WATCH: The Holocaust survivor who forgave Mengele

A 15-minute video has recently become viral in which Holocaust survivor Eva Mozes Kor forgave Dr. Mengele—the angle of death—who carried out experiments on her and her twin sister at the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Published on September 15, and since accumulating over a million shares on Facebook and three million views on Youtube, the video shows Kor, 83, recounting how she and her family came from Romania to Auschwitz and how she last saw her parents and brother.  

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Yom Kippur cake becomes an online joke

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Whole Foods in Rockville, Maryland offered its customers quite a treat for the Yom Kippur fast—a cake laden with Jewish symbols such as apples and honey, pomegranates, Stars of David a seven-branched candelabrum and, inexplicably so, bees; and it only cost $30, too. Yom Kippur cake becomes an online joke : http://ift.tt/2x59YJP

Israelis start building sukkahs ahead of Sukkot holiday

After the end of the Yom Kippur fast on Saturday night, many Jews across Israel began building their sukkah ahead of the holiday of Sukkot, which begins Wednesday evening.

 

Some Ynet's readers have sent us photos of them hard at work with their families building the sukkah. Show off your sukkah in the comments below!

The Cohen family from Givat Shmuel are building their sukkah (Photo: Liron Nagler-Cohen)

Photo: Liron Nagler-Cohen

 Meanwhile, the traditional markets selling the four species opened their doors, offering the lulav, hadass, aravah and etrog.

Raz Nizeri is building a sukkah with friends Hananel Mantel, Ariel Farkash, Yaron and Maayan Shilat and the dog Ula (Photo: Shlomit Mantel)

Those seeking kosher lulavs can find them for as cheap as NIS 20, but if you're looking for the nicer looking ones—it's going to cost you NIS 200 or higher.

The Ryper family is marking 70 years to their sukkah

David Kfir from Givat Shmuel is hard at work on his sukkah

The same is true for the other species, particularly for the etrog, that could go for over NIS 1,000. The cleaner, more blemish-free the etrog, the more expensive it becomes.

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Trepidation looms as Europe’s Jews watch rise of German far-right

The European Jewish Congress on Sunday expressed alarm at the far-right Alternative for Germany's success in Germany's parliamentary election and urged other parties not to form an alliance with the AfD. Early projections gave the AfD 13.5 percent of the vote, allowing it to enter the Bundestag for the first time, as Germany's third-biggest party.

AfD election campaign poster: 'Stop Islamisation. Vote AfD!' (Photo: Getty Images)

The far-right has not been represented there since the 1950s—a reflection of Germany's efforts to distance itself from the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust. "We trust that centrist parties in the Bundestag will ensure that the AfD has no representation in the coming governing coalition," the EJC said.

"Some of the positions it has espoused during the election campaign display alarming levels of intolerance not seen in Germany for many decades and which are, of course, of great concerns to German and European Jews."

Last year, a regional lawmaker for the anti-immigrant AfD quit the party after a row over his allegedly anti-Semitic views had threatened to cause a damaging split in the party.

Wolfgang Gedeon, a former doctor turned AfD lawmaker, triggered outrage by saying that denial of the Nazi Holocaust, in which six million Jews were murdered, was a legitimate expression of opinion, describing Holocaust deniers in the past as "dissidents."

Wolfgang Gedeon (Photo: EPA)

He also drew criticism for saying that "Talmud Judaism is the inner enemy of the Christian West." Holocaust denial is a crime in Germany.

Leading up to the elections, Salomea Genin, an 85-year-old Jewish Berliner who fled the Nazis as a child, said she would flee Germany a second time if the AfD ever took power.

Alice Weidel (L) and Alexander Gauland (R) from the AfD (Photo: EPA)

Genin, who holds dual German and Australian nationality, was shocked by comments this month by a top AfD candidate in Sunday’s federal election, Alexander Gauland, that Germans should take pride in what their soldiers achieved in two world wars.

“I was speechless,” said Genin, who lost 29 family members during the Holocaust, in which the Nazis killed six million Jews. “I never thought that I would again face a movement in Germany with the sort of ideas that are coming out of the AfD.”

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Ancient prayer book donated to National Library

An ancient festival prayer book, originally penned in Catalonia, finally found its way to Israel after an incredible journey across two World Wars and most of the European continent.

  The prayer book was written and illustrated by hand in the Spanish autonomous community in the mid-13th century, two centuries before Jews were expelled from the Christian kingdom.

