04/23 Links: Four wounded in Tel Aviv terror attack; Zionism Denial ~ EoZ

From Ian:

As Israel marks its national Holocaust Remembrance Day, many around the world will secretly roll their eyes. 'There they go again the Zionists, using their precious Holocaust to justify their state, their power, their faults, reveling in a world guilted into silence.'
There are those who believe, too many, that without the holocaust there would have been no Israel. Most of them make this assumption in good faith. The American President himself, in his June 4, 2009 Cairo speech, spoke of "the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied."
But when so many believe that without the Holocaust there would have been no Israel, those who want Israel erased from map and memory, or isolated as an illegitimate state come to resent the Holocaust, or at least its association with Israel.
The American President wanted to make an important stand against Holocaust denial in the capital of the Arab world. He did not understand that by reaffirming the dangerous equation that the global legitimacy for Israel is rooted in the Holocaust, he fanned the motivation to engage in Holocaust denial for those who continue to believe, as they always have, that Israel is not a legitimate state.
Holocaust denial, Holocaust minimization ('6 million is an exaggerated number') Holocaust 'equalization' ('there were other genocides and ethnic cleansings, the Holocaust was no different'), Holocaust reversal ('what the Nazis did to the Jews is what the Jews are doing to others'), Holocaust marginalization ('other people were also killed in the War') and Holocaust by association ('the Palestinians are the secondary victims of the Holocaust'), are all but different facets of the same effort—to rob Israel of what seems like a powerful and indisputable source of legitimacy.
The deceptively seductive canard that 'the Palestinians are the secondary victims of Europe's crimes' is one of the worst of all these lies, since to the untrained ear it sounds logical. In this tale, after World War II, when it became clear that the Final Solution was not final and the Jewish survivors could not be expected or welcomed to stay in Europe the Europeans decided to 'dump' the surviving Jews on unsuspecting Arabs who were living in an area that colonial Europe controlled.

Terrorist accused of killing a British student will be paid £800 a month by the Palestinian government which receives £25m-a-year UK foreign aid

A terrorist accused of murdering a British student in Jerusalem will be paid a salary of more than £800 a month by the Palestinian government – which receives more than £25 million a year from the UK in foreign aid.
Jamil Tamimi, who has a history of mental health issues, killed theology student Hannah Bladon in a frenzied knife attack on Good Friday after the 21-year-old gave up her seat on a tram to a woman with a baby.
The 57-year-old Palestinian told police that he attacked Hannah, a Birmingham University exchange student attached to Jerusalem's Hebrew University, in the hope that a soldier in the carriage would kill him.
Instead Tamimi was arrested and is almost certain to be lauded as a resistance 'hero' by the Palestinian Authority (PA), like hundreds of others before him.

Tom Gross: Trump & the Middle East: On Israel, Palestine, Syria, & Orwell’s “1984”

On Trump’s Israeli-Palestinian policies (“don’t rule out a deal”), and on his airstrikes on Syrian chemical weapons infrastructure (“the right thing to do”)
This is the original English-language interview by Tamas Maraczi for Hungarian TV (April 13, 2017).

Four lightly wounded in Tel Aviv terror attack

Four people were wounded in an apparent terror attack at a hotel on the Tel Aviv beachfront by a Palestinian teen armed with wire-cutters, police said Sunday.
The attack began in the lobby of the Leonardo Beach Hotel, where he stabbed three people. He then fled outside and attacked one more person, a man in his 70s, before he was captured by police.
According to Channel 2 news, the assailant first attempted to enter the smaller Leonardo Art Hotel on Hayarkon Street, but was turned away by a security guard. He then traveled down the street to the Leonardo Beach Hotel, where he carried out his attack.
All four victims were lightly wounded and treated at the scene by medics before being taken to Ichilov Hospital, according to the Magen David Adom ambulance service.
The Palestinian, identified as an 18-year-old from the Nablus area of the West Bank, was apprehended by police. After initially saying the motivation of the attack was unclear, police later determined that it appeared to be a terror attack.

