British Jew speaks on the rise of anti-Semitism in Britain

A poll published recently by the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism showed that about a third of British Jews considered leaving with 37 percent of Jews feeling they need to conceal their ethnicity in public and only 59 percent felt welcome in the country. Sharon Klaff, a British Jewish activist, was asked to explain why.

 

"There's been a rise of overt anti-Semitism in the UK over the last few years, typically within the Labor party and specifically since Jeremy Corbyn took over the leadership," she said.

Anti-Israel demonstrations in Britain (Photo: citizenside.com)

"British Jews are quite aware of being discriminated against via statements made by various people like some MPs in the British government. So yes, there is an air of very open anti-Semitism here, we see the same Neo-Nazism and anti-Semitism in America and on our own streets. However, the anti-Semitism I think is the most dangerous is the Islamic anti-Semitism that seems to be a worldwide phenomenon right now."

Have you witnessed any anti-Semitic incidents in the UK personally?

"Yes, I have. I'm a bit of an activist. I go to a lot of meetings, mostly in London but across the country. I was one of the people at the meeting at the University College London campus when we were raided by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and they took over our lecture hall. It was Hen Mazzig who was speaking, the Israeli, and what happened was they had to run us into another room where they were banging at the door trying to get in. We were in a way held under siege at that campus for quite some time until the police could work out a way to get us out of there."

Have you considered leaving the UK? Have your friends and family?

"I know that there are people leaving the UK, making Aliyah. My heart, of course, is in Israel, but my family lives here. I'm not making plans to make Aliyah but I know that there's an air of people wanted to perhaps start to make plans to leave.

"At the end of July, when the Al-Aqsa incident was taking place, there was a big demonstration outside the Israeli embassy and we were there to hold a vigil for the family that was slaughtered that Friday night. What we witnessed there was a bit of a change in the anti-Semitism on our streets, in that it was very aggressive. It was a little bit frightening. They didn't send too many police there to start with, and then they stole our flag and ran down the street with it. I sent you a video of how they burned our flag.

"What I witnessed for the first time in demonstrations is that there were people there carrying flammable canisters in their hands, ready for action. That's a little bit frightening."

Anti-Semitic graffiti in the UK (Photo: The Community Security Trust)

What role does the rise of Jeremy Corbyn play in these matters?

"Jeremy Corbyn is a longstanding anti-Israel activist. He was involved in that even in his early days as an MP, he in fact is a patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign is like a big umbrella (organization—ed.) and it works by having (daughter) organizations across the country. At any time of any day of any week you can find an event that's taking place by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign or that's backed by them. For instance, they work together with Friends of Al-Aqsa, as they did when they had the very big Palestine Expo in London at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre. It's the first time they've had a huge event/

"They say about 1,500 people attended over the weekend. They had a list of the most vile, anti-Israel anti-Semitic speakers and they also had a kind of an indoctrination of children.

Labor party leader Jeremy Corbyn (Photo: AP)

"They had a children's corner where they were teaching children about the prophets of Palestine, and they turned King David into Daud. So the children hear about Daud and Goliath, they hear about not Moses but Musa crossing the Red Sea.

"So what we have is a sense of "Palestinianism", which is the weapon that the Arabs of the area are using as a weapon to attack Israel and through Israel, to attack Jews."

How scary is it to be a Jew in the UK nowadays?

"On a daily basis you don't notice it. You go about your life, you go to work, you do your shopping. But I know that the Haredi Jews are very often under physical attack. In the area that I live in I haven't seen any attacks and I must say that I'm more aware: I look around a little bit, I check who's behind me sometimes when I'm in certain areas. If I go to demonstrations I'm a little bit more cautious.

"As in any country the majority of people actually are not involved in the political arena. They may read about it in the press, mostly in the Jewish press, but I think by and large a lot of people just ignore it.

Are Jews in the UK facing violence on a daily basis?

"I wouldn't say that. What you see is mostly done at demonstrations. I go shopping in Golders Green, which is a Jewish area, I don't really see violence there. There's a kind of focus on demonstrations."

Do you feel you need to hide your Jewish identity on a daily basis?

"I don't, but I made a conscious decision—being born in South Africa, where racism was the name of the game—never to hide who I am. I'm very open about who I am, I'm very open about my political beliefs but there is an air here, and there always has been, of people not talking about their Jewishness when they go to work, not being too open about it. I know that on certain university campuses this is rife. This is where it really bubbles to the surface. So on certain university campuses the Jewish students are a little bit more cautious about wearing a Star of David around their necks or being overtly Jewish in their daily actions."