The unique prayer book was written in Catalonia in the 13th century (Photo: National Library of Israel)

Upon the expulsion, Jews took the book with them and it somehow found its way to Italy, the region that today is Israel and then Thessaloniki, which was part of the Ottoman Empire at the time. Finally, it was taken to Germany. When World War II broke out, the manuscript went missing and reappeared again four decades later, when it was put up for sale in 1984. Thanks to the involvement and generosity of Ludwig and Erica Jesselson, the book was purchased and then donated to the National Library of Israel.

The book contains one-of-a-kind micrographic art (Photo: National Library of Israel)

Beyond the manuscript's singular story, its contents shine an extraordinary light on the cultural wealth of Spain's Jewish communities before the expulsion. The festival book was intended for use by cantors during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

The book is a masterwork of Jewish creation: liturgical poems written by some of the Jewish people's greatest poets, including Rabbi Judah Halevi and Abraham ibn Ezra, and is the only prayer book adorned with micrography, a distinctly Jewish artform of creating geometric designs using microscopic lettering. "This artform appears almost exclusively in bibles, and therefore seeing it in a prayer book is unique," explained Dr. Dalia-Ruth Halperin, a micrography researcher. "There's nothing else like it," she stated.

(Photo: National Library of Israel)

The manuscript was written in parchment and includes 154 pages. It's adorned with micrographic illustrations and golden letterboxes set against scarlet and blue tiles.

"This book has at least three things completely unique to it," said Dr. Aviad Stollman, head of the National Library's Collections Division. "The poems written during the Golden Age by the very best writers, its external beauty with unique micrography and, beyond all of those, the story of the Jewish people in the last few centuries," he elaborated. "When I think of the author in Catalonia writing and illustrating the manuscript, what would he have thought if he were told about everything the book was going to go through? What would he have thought if he were told that in just a few centuries' time, Jews would no longer be in Spain but reside in Jerusalem, and that his manuscript would be taken on a tour of the entire world?" Stollman wondered.

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US Supreme Court justice surprise speaker at Rosh Hashanah service

WASHINGTON - Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a surprise guest speaker Wednesday evening during services for the Jewish new year in Washington, telling worshipers she believes being Jewish helped her empathize with other minority groups.

Ginsburg spoke mostly about her Jewish faith, acknowledging that the Jewish justices who have served on the court have shared some similar views, which she linked to their Jewish heritage. "If you are a member of a minority group, particularly a minority group that has been picked on, you have empathy for others who are similarly situated," she said during about 20 minutes of answering questions from attorney Kenneth Feinberg.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg speaks at Georgetown University (Photo: AFP)

 Ginsburg spoke at services for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, which began Wednesday evening and which Jews continue observing Thursday. The service she attended was organized by Sixth & I, a historic synagogue that hosts a range of Jewish and cultural events. Worshipers were not told ahead of time that she'd be appearing. Ginsburg is one of three Jewish justices on the nine-member Supreme Court. Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan are also Jewish, and Breyer spoke at services organized by Sixth & I last year. The 84-year-old Ginsburg, who has served on the court since 1993, noted that she is now the longest-serving Jewish justice. She also spoke about Jewish values that have guided her. "The Jewish religion is an ethical religion. That is, we are taught to do right, to love mercy, do justice, not because there's gonna be any reward in heaven or punishment in hell. We live righteously because that's how people should live and not anticipating any award in the hereafter," Ginsburg told the audience.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg speaks at Georgetown University (Photo: AFP)

 Ginsburg also talked about what she called the "Great Yom Kippur controversy," when in 1995 the court had been scheduled to hear arguments on Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. Ginsburg said what finally persuaded Chief Justice William Rehnquist not to hold arguments was when Ginsburg and Breyer, then the only two Jewish justices on the court, told Rehnquist that some lawyers who had been practicing for their arguments for weeks would be asked to choose between their religion and arguing. "That sold him," Ginsburg said. Since then, the court has not heard arguments on Jewish holy days, she said. Last year, when the first day of the Supreme Court's term fell on the Jewish new year, the three Jewish justices were absent and the court's short session consisted largely of admitting new attorneys to the Supreme Court bar. The Supreme Court will open its next term October 2. The justices are scheduled to tackle cases involving US President Donald Trump's travel ban, a clash between gay rights and religion, partisan advantage in redistricting, the privacy of certain cellphone records and sports betting. "There's only one prediction that's entirely safe about the upcoming term, and that is: it will be momentous," Ginsburg said earlier Wednesday at Georgetown University's law school. The Georgetown audience included Trump's daughter Tiffany Trump, a Georgetown law student.