. #Palestinian media refers to the attack in #TelAviv #happeningnow as happening in "occupied #Palestine"; "settlers" stabbed; in TelAviv http://pic.twitter.com/CQMiLLeFSI
— Seth Frantzman (@sfrantzman) April 23, 2017

PMW: Israeli minister enraged at Hadash video glorifying terrorists that PMW exposed

Israel’s Minister of Public Security and Strategic Affairs Gilad Erdan was enraged when he saw Palestinian Media Watch’s exposure of the Israeli-Arab party Hadash’s video glorifying terrorist murderers.
PMW submitted a complaint to the Israeli police against the party over its video, which included the hashtag "#The_[hunger_]strike_of_dignity" and the pictures of four Palestinian arch-terrorists:
Abdallah Barghouti, prepared explosives for terror attacks in which 67 civilians were murdered
Marwan Barghouti, planned terror attacks in which at least 5 civilians were murdered
Karim Younes, kidnapped and murdered an Israeli soldier
Ahmad Sa'adat was the head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and has been praised on Palestinian TV broadcasts for planning the murder of Israeli Minister of Tourism Rehavam Ze'evi
In response to Hadash’s glorification of these terrorists, Minister Erdan addressed the Israeli Arab Parliament Members of Hadash – “the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality,” questioning their ethics and understanding of “democracy”:

PMW: Palestinian mission in London changes venue of Barghouti film screening

Last week, Palestinian Media Watch reported that the Palestinian mission in Britain was planning to screen a film about terrorist Marwan Barghouti at the Mayfair Hotel in London. Following PMW’s exposure, the hotel cancelled the event.
Explaining that the Mayfair Hotel “renegaded on its agreement” due to “pressure by Zionist groups,” the PA embassy has announced it has changed the venue to a different location: The Copthorne Tara Hotel in London.
Asked by PMW, the Copthorne Tara Hotel in London confirmed that the event is indeed taking place today.

PMW: Update: Second hotel venue cancels Barghouti film screening

After the release of PMW's bulletin earlier today exposing that the Palestinian Mission in the UK had changed the venue of its Marwan Barghouti film screening to the Copthorne Tara Hotel in London, PMW contacted the hotel directly to bring its manager's attention to the potential consequences of hosting such an event.
A letter from PMW's legal director Maurice Hirsch noted that Marwan Barghouti is a convicted terrorist responsible for the murder of 5 people. The letter further asserted that hosting an event glorifying such a terrorist could result in "potentially criminal repercussions," in accordance with the Terrorism Act of 2006, which prohibits the glorification of acts of terrorism as incitement.
PMW's followers also expressed their outrage on social media, encouraging people to call the hotel and protest the event:

SAMANTHA POWER-LESS IS RENDERED SPEECHLESS

The rise of Samantha Power to the position of senior adviser to US president Barack Obama gave anti-genocide activists hope that US policy toward atrocities around the world would finally change. Surely the author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the history of American indifference to genocide would make it her business to put an end to such apathy. Instead, Power spent seven years defending America’s continued inaction – and now that a new president has taken military action against mass murder, Power has fallen silent.
As the director for multilateral affairs and human rights on the National Security Council (starting in 2009), head of the Atrocities Prevention Board (beginning in 2012) and then US ambassador to the United Nations (starting in 2013), Power was well situated to alter the pattern of US disinterest she documented in her book, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide.
It soon became apparent, however, that even with Power in its innermost leadership circle, the Obama administration’s response to genocide would largely echo the indifference of its predecessors when faced with mass murder around the world.
The administration’s refusal, from the start, to acknowledge that the World War One-era slaughter of the Armenians was genocide (despite president Obama’s explicit campaign promise to recognize it as such) was troubling. Admittedly, that disappointment involved a symbolic issue with no realworld consequences. But the decision to choose political convenience (not offending Turkey) over principle was a bad omen.

