Hungary soccer team, Jewish leaders remember heroic coach

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Istvan Toth, a former Ferencvaros player and coach, was in the anti-Nazi resistance and helped save hundreds of Jews during the Holocaust before he was executed in 1945; he was honored ahead of team's Europa League qualifying match against Maccabi Tel. Hungary soccer team, Jewish leaders remember heroic coach : https://ift.tt/2uoMBHR

Martin Luther letter critical of Jews is up for auction

A letter written nearly 500 years ago by Martin Luther in which he refers to Jews as "devils incarnate" during a tirade against a former ally is up for auction, but Luther scholars warn that the man responsible for the Reformation should not be called anti-Semitic. The single-page letter, with writing on both sides, is expected to sell for at least $300,000 at the auction being conducted by Boston-based RR Auction that concludes Wednesday.

"Martin Luther items don't come to auction often, and this is in incredibly great shape for a 500-year-old letter," said Robert Livingston, RR's executive vice president.

The letter was written around September 1543 to a top official at Berlin's St. Nicholas Church in response to a letter from the official requesting Luther's interpretation of some Biblical verses by which former Luther friend Johann Agricola justified his positive treatment of Jews in what is now Germany.

(Photo: AP)

In his reply, Luther tells Georg Buchholzer that he has done well to preach against the Jews and should continue to do so, ignoring Agricola, who Luther accused of being a habitual liar. "For these Jews are not Jews, but devils incarnate who curse our Lord," Luther wrote, according to RR Auction's translation. Luther, whose Ninety-Five Theses in 1517 triggered the Protestant Reformation and seismic rift in Christianity that still exists, sympathized with Jews early on because of the poor way they were treated by the Catholic Church, said Eric Metaxas, author of the 2017 book "Martin Luther." There is no doubt that Luther had strong negative feelings about Jews later in life when he was "cranky and sick," but Metaxas cautioned against comparing 16th century anti-Semitism with 21st century anti-Semitism. "We don't mean what Luther would have meant by it," he said. Luther became frustrated that Jews would not convert to his version of Christianity. "Later in his life, after he had in a sense re-presented the Christian faith the way he thought it should be presented, he was depressed and discouraged by the fact that many Jews of that era did not in fact accept this free gift of grace through Jesus," Metaxas said. Europe had a long history of mistreating Jews, said Christopher Boyd Brown, an associate professor of church history at Boston University. "Luther plays a part in this grim history," Brown said via email. "Yet as appalling as Luther's intolerance of his Jewish contemporaries was, Luther was not an anti-Semite. His criticism of Judaism was rooted in theological disagreement over the reading of shared Scriptures, not in racial animus."

(Photo: AP)

Luther denounced medieval Christian charges that Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus and was a strong voice for nonviolent religious tolerance, Brown said. The letter, which includes a leather clamshell case, is likely to be sold to a museum or private collector who will know how to properly preserve it, Livingston said.

Lost to history until 1914, when it was discovered in the private collection of a German baron, it is being sold by a German document collector.

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Germany agrees to $88 million more for Holocaust survivors

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Germany also agrees to increase pensions paid to 55,000 Holocaust survivors in Central and Eastern Europe, and expand eligibility for child survivors. Germany agrees to $88 million more for Holocaust survivors : https://ift.tt/2JaZwlb

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German police arrests group suspected of assaulting Syrian Jew

A group of people in Berlin has been arrested on suspection of assaulting a Jewish Syrian wearing a necklace with the Star of David, German police said Sunday.

 

The 25-year-old victim told police he got into an argument early Saturday after asking a group of men and women for a lighter for his cigarette.

He said one of the men discovered the necklace, launched into anti-Semitic insults and punched him.

Kippah march in Berlin (Photo: EPA)

  

The victim ran off but fell, and was punched and kicked by several people in the group.

The group of seven men and three women, including six Syrians and three German nationals, was detained after passers-by intervened, then released pending further investigation.

Last month, a young Syrian migrant who carried out an anti-Semitic attack on a man wearing a kippah was sentenced to four weeks detention and ordered by the court to visit a museum to learn about the history of anti-Semitism in Germany.

The court in Berlin ruled that the 19 year old had used a belt to hit an Israeli Arab who was wearing a kippah in Berlin as an experiment. He was convicted of insult and grievous bodily harm.

Video of the attack caused a public outcry in April when it was posted on the internet. Anti-Semitism remains a sensitive issue in Germany after more than 6 million Jews were murdered during the Nazi-era Holocaust.

In April, 500 people donned skullcaps for a "Kippah March" in Berlin as a show of defiance against the rising tide of anti-Semitism and as many Jews wonder about their safety in Germany.

The rising tensions have come as a time when Germany has been grappling with an influx of more than 1 million mostly Muslim migrants, along with the rise of a nationalist party, the Alternative for Germany, which was elected to Parliament last year. Its leaders are known for their openly anti-Muslim stance, but their anti-Semitism is less apparent.

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New Jersey town sued over denial of Chabad expansion plans

It has become a familiar narrative: a religious group seeks to expand on or build a house of worship, a town rejects the application and the parties end up in court.

  In the latest battle between a religious group and a town's zoning board, the US attorney's office claims Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, in northern Bergen County, has illegally barred an Orthodox Jewish group from expanding its current facility or buying property to build a new one. The town "took actions that prevented Valley Chabad from purchasing alternative sites in the Borough over an eight-year period, and then denied Valley Chabad's efforts to expand on its current site, thus imposing a substantial burden on its religious exercise," a lawsuit filed last month contends. The town has denied the allegations and contends traffic and safety issues were primary sticking points, and that Valley Chabad didn't meet zoning requirements for houses of worship, including that lots be at least three acres.