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Actors join forces to restore ancient Jewish cemetery

Actors from the Israeli Habima and Cameri theaters will join forces to preserve the ancient Jewish cemetery of the city of Bitola in Macedonia, Which lost its entire Jewish population during the Holocaust.

Two years after the actors visited, they decided to put on a special show whose proceeds would be devoted to the rehabilitation of the cemetery and about 6,000 of its neglected tombstones.

A neglected tombstone in the Jewish cemetery in Bitola, Macedonia

The team of actors from both theaters visited the Balkans on their tour for the show "Our Class," which deals with the complicated ties between Poles and Jews during the Second World War. It was staged in four countries.

During their stay in the city of Bitola, the actors visited the ancient Jewish cemetery in the city where 10,000 Jews have been buried from 1497—the days of the expulsion from Spain until the Second World War. These graves are almost the only remnant left by the large Jewish community of Macedonia, which numbered 7,144 people on the eve of World War II, and was annihilated by the Nazis. Touched by the sad tale of the city's Jewish community, the actors are set to stage a special performance of "Our Class," directed by Hanan Snir, with all proceeds going towards preserving the ancient cemetery. The special performance will take place at the Habima National Theater on August 27, with ten actors appearing in the performance—five from Habima and five from Cameri.

The Israeli ambassador to Macedonia, Dan Orian, took the rehabilitation of the cemetery as a personal project and has managed to rehabilitate around 3,800 of its 10,000 graves.

"The Jews of Bitola were hit first by the Nazis and then by neglect," said Israeli Ambassador to Macedonia Dan Orian, who took the preservation and protection of the cemetery as a personal project and has managed to save around 3,800 of its 10,000 graves from complete destruction. "We are trying to bring the story back to our consciousness and create a new and unique connection with Israel."

"As we were previously worked towards preserving the heritage, culture and memory of entire communities destroyed in the Holocaust, we do so again in an emotional endeavor that brings our trip from two years ago full circle," said Odelia Friedman, Habima General Manager.

Top-down view of the Jewish cemetery in Bitola

At the outbreak of World War II, the Jewish community of Macedonia was assembled in the capital of Skopje, and in March 1943 all its members were deported to the Treblinka Nazi extermination camp, together with the rest of the Jews of Macedonia, where they were exterminated by the Nazis. There are no Jewish residents left in Bitola.

In the last two years, the cemetery was slowly turned into a memorial park for the legacy of the city's Jewish residents, though when it comes to the grave sites, Ambassador Orian said that the project is currently NIS 300,000 short for its overall plan of cleaning, restoring and preserving all salvageable, adding that if they had the funds, they could "complete the entire process within a year."

"Our goal is to document all the tombstones on a digital format so that they are accessible to everyone on the internet," Orian said.

According to him, the Macedonian government joined the initiative, with three ministers took part in the launch event for the cemetary's restoration.

Orian added that the mayor of Bitola promised to maintain the cemetery after its restoration. "There is tremendous importance to the restoration of the cemetery," Orion concluded.

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Poll: One third of British Jews considered leaving

Nearly one-third of British Jews have considered leaving the country in the last two years over fear of anti-Semitism, according to a poll by YouGov for the Campaign Against anti-Semitism (CAA), which was published on Sunday.

The multiyear reseach found that 31 percent of British Jews considered immigration at least once in the past two years—a three percent increase from 2015.

The anti-Semitism Barometer research was conducted between 2015-2017 and surveyed 3,411 British Jews in 2015, 1,660 in 2016, and 1,614 in 2017.

Demonstration against anti-Semitism in London, Britain (Photo: AFP)

The poll also found that 17 percent of Jews—about one in six—feel unwelcome in Britain, while 37 percent feel they need to hide their ethnicity in public.

Sixty-five percent of British Jews said the British government did not do enough to protect them, and only 39 percent felt confident anti-Semitic hate crime would be prosecuted.

Meanwhile, more than 80 percent agreed that the Labour Party was too tolerant of anti-Semitism.

The Labour Party has been embroiled in a series of anti-Semitic scandals in recent years, and its chairman Jeremy Corbyn, a prominent pro-Palestinian activist, has been accused of being too tolerant of anti-Semitism.

Labor Chairman Jeremy Corbyn, often embroiled in anti-Semitic scandals

Meanwhile, a Sky News poll found that anti-Semitic views in Britain were actually on the decline.