No Joke: U.N. Elects Saudi Arabia to Women’s Rights Commission, For 2018-2022 Term

The Geneva-based human rights group UN Watch condemned the U.N.’s election of Saudi Arabia, “the world’s most misogynistic regime,” to a 2018-2022 term on its Commission on the Status of Women, the U.N. agency “exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women.”
“Electing Saudi Arabia to protect women’s rights is like making an arsonist into the town fire chief,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch. “It’s absurd.”
“Every Saudi woman,” said Neuer, “must have a male guardian who makes all critical decisions on her behalf, controlling a woman’s life from her birth until death. Saudi Arabia also bans women from driving cars.”
“I wish I could find the words to express how I feel right know. I’m ‘saudi’ and this feels like betrayal,” tweeted a self-described Saudi woman pursuing a doctorate in international human rights law in Australia.
Yet the fundamentalist monarchy is now one of 45 countries that, according to the U.N., will play an instrumental role in “promoting women’s rights, documenting the reality of women’s lives throughout the world, and shaping global standards on gender equality and the empowerment of women.”
Saudi Arabia was elected by a secret ballot last week of the U.N.’s 54-nation Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). Usually ECOSOC rubber-stamps nominations arranged behind closed doors by regional groups, however this time the U.S. forced an election, to China’s chagrin.

No Joke: U.N. Elects Saudi Arabia to Women's Rights Commission

French Jews fear rise of anti-Israel leftist candidate

Even before the communist candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon emerged as a serious contender for the presidency in France, the elections were shaping up to be a fateful moment for the country’s 500,000 Jews.
Many of them are deeply worried about the rise in the polls of Marine Le Pen of the right-wing National Front party, with its stridently nationalistic policies.
With the meteoric rise of Melenchon, an anti-Israel lawmaker with a record of statements deemed anti-Semitic, French Jews now feel caught in a vice between two extremes.
Melenchon climbed to third place in the polls, with approximately 20 percent of the vote this month, from fifth with 9 percent in February.
“I don’t see any significant difference between Melenchon and the National Front on many issues,” Joann Sfar, a well-known French-Jewish novelist and filmmaker who used to support communist causes, wrote last week on Facebook. Both are “surrounded by Germanophobes, nationalists and France-firsters.”
Sfar’s post triggered a torrent of anti-Semitic statements about him on social networks.

Three new F-35 fighter jets land in Israel

Israel took possession of three F-35 "Adir" stealth fighter planes on Sunday afternoon, joining the two other planes which landed in Israel in December.
Landing at Nevatime Air Base in southern Israel, the White Star of David sticker, the emblem of the IAF, was placed on the jets which are touted by senior officials was the plane which will provide complete air superiority in the region for the next 40 years.
While the Israeli Air Force's Adir squadron is not yet operational, at least 3 of the 5 F-35 (Adir) stealth fighters jets will make their debut performance in the traditional Independence Day flyover on May 1.
Built in the US by Lockheed Martin, the Israeli F-35s have components built by Israeli companies – including Israel Aerospace Industries, which produced the outer wings, Elbit Systems- Cyclone, which built the center fuselage composite components, and Elbit Systems Ltd, which manufactured the pilots’ helmets.

Liberman condemns settler rock attack on soldiers

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman on Sunday condemned a rock throwing attack allegedly carried out by Israeli settlers in the West Bank over the weekend in which an IDF officer was injured, calling the perpetrators “thugs.”
In a Facebook post, Liberman said that there is “zero tolerance” for violence toward soldiers and that the attackers must be brought to justice.
“The legal authorities must judge these thugs severely in a swift and firm manner,” he said. “This is a grave problem that we cannot be forgiving toward.”
Liberman made no mention of other incidents over the weekend in which Palestinians and left-wing activists were targeted by settlers.

6 Israelis, including 2 soldiers, charged with attacking Arabs

The Shin Bet domestic security service and the Israel Police arrested six Israelis from Beersheba on suspicion of violently attacking Arabs in the southern Israeli city, the Shin Bet said Sunday. It did not say when the arrests took place.
According to a Shin Bet statement, the attacks began in December, with the suspects using weapons such as knifes, batons and crowbars to carry out their attacks.
The Shin Bet said the most violent incident carried out by the suspects was a stabbing attack in February.
Following their arrest, the suspects were questioned by the Shin Bet and police.
The Shin Bet said that the interrogations tied the suspects to at least five attacks against Arabs, as well as the vandalizing of an Arab man’s car. The investigation also uncovered a number of weapons allegedly used in the attacks, including switchblades, clubs and crowbars.

