"I was three years old when it all began," she told in an interview with Ynet. "At the time, we lived in Düsseldorf, and when the war started, I could see as a young girl the attacks on people and on their property."

"My great grandfather was Jewish, and the subject of Judaism was very dear to my father. He always told us stories from the bible," she recounted, saying the last few words in Hebrew and pointing to the bible which always had a place of honor at their home. "My dad was baptized as a Christian, but he never went to church, and he didn't baptize us, his children." Even though she had "Jewish blood" running through her veins, her family managed to escape the death sentence that her neighbors were received—even those who were only considered one-quarter Jewish by the Nuremberg Laws. "There were others who were under similar circumstances who managed to survive," said Hartzfeld. "But it wasn't simple. You needed a patron; someone local who will protect you and take care that the authorities won't know (of your heritage). It wasn't easy, but that's how dad managed. "I remember them taking me and my sister to school, and people would whisper behind our back and say 'how is it that they let a Jew attend school? That’s impossible." At some point during the war, Hartzfeld said that her family felt "like the ground was burning under our feet," and decided to flee to a rural part of the country. "It was better for us there. People accepted us, and that's where we stayed until the war ended. We didn't have a home to return to, since Düsseldorf suffered massive bombing, but at least the war was behind us." How was growing up as a Jewish woman in Germany after the war?"I was never persecuted," noted Hartzfeld. "I was a little girl when it all started, so I didn't suffer like my dad did, but even as a child I could feel the distancing. Once someone knew of your roots, they immediately treated you with this sort of distance. That's how it always felt. "That's how it was until the 60s, when the reforms took place and Germany changed. For my dad, though, it was difficult until the very end."

When did you become interested in religion?"Even as a child I understood that Judaism is very important to my father. He always spoke proudly of it, when everyone else saw it as obscene. He would tell me about the special kitchen that his mother had, where they prepared food and ate in accordance to the Jewish Kosher laws. "He used to tell me, 'even if you disagree with what's written in the bible, never mock it; respect it.'" When she grew up, Hartzfeld thought to build a life for herself, outside and far away from her father's Jewish ideals. "I married a Chirstian, of course, and I wanted to raise a Christian family and leave the rest behind me, but it happens. My marriage didn't last. The kids grew up and left, and I found myself soul searching. "It was obvious to me that I didn't feel any connection with Christianity, and like my father, I always saw Christ's whole story as somewhat fictitious," said Hartzfeld, who decided to go back to her roots. "I started learning Hebrew, and then the bible. I read more and more, and finally reached the Jewish community in the city I lived in back in Germany, and asked if I could join their prayers at the synagogue. They replied that whoever wants to join can, and that's how it started." Hartzfeld was a diligent student, and despite her age, managed to complete the longest Judaism conversion process in Israel. "It was most exciting in Shavuot," said Hartzfeld. "Do you know what it means for me to receive the Torah?" she rhetorically asked, speaking about the holiday's tradition. "I dreamt about it for many years. Now, I'm 81-years-old, and I'm finally there." According to Rabbi David Ben-Nissan, coordinator of private conversion at AMI, Hartzfeld became a household member of the Jewish community. "She reached out a few years ago to convert. It was just amazing to witness," said the Rabbi. "She came in every Shabat from beginning to end, went to all the prayers and lessons, always driven. She would even help me with my German during long lessons. "As far as she's concerned, it's the right path, it's what's true for her. I was impressed by how a person of her age just refused to give up. This is true Jewish conversion from the purest place there can be. There is nothing here except a sincere desire to join the Jewish people." When Hartzfeld, who now proudly calls herself by her Jewish name from her youth, ended by answering the seemingly obvious question—why? "I don't even know how to explain it. From the moment I arrived to my first prayer at the synagogue, it felt like I returned back home. This is the life I always wanted to have. I feel now like everything had a reason. There was a reason for our survival, there was a reason for my dad's speeches about Judaism, there's a reason that—even at my age—I'm still in good health. "In the morning, when we wake up, we (Jews) thank god for returning our soul to us. As far as I see it, he returned my soul to me for this. So I, myself, can return."

 

(Translated & edited by Lior Mor)

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