The poll examined how many respondents agreed with seven anti-Semitic statements. The number of people who agreed with at least one statement among the seven dropped from 45 percent in 2015 to 36 percent this year.

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Sign at Swiss hotel directed to 'Jewish guests' draws scorn

Switzerland's tourism office on Tuesday decried an "unfortunate" incident in which a small Alpine hotel posted a sign asking "Jewish guests" to shower before swimming in the hotel pool.

 

The Simon Wiesenthal Center demanded the closure of the Paradies Arosa hotel in the eastern town of Arosa, and issued a statement on Tuesday calling on "the broader Jewish community and their Gentile friends to blacklist this horrific hotel." On Twitter, Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely called for "justice" against the hotel's management.

Officials said the hotel had apologized for the incident and taken the sign down.

 

Swiss Tourism spokesman Markus Berger called the sign unacceptable, adding: "It always needs to stay in perspective: This is one unfortunate incident."

Under "To our Jewish Guests," the sign read: "Please take a shower before you go swimming. If you break the rules, I am forced to cloes (sic) the swimming pool for you. Thank you for your understanding."

Tzipi Livni, a former Israeli foreign minister, posted an image of the sign on her Facebook page and wrote that "there can be no tolerance and no indifference" to anti-Semitism and racism, in comments that also alluded also to violence around a white supremacist rally in Virginia in the United States.

We "must not let there be a place in the free world for Nazi flags or Ku Klux Klan masks or ugly signs in hotels directed at Jews only," she wrote. "We cannot allow acts of hate against Jews around the world to become normal."

Hotel management did not immediately respond to an e-mail from The Associated Press seeking comment.

Berger cited a recent trend of Orthodox and other Jews traveling to four Alpine villages in the area in the summertime, including Davos. He said didn't know the origin of the trend, but that numbers "definitely in the thousands" have grown in recent years. He said many area hotels serve kosher food, and that Jewish guests "feel well-treated" there.

"It's just this one lady at this one hotel who was not on top of the situation," Berger said. "It's an isolated incident that doesn't need for greater action to be taken."

Switzerland's foreign ministry, responding to a request for comment from The Associated Press, said that it has been in touch with the Israeli ambassador and "outlined to him that Switzerland condemns racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination in any form. Switzerland has been strongly committed for years—as it is at the moment, for example, within its presidency for the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance—to raise awareness to the dangers of racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination."

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Boston Holocaust memorial vandalized for second time this summer

The New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston has been vandalized for the second time this summer.

Police said a 17-year-old Malden boy smashed a glass panel on the memorial Monday evening. He was detained by two bystanders until officers arrived on the scene. Police said he will be charged with willful and malicious destruction of property.

Boston Holocaust memorial (Photo: AP)

 

The police department's civil rights unit also is investigating to determine if additional charges are warranted.

It is the second time the memorial has been damaged in the past few months.

In June, police said James Isaac used a rock to shatter a roughly 9-foot-tall glass panel on one of the memorial's six 54-foot-high towers. Isaac has pleaded not guilty to vandalism charges.

Photo: AP

The six glass towers are lit internally and etched with millions of numbers that represent tattoos on the arms of many Jews sent to Nazi death camps.

The repaired memorial was rededicated in July.

The Jewish Community Relations Council and Combined Jewish Philanthropies released a statement late Monday night saying that they are "appalled and saddened" by the latest vandalism.

Photo: AP

"We will remain resilient and will have a timeline for rebuilding the memorial once we have assessed the damage," the statement said.

Democratic Mayor Marty Walsh wrote on Twitter that he was "saddened to see such a despicable action." He thanked the public and Boston police for the "quick arrest" of a suspect.

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From Poland to Uruguay: Jewish identity in pictures

A teenage boy reading the Torah at a summer camp in Panama, two teenage girls blowing a shofar in Houston, Texas, and a bat mitzvah at the Hebrew school in Chile—these are just a few of the daily Jewish experiences documented by 100 teenagers from three different continents as part of the Jewish Lens photo competition. The result is a beautiful exhibition of 25 selected projects, which was inaugurated last weekend at Beit Hatfutsot—The Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv.

The exhibition, which is a joint initiative of the museum and photographer Zion Ozeri, reveals how Jewish youth around the world perceive their Jewishness.