Israel campaigns to prevent FIFA suspension of West Bank settlement soccer teams

The move comes amid concerns that Israel could be suspended from FIFA
The Israeli government is increasingly worried that soccer teams based in settlements in the West Bank will face suspension from the international federation governing the sport, the Haaretz daily reported on Thursday.
With the FIFA Congress due to meet in May, Israel sent a cable to dozens of ambassadors on Tuesday, instructing them to liaise with officials from their host countries as part of an effort to stave off any potential move.
An official told Haaretz that the efforts began after Israel learned that the Palestinian Football Association had sent a request that the question of the eligibility of teams based in settlements be placed on the agenda for both the FIFA Council and the FIFA Congress.
Haaretz reports that the Israeli response was to send a cable to the selected group of Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials posted abroad.

Fatah calls for Palestinian 'Day of Rage' against Israel

The West Bank’s ruling party Fatah called on Palestinians to participate in a day of rage this Friday in support of the hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners.
Ma'an, a Palestinian news agency, reported on Saturday that Fatah is urging Palestinians “to clash with the occupier at all friction points.”
More than a thousand Palestinian prisoners, led by Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, who was convicted of five counts of murder, are carrying out a mass hunger strike in Israeli prisons.
The prisoners are demanding that the Israel Prison Service improve conditions in prisons pertaining to visitation rights, medical care, amenities and other issues.
The Palestinian Authority security forces frequently block Palestinian protesters from reaching friction points with the IDF.

Number of Palestinian prisoners quitting hunger strike hits 186

At least 86 Palestinian prisoners said Saturday they were ending their hunger strike, the Israel Prisons Service said.
They joined some 100 other prisoners who ended their strike on Friday, according to the Israeli authorities.
An estimated 1,200 Palestinian prisoners, mostly from the Fatah organization and including many convicted terrorists, are on an open-ended hunger strike announced last week in a bid to improve their conditions in Israeli prisons.
The strike is led by Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences after he was convicted in a civil court in 2004 of initiating and planning multiple terror attacks against Israeli civilians during the Second Intifada.
Among the demands made by Barghouti and fellow prisoners are the resumption of a second monthly visit by family members (a benefit that was cancelled by the International Committee of the Red Cross last year due to budget cuts), the prevention of family meetings being cancelled for security reasons, extending the length of each visit from 45 minutes to an hour and a half, and the restoration of academic studies and matriculation exams to prisoners. Other demands include more television channels being available in cells, and the installation of public telephones in security wings.

US Jewish group decries pope calling refugee centers ‘concentration camps’

An American Jewish group called Saturday night on Pope Francis to retract statements he made earlier in the day referring to European refugee centers “concentration camps.”
“The conditions in which migrants are currently living in some European countries may well be difficult, and deserve still greater international attention, but concentration camps they certainly are not,” American Jewish Committee CEO David Harris said in a statement. “The Nazis and their allies erected and used concentration camps for slave labor and the extermination of millions of people during World War II. There is no comparison to the magnitude of that tragedy.”
Pope Francis had described some of Europe’s refugee centers as “concentration camps” when he paid tribute to an unknown Christian woman slain for her faith in front of her Muslim husband.
“These refugee camps — so many are concentration camps, crowded with people… because international accords seem more important than human rights,” Francis said in impromptu remarks at a ceremony in memory of modern-day Christian martyrs.

NY assemblyman slams 'radical' Sarsour speaking at CUNY

The City University of New York Graduate School of Public Health has stirred up controversy with their booking pro-Palestinian activist Linda Sarsour as their commencement speaker.
Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn) has spoken out against this appointment, claiming that Sarsour's support of Sharia Law makes her unsuitable to speak at a school funded by taxpayers, CBS New York reported on Friday.
"She is someone who associates with radical Islamists; supports them; shows support for them. She is someone who has said, clearly, she thinks throwing rocks at cars in Israel is a good thing," Hikind said. "I mean, it's just nuts. It makes no sense. It's crazy to have this woman be the person who's going to speak to the students."
In 2015, Sarsour tweeted an image of a Palestinian boy approaching Israeli security forces with stones gripped in his hands with the caption "the definition of courage."