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Anti-immigrant AfD alarms German Jews as election looms

Salomea Genin, an 85-year-old Jewish Berliner who fled the Nazis as a child, says she would flee Germany a second time if the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) ever took power.

 

Genin, who holds dual German and Australian nationality, was shocked by comments this month by a top AfD candidate in Sunday’s federal election, Alexander Gauland, that Germans should take pride in what their soldiers achieved in two world wars. “I was speechless,” said Genin, who lost 29 family members during the Holocaust, in which the Nazis killed six million Jews. “I never thought that I would again face a movement in Germany with the sort of ideas that are coming out of the AfD.”

AfD election campaign poster: 'Stop Islamisation. Vote AfD!' (Photo: Getty Images)

It is unlikely that Genin, who returned to then-East Germany in 1951 after growing up in Australia, will have to pack her suitcases again any time soon. Although opinion polls suggest the anti-immigrant AfD could become the third biggest party in the lower house Bundestag after the election, other parties have vowed to shun it in negotiations to form a new coalition government. The AfD, which would be the first postwar far-right party to enter parliament, denies being racist. Germany, home today to an estimated 200,000 Jews, has built a reputation in recent decades as a tolerant, safe place for Jews to live, but official data show anti-Semitic crimes reported to the police rising 4 percent to 681 in the first eight months of 2017 against the same period last year. The real number is probably much higher. Nearly 93 percent of reported anti-Semitic crimes were linked to far-right extremism, despite predictions that a large growth in the Muslim population since Europe’s 2015 migrant crisis could fuel attacks or discrimination against Jews. “Police statistics and new private reporting sites report a growing number of anti-Semitic crimes. In addition, we have the impression that anti-Semitic sentiments are being expressed without reservation on social media,” said Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.

Schuster’s group has urged political parties and non-governmental organizations to work together to combat right-wing extremism. It has also backed calls for the German government to appoint a special commissioner for anti-Semitism.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet on Wednesday adopted a broader definition of anti-Semitism backed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, and promised a “resolute and consistent battle against every form of anti-Semitism”. But it did not announce a special commissioner or adopt four other recommendations made by an independent council of experts. Volker Beck, a member of the pro-environment Greens party, accused the government of complacency. “We can’t work magic, but doing nothing is just negligent. When the word ‘Jew’ is used as a schoolyard taunt, something has to happen. We should be alarmed,” Beck told Reuters.

Alice Weidel (L) and Alexander Gauland (R), AfD co-top candidates for the German general elections (Photo: EPA)

German schools have long taught about the Holocaust, but rights groups say the rise of the AfD and other far-right parties has lowered the barrier for anti-Semitic comments and other hate speech. Miriam Marhoefer, a 37-year-old Jewish social worker from Mannheim, drew a parallel with France, which some Jews now regard as unsafe following increased attacks on them there. “My biggest fear is that (Germany) will become like France, where Jews are once again emigrating,” said Marhoefer. Marhoefer is taking part in a two-year-long course run by a branch of a century-old Jewish welfare league that helps people to combat anti-Semitism in their communities. Such programs are particularly important for people outside cities with large Jewish communities, said Anna Sodki, 45, a Jewish economist from Bergisch-Gladbach, near Cologne. “For a long time, we felt safe,” she said. “But now, I don’t wear my Star of David out anymore. You never know who you’re going to be sitting next to on the train.” The Central Council is also training about 40 Jewish youths aged 15 to 20 to visit German classrooms to challenge stereotypes and combat ignorance. Dimitri Bilyarchyk, a 20-year-old student who took the training, said the word “Jew” was often used as a slur and that young people in his native Bavaria often referred to their last sip of beer as the ‘Judenschluck’ or ‘Jewish sip’. “It’s only words. But many things start with words, and I think language is really important in this context,” he said. “The official AfD programme says ‘we stand with the Jews’. To which I say, and I think I speak for all Jews in Germany, please stand somewhere else,” Bilyarchyk added. “When you incite hatred against one group of people ... be they Jews or Muslims or gay people, it’s not long before they switch from Muslims to us.”

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