Rabbi Talia Avnon-Benveniste, director of the Koret International School for Jewish Peoplehood Studies (ISJPS) at Beit Hatfutsot, says she wanted to enlist the smartphone and youth’s tendency to take pictures of everything to manifest their Jewish belonging: “How are they part of the people? In what sense?”

Ezequiel Noble, Noar Panama, Panama City, Panama: The joint prayer and Torah reading in the Noar Panama summer camp are formative events in Ezequiel’s life. The concept of God being everywhere is a meaningful part of his Jewish experience. The gathering in the open space brings together people who have the same desire and share the traditions of the Jewish people.

She received many diverse answers: Some 100 photographs were submitted to the competition, and the 25 selected ones, she says, point to “teenagers who focus on the family, the different generations, the items on the book shelf, the youth movement, the synagogue. Each with their personal point of view, but together we see an abundance and diversity of Jewish identity in the 21st century, as reflected in the eyes of teenagers.”

Nathan Brenner, Temple Adat Elohim Religious School, Thousand Oaks, California, US: Nathan uses the technique of perspective to illustrate that the Torah is limitless, connecting out past, present and future. ‘It is our job to pass on the legacy, and the best way to do that is to encourage young students to learn, love and embody the book that makes Jews who they are.’

One of the teens who used their cellphone to document their Jewish identity was Miriam Handel of Texas. “We are used to seeing this situation in so many pictures of youth who feel like posing for the camera, and here there may be a call for some form of subversion. It’s a penetrating picture. They are looking straight at the camera and blowing a shofar, appropriating a role that used to belong to men until now, with a lot of pride and joy," Avnon-Benveniste says.

Miriam Handel, Kehillah High, Houston, Texas, US: Jewish identity revolves around expressing oneself creatively and giving meaning to years-old rituals. The ancient meets the contemporary, tradition meets movement, and young people make their voices heard in a Jewish way.

 “I find the picture of a girl being blessed with hands on her head very moving,” Avnon-Benveniste adds. “You see here a ceremony of a girl who feels very blessed—both for being Jewish and for being at the center of a community—receiving a blessing for her bat mitzvah, or for Shabbat, and she feels close to the people around her. I see it as a very beautiful choice of a girl who says, ‘I feel blessed to be Jewish.’”

Micaela Norambuena, Instituto Hebreo Santiago, Chile: ‘Three threads connect me to the Jewish people—my family, the Jewish school where I study, and the Tzeirei Ami youth movement to which I have belonged since the age of 10.’ Tradition, customs, Hebrew, Zionism and community are the essential parts of Micaela’s identity that enable her to continue to take an active and meaningful role in the community.

Another picture that made the exhibition was taken in Chicago and given the name “And These Words.” According to Avnon-Benveniste, “This picture looks inwards. We can’t actually see who is behind those hands, but we see the holy moment in which a person who could be a man or a woman, a boy or a girl, prays and reads ancient verses, seeking a moment of peace, of giving thanks, of introspection in the Jewish world of prayer.”

Justin Aronwald, Solomon Schechter Day School of Metropolitan Chicago, Northbrook, Illinois, US: And these words, which I command ‘you this day… bind them as a sign on your hand, and let them serve’ as a symbol between your eyes (Deuteronomy, 6:6-8). ‘When the Torah is imprinted on our hands, on our bodies, it reminds us about our Jewish history and traditions and gives us morals to live by.’

The competition was launched at quite a difficult time for Jewish communities around the world, when Jewish identity has become a source of anti-Semitic and political persecution.

Avnon-Benveniste believes the differences between the situations of communities in Europe and in North America make it difficult to receive a comprehensive answer on how to deal with these hardships. The message, however, remains clear.

Sarah Strenger, Kulanu School of Jewish Studies, Margate, New Jersey, US: Sarah’s family has always collected tzedakah (charity) in an empty Jack Daniel’s bottle. This Jewish tradition goes back as long as she can remember, entwined in her childhood memories. Here, seen from the top, the bottle resembles a pond with the coins rippling out from the center, sending out waves of tzedakah to help those in need.

“Our challenge as a nation is to ensure that when young Jews look forward at the Jewish world, it will be out of hope rather than—God forbid—out of fear or conflict, as happened in different periods in history. Our challenge is to march as individuals, as families, as communities and factions side by side, and say: ‘It doesn’t matter what we’re going through—be it an external or internal threat—we’ll get through it together, out of joy and excitement about the future, rather than out of fear of what will happen," she says.