Yale to give Gandhi Peace Award to BDS founder

Yale University will grant the Gandhi Peace Award to BDS founder Omar Barghouti.
Barghouti has justified acts of terrorism against Israelis, defending the Palestinians’ right to "resistance by any means, including armed resistance."
His supporters claim that the BDS movement seeks a peaceful solution. However, Barghoti says "Israel has no right to exist" and denies that Jews are the aboriginal people of their country.
He also denies the Jewish people have a right to self-determination. They are not a people, he declaimed, and the United Nations’ principle of the right to self-determination applies only to colonized people who want to acquire their rights.
While Barghouti insists Palestinians must have "the right to have rights," he denies the Jewish people have any collective rights.
Another lie spread by Barghouti is that Israeli soldiers shoot Palestinian children "for sport," claiming they "provoke" the children, "entice them like mice, and then shoot them" for no reason. Often, it is just because the soldiers are "bored."

Australian store denies service to Israelis

A retailer in the Australian North Queensland city of Cairns displayed a sign in its window saying that it does not serve Israelis.
Israeli tourist Mohr Wenger posted a photo of the sign in the window reading “No Israelis served here” on Facebook.
Wenger wrote in her post that she and a friend with whom she was traveling around Australia entered a body piercing store to have their noses pierced only to be told by the owner that he would not serve them since they were from Israel.
The owner of the Cold Steel Piercing store told the women that “he doesn’t serve Israelis out of principal (sic). He said he doesn’t agree with what our government does and there for we are not welcomed in his shop. He even pointed out a sign that we missed saying ‘No Israelis served here,'” Wenger wrote.
“A sign that means ‘I don’t want to listen, I don’t care who you are but if you are from Israel go away.’ That’s sugarcoating anti-Semitism. That’s sugarcoating racism,” she also wrote.

Roger Waters New Song Contains Criticism Of Israel

Rock’n’roll BDS-hole Roger Waters has released the first single from his new album Is This The Life We Really Want? It is called Smell the Roses – and I smell some anti-Israel lyrics.
This is the room where they make the explosives
Where they put your name on the bomb
Here’s where they bury the buts and the ifs
And scratch out words like right and wrong
Wake up. Wake up and smell the phosphorus.
In case you think I am reading into it, Roger Waters has been outspoken againt Israel’s use of white phosphorus during Operation Cast Lead (he claims we used it against Gazan civilians, although we insist we used it against military targets only).

Holocaust: The careless anti-Semitism of morally-incoherent educators

In February, high school students who enrolled in the course, “Principles of Literary Representation,” offered through the Oswego, New York county CiTi/BOCES New Vision program, were taken aback when presented with an assignment in which they were tasked with supporting or opposing the “Final Solution,” in other words, justifying the extermination of Jews.
Given a memorandum addressed to senior Nazi party members, “THE FINAL SOLUTION OF THE JEWISH QUESTION,” the students were instructed to “analyze the issue, provide ‘your’ Nazi point of view for or against the Final Solution and why, and thoroughly explain your support or opposition to the Solution.” Half of the students were randomly told to justify and support the implementation of the Holocaust, and half were to oppose it.
Presumably, the assignment was meant to promote one of the Common Core’s desired skills of helping to sharpen critical thinking: “Ultimately,” the assignment read, “this is an exercise on expanding your point of view by going outside your comfort zone and training your brain to logistically find the evidence necessary to prove a point, even if it is existentially and philosophically against what you believe.”
Confronted with backlash over the assignment, Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia at first defended it by contending that it forced students to hone their persuasive and rational skills, that, as she put it, “The concept of having students identify a particular position is pretty critical, whether they can analyze a position, and then decide whether to agree or not.”

Anti-Semitic incidents down 12% worldwide, but rising in US, UK

The number of anti-Semitic incidents worldwide decreased by 12 percent in 2016 despite a spike in cases in the United Kingdom and the United States, Tel Aviv University’s watchdog on anti-Jewish racism said.
The data was published Sunday, ahead of Israel’s national Holocaust Remembrance Day, in the annual “Antisemitism Worldwide” report by the Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry at Tel Aviv University.
The report is a global overview combining surveys from recognized watchdogs from dozens of countries, including nearly all European Union member states. The decrease in the overall number of incidents mirrored a decline in the number of violent assaults, from 410 in 2015 to 361 the previous year, the report said.
Bucking the overall decrease in incidents from 2015 was the recording in 2016 of 1,309 incidents in the United Kingdom alone, constituting a 36 percent increase over the 2015 tally.
The Community Security Trust, the British-Jewish charity that compiles the report in Britain, said in February it could not attribute the increase to any single trigger, citing instead a “combination of events and factors,” including an unprecedented public debate about anti-Semitism within the Labour Party, terrorist attacks in Western countries and the June referendum in which a majority of voters supported a British exit from the European Union.