The Woodcliff Lake suit contains echoes of other recent disputes. Last year, the town of Bernards agreed to pay $3.25 million to a group whose plan to build a mosque it had rejected over several years. Similarly, Bridgewater Township settled a lawsuit with an Islamic center for nearly $8 million after a four-year legal battle. Bayonne approved a Muslim group's plans to build a mosque this year after a lawsuit charged the group was the target of hate-filled attacks. Orthodox Jewish groups have been at the center of other disputes. The US attorney's office sued the town of Mahwah last year, alleging it used local ordinances to discriminate against Orthodox Jews from nearby New York state. After a series of council meetings marked by angry confrontations between residents, in January the town voted to settle a separate suit filed by a local religious organization, and settlement talks with the US attorney's office are ongoing. Both Mahwah and Woodcliff Lake are within miles of Rockland County, New York, where towns such as Monsey and Airmont have concentrations of Orthodox Jews. At a 2013 council meeting referenced in the Woodcliff Lake lawsuit, one resident told council members "we do not need to bring an influx of people from other towns," and a council member spoke of "keeping Woodcliff Lake the town that it is." In the early 2000s, the lawsuit alleges, Rabbi Dov Drizin was asked by a borough official for a letter "that would explain how Valley Chabad differed from the religious community in Monsey." Valley Chabad alleges it began looking for a larger facility more than 10 years ago to accommodate its growing needs. It currently is located in a large house on a hill overlooking the Garden State Parkway. Twice the group entered into contracts to purchase property and both times the town stepped in and bought the land using eminent domain, according to the lawsuit. On a third occasion, the suit alleges, the town modified zoning laws so townhomes could be built on a property Valley Chabad was seeking to buy, leading the property's owner to cancel his contract with Valley Chabad. The group alleges the town rejected its numerous requests for zoning modifications to expand its existing property. The town's response to the lawsuit is due later this month, and an attorney representing the town declined comment, as did Mayor Carlos Rendo, a Republican who ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor last year. The town's statement denied discrimination played any part, and said it was "saddened by the response of the Valley Chabad in their choice to take this action against our quiet New Jersey town, comprised of hard working people of all faiths that welcomed them into our community."

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Panthon burial honors French rights icon, Holocaust survivor Simone Veil

Thousands of people gathered in Paris on Sunday to pay their final respects to Holocaust survivor and women's rights icon Simone Veil as she was given the rare honor of burial at the Panthéon a year and a day after she died.

Veil's death at the age of 89 prompted an outpouring of emotion as she had long been considered one of France's most popular and trusted public figures.

The Panthéon in the heart of Paris houses the remains of many great French figures, including Voltaire, Victor Hugo and Emile Zola. But Veil is only the fifth woman to be buried there, being laid to rest alongside her husband Antoine, a high-ranking civil servant who died in 2013.

French Republican Guards arrive to carry the coffins of Simone Veil and her husband Antoine Veil to the Panthéon on Sunday (Photo: EPA)

Their two coffins were escorted by Republican Guards through Paris from the Holocaust Memorial where they had stood for 48 hours to allow the public to pay their last respects. The coffins were then placed on funeral biers before carried by pall-bearers on a blue carpet leading to the Pantheon.

Among the crowds were many women wearing T-shirts with the slogan: "Thank you Simone."

Simone Veil had long been considered one of France's most popular and trusted public figures (Photo: AFP)

"She broke every glass ceiling, in terms of women in society, but also that of (France's role in) the extermination of the Jews: it was taboo," said Bernard Greensfeld, one of those standing outside the Holocaust memorial.

"She's not going into the Panthéon as a Holocaust victim but as someone who overcame this horror and that's why she's in people's hearts," he told AFP.

Simone Veil was 16 when she was deported along with family members in 1944 to Auschwitz. Her mother, father and brother were killed in the Holocaust. After her return, she became a resolute advocate of women's rights as well as European reconciliation, securing her biggest political victory in 1974 by convincing the French parliament to legalize abortion despite fierce opposition.

She also became the first elected president of the European Parliament in 1979, a post she held for three years.

(Photo: EPA)

The move to have Veil's remains transferred to the Panthéon began immediately after her death on June 30, 2017, with two petitions quickly gaining hundreds of thousands of signatures.

Until now, only four women have been interred there: scientist Marie Curie, Sophie Berthelot, who was buried alongside her chemist husband Marcellin Berthelot and two resistance fighters Genevieve de Gaulle-Anthonioz and Germaine Tillion.

As the sun beat down, a large crowd gathered for the ceremony which was attended by members of her family, and a host of politicians and dignitaries, among them the former presidents Francois Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy.

At the ceremony, President Emmanuel Macron said the decision to bury her in the Panthéon was a decision taken by the entire nation.

President Macron stands by the coffins (Photo: EPA)

"It is... what all French people wanted," he said. "With Simone Veil, all the women that have made France are here."

The transfer of Veil's remains had began on Friday, when the couple's coffins were exhumed from the Montparnasse cemetery and brought to the crypt of the French Holocaust Memorial in central Paris, which she helped found.

After Macron's address, the two coffins were transferred into the Panthéon where the coffins will lie in state until Monday, with admission free until July 8.

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Panthon burial honors French rights icon, Holocaust survivor Simone Veil : https://ift.tt/2yYfxek