Sarah Davis, Bet Torah Mount Kisco, New York, US: ‘Almost everything I know about Judaism I learned through the hands of my mother and grandmother. The traditions that I will one day teach my children will have been passed down through them.’

“I hear people from all around the world answering the question ‘what makes you part of the Jewish people?’ and there are always plenty of different answers. So it’s a great privilege to be dealing with these issues," Avnon-Benveniste adds. “I’m always very excited by the depth they ascribe to questions of identity, how much respect youth have for their family members, their parents, their grandparents. We see it in each and every picture."

Grzegorz Sadurski, JCC Krakow, Krakow, Poland: This street art is a sign of revitalization in Krakow’s Jewish Quarter of Kazimierz. Jewish symbols in the style of artist Marc Chagall recall history and life in Kazimierz. They evoke ritual, music and folklore to tell the continuing story of Jewish life in Poland.

“When you browse through the pictures, one by one, you see how personal the connections are, yet they sit on some kind of sequence of the people’s identity, which is diverse but outlined. At the end of the day, this nation has a Jewish identity that is clear to all those who are part of the Jewish story,” she concludes. 

Dana Zejerman, Escuela Integral Hebrea, Montevideo, Uruguay: This picture holds the three pillars of Dana’s Jewish identity—education, a Jewish way of life and continuity. The picture was taken in the school library, where she is studying. The hundreds of books represent education and knowledge, the Bible symbolizes for Dana the Jewish way of life, and the children in the background represent the future.

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Orthodox Jewish group sues NJ town to keep religious markers

MAHWAH - An Orthodox Jewish community group has sued a New Jersey town that has moved to block the group from building a religious boundary made up of white plastic piping through town.

The Bergen Rockland Eruv Association and two New York residents filed the federal lawsuit Friday against the town of Mahwah. They say the town is violating their constitutional and civil rights.

Some Orthodox Jews consider the boundary, called an eruv, as being needed to allow them to do things like carry keys and push strollers on Shabbat.

PVC piping placed on utility poles around a New Jersey town bordering New York as eruv for Jewish community (Photo: AP)

 Mahwah officials, though, say the markers violate local laws that prohibit signs on trees, rocks and utility poles, and they will start issuing summonses next week if it isn't removed. They haven't commented on the lawsuit. The town lies about 33 miles (53 kilometers) northwest of New York City. "The object, motivation and effect of the actions of the township is to suppress the religious practices of the plaintiffs and certain other Jews who reside in Airmont and other parts of Rockland County (in New York)," the lawsuit states. "The eruv presents no aesthetic, safety, traffic, fiscal or other concern to Mahwah." Eruvs are set up in communities of Orthodox Jews across the country, including one made of fishing line that stretches along utility poles for 18 miles around New York City. Some have led to disputes, including a six-year legal fight in Tenafly, New Jersey, which was forced to pay a Jewish group more than $300,000 in legal fees and allow them to keep their eruv up.

The Jewish community's supporters say the incursion into Mahwah is only because the layout of utility poles doesn't form an enclosure around the Rockland County border.

PVC piping placed on utility poles around a New Jersey town bordering New York as eruv for Jewish community (Photo: AP)

In a unanimous vote Thursday, the Mahwah Town Council voted to begin issuing summonses Aug. 18 if the piping is not removed. But Yehudah Buchweitz, an attorney representing the South Monsey Eruv Fund, a subsidiary of the Bergen Rockland Eruv Association, told The Record that the eruv will remain despite the threat of summonses. "There's no law that I'm aware of that actually prohibits the lechis," Buchweitz said, referring to the pipes that make up the eruv.

Mayor Bill Laforet has asked the council to hold off on issuing summonses and instead create a negotiating window with the eruv group. Laforet said a legal fight could prove costly for the town.

PVC piping placed on utility poles around a New Jersey town bordering New York as eruv for Jewish community (Photo: AP)

The dispute comes as Mahwah reconsiders a new law limiting its parks and playgrounds to New Jersey residents. That measure came about after town residents complained of families with New York license plates using a park near the state border, but the county's prosecutor ordered the police not to enforce it after Mahwah's police chief raised concerns that people reporting violations were targeting Jews. The eruv expansion and park ordinance follows years of growth among the Orthodox Jewish population in southern Rockland County in New York. There have also been complaints around the region of aggressive solicitation by real estate brokers looking to buy homes for the Jewish community in the suburbs of New York City and around New Jersey as real estate in New York becomes too expensive.

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