Antisemitic Hate Crimes Thrive in Ukraine

Just before the last day of Passover, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Deitsch died in Israel. The well-known Chabad rabbi was injured in a brutal attack in October 2016 in Zhitomir, Ukraine, where he was savagely beaten by bunch of thugs. Rabbi Deitsch was only 64 years old. His death has become a tragic symbol of antisemitism in Ukraine — a phenomenon that the world prefers to ignore.
Antisemitism is thriving in Ukraine, as is ultra-nationalism and hatred against all minority groups. One needs only to watch Ukrainian television coverage praising neo-Nazi rallies to discover what the country has become. But the resurgence of antisemitism here has only been made possible by the world’s indifference and inaction.
During the last six months, there have been scores of hate crimes in Ukraine. When it comes to the Jewish community, these crimes include the desecration of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov’s grave in Uman, which was ‘crowned’ by a pig’s head with a swastika carved on it. This and other antisemitic attacks were documented with photos and detailed descriptions. All of them were reported to the Ukrainian police. The result? Nothing. And the world’s reaction? Nada.
The desecration of Jewish buildings and memorials has become quite common in Ukraine and, in some cases, the vandalism is repeated many times per year.

Hungarian Holocaust museum still hasn't opened

Hungary’s $22 million Holocaust museum, whose construction was completed in 2015, has remained unopened due to intrigue within the government and disputes between it and the Jewish community, a news site reported.
Part of the reason for the delay is the refusal of the Mazsihisz federation of Jewish communities and the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem to cooperate with the House of Fates museum in Budapest, according to an expose published earlier this month by the news site 444.
Mazsihisz said it would have nothing to do with the state-funded museum because of the appointment of the historian Maria Schmidt to head it. Schmidt has said Nazism was no worse than Soviet communism — a narrative favored by nationalists across Eastern Europe that the Simon Wiesenthal Center classifies as a form of Holocaust distortion.
Mazsihisz briefly suspended its work with the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban on all Holocaust commemoration projects in 2014 over a statue commissioned by the government that was unveiled in Budapest. “The Occupation Monument” depicts an eagle attacking an angel — symbolism that Mazsihisz said whitewashes the complicity of the Hungarian authorities for the murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews in the Holocaust.
The House of Fates is located at the Józsefváros Railway station, where the transports had departed to death camps during World War II.

The four-and-a-half-hour Nazi documentary you can’t afford to miss

Marcel Ophuls demands your time. Moreover, the 89-year-old documentary film director, born in Germany and holding French and American citizenship, deserves it.
The son of German-Jewish director Max Ophuls (a giant of world cinema whose films include “The Earrings of Madame de…” and “Lola Montès”), Marcel began his career as an actor and assistant director to his father in France, where his family fled during World War II. He made some successful films, including the Jean-Paul Belmondo – Jeanne Moreau romp “Banana Peel,” but in time he turned toward documentaries, making some of the most important works about the 20th century’s darkest moments.
His most lasting achievements can be seen as a trilogy. In 1969 he released “The Sorrow and the Pity,” a penetrating exposé into the culture of French collaboration during WWII. If you remember the “Annie Hall” joke about “a four-hour documentary on Nazis,” this is the one they are talking about. And that length is actually selling it a tad short.
In 1988 he won the Academy Award for “Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbi,” a thorough examination into the life of the Nazi war criminal, his capture and trial. It’s four hours and 27 minutes, and absolutely staggering.

Jews, Serbs to snub Croatian WWII death camp memorial

A Croatian ceremony to honor the victims of its most notorious World War II death camp was boycotted by Jews, anti-fascists and ethnic Serbs on Sunday after claiming Croatian authorities tolerate pro-Nazi ideology, according to AFP.
The ceremony took place at Jasenovac camp and was attended by the conservative leaning Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, ministers in his government and foreign diplomats.
The camp, which lies 100 kilometers southeast of the nations capital, Zagreb, was known as "Croatia's Auschwitz" and was run by the Nazi- affiliated Ustasha regime. The number of killed at the camp is still in dispute, varying between tens of thousands to 700,000.
This is the second year that representatives from Croatia's minority communities have decided to snub the official event, opting instead to organize a separate memorial.

Germany set to appeal US case involving Nazi art sale

German officials plan to appeal a decision by a U.S. judge that the heirs of Jewish art dealers can sue in a U.S. court over art allegedly looted by the Nazis.
The heirs are trying to get Germany to return a collection of medieval relics valued at more than $250 million. The judge in Washington ruled earlier this month that the heirs can sue because the case involves a potential violation of international law. It was the first time a court has required Germany to defend itself in the United States against charges of looted Nazi art.
Attorneys for Germany and the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation filed a notice of appeal on Friday. The case would be heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
The case involves the so-called Guelph Treasure, which was sold in 1935 to the state of Prussia, which at the time was governed by Nazi leader Hermann Goering. Following the sale, Goering presented the works as a gift to Adolf Hitler. The collection -- which includes gold crosses studded with gems and ornate silverwork -- has been on display in Berlin since the early 1960s.
The heirs argue that the sale was made under duress for a fraction of the treasure's market value. Germany claims the sale was voluntary and that the low price was in part a product of the Great Depression. A special German commission concluded in 2014 that it was not a forced sale.

Nazi-pillaged artwork to be auctioned in Vienna

A 17th century Dutch Master painting that was looted by the Nazis in 1943 from its Jewish owner will go under the hammer this week at a Vienna auction house after legal proceedings were unable to block the sale.
Auctioneers Im Kinsky listed “Portrait of a Man” by Bartholomeus van der Helst in the catalog for Wednesday’s sale.
The painting was part of a major art collection amassed by Adolphe Schloss, who was Jewish and died in Paris in 1910.
In 1943 as the Nazis ransacked occupied Europe and looted its art collections, they helped themselves to 333 of the works in the collection. Many were recovered after the war; however, 167 paintings, including “Portrait of a Man” vanished after 1945.

Israel honors the millions who perished in the Holocaust

As the sun begins to set this evening, ushering in Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day, the atmosphere will change. Slowly, the quotidian routine will give way to reflection as businesses and leisure venues close to allow the nation to honor the memory of the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust.
The official events will start at 8 p.m. with the main ceremony at Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, at which President Reuven Rivlin and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are scheduled to speak. Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev will light the memorial flame, and Holocaust survivor Esther Meron will speak in the name of all the survivors.
During the ceremony, six other survivors will light six torches, each one representing 1 million victims: Moshe Ha-Elion, Moshe Jakubowitz, Jeannine Sebbane-Bouhanna, Moshe Porat, Max Privler, and Elka Reines-Abramovitz.
Events on Monday will open with a two-minute siren, during which the country will stand in silence. Between 11 a.m. and 2:30 p.m., "Behind the Scenes at Yad Vashem" will offer visitors an up-close look at the work of the institution. Visitors will have a chance to meet with experts, who will seek out art work and documents not generally on display for the general public.

New app allows people worldwide to “Stand Still” in memory of Holocaust victims

A new application, Standing Still, allows Diaspora Jews and Israel supporters to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day by listening to the siren sound in Israel in real time anywhere in the world.
The application was developed by Israelis Amir Zwickel and his wife Rotem Lev Zwickel in collaboration with The Foundation for the Benefit of Holocaust Victims in Israel and the Lone Soldier Center - in memory of Michael Levin.
Zwickel and his wife relocated from Israel to New York over a year ago, just after Holocaust Memorial Day and just before Memorial Day for Fallen Soldiers and Terror Victims (Yom HaZikaron)- two days on which a siren sounds in commemoration of Holocaust victims and fallen soldiers, respectively.
Zwickel recalled listening to the siren in real time on YouTube on his computer from his NY apartment.
"And then we thought of the idea, why not develop a simple application that could allow Israelis, Jews, or supporters of Israel who are temporarily or permanently abroad, to connect to what is happening in Israel during these important moments and hear the siren that is so deeply etched in our Israeliness, at the same time that it is happening in Israel," he said.
“It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of the connection between Jews in the Diaspora to the Israeli present and reality for the future of Israel,” he added.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.