Jewish groups' anger at Belgian TV digs: "the Jews are still angry"

"In a 1940s newsreel-style pastiche, a narrator listed a series of institutions and objects which the Jewish community was "still not angry with"; including the America-Israel Friendship League, the 'movement for friendship between Jews and Israel', Rolex, Rolls Royce and the Antwerp Diamond Council."

"Jewish groups have accused a Belgian public television channel of outright anti-Semitism over a series of broadcasts making fun of the Jewish community.
One 1940s-style comedy sketch lampooned Jews' reactions to comments made by the culture minister of Flanders, the country's Flemish-speaking community.

Another programme had intended to teachers viewers of the VRT channel how to make Adolf Hitler's favourite meal but was pulled before it was broadcast.

Jewish groups accused VRT, the main public Flemish-language tv channel, of being completely insensitive to the history of Jews in Europe.

Protests reached a new peak after a satirical programme "Man bijt hond" ("Man Bites Dog") ran a 40-second piece entitled "the Jews are still angry".

The sequence made fun of the reactions of the Jewish community to comments made by the Flanders culture minister, Bert Anciaux, who had likened the victims of a recent nursery school killing in Flanders to those of the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Rolex watches, Rolls Royces and diamonds

In a 1940s newsreel-style pastiche, a narrator listed a series of institutions and objects which the Jewish community was "still not angry with"; including the America-Israel Friendship League, the 'movement for friendship between Jews and Israel', Rolex, Rolls Royce and the Antwerp Diamond Council.

A drawing depicted a bearded Jew with his face twisted in rage grasping for a huge diamond.

Then viewers saw black and white images of Orthodox Jews dancing, followed by the images of a watch and a luxury car.

Terry Davids, head of Joods Actueel, a magazine for the Jewish community in Antwerp, said she was shocked by what she saw. "These people are completely insensitive to our ... sensibilities," she told AFP.

"It's as if they want to seek us out, to provoke us. We are shocked and indignant."

VRT has pleaded "the right to satire and humour," saying other sectors of society had been targetted in previous programmes.

"When it's in the right context and one sector of society gets the same treatment as another there can be no taboos," said channel spokesman Bjorn Verdoodt.

Among politicians, only Flemish Liberal deputy Claude Marinower has spoken out against the "negationist" programme.

"Each time you think they have reached rock bottom, but each time there is worse to come," he said.

The head of CCOJB, the umbrella representative group of Belgian Jewish organizations, Joël Rubinfeld, denounced the standards of the Flemish channel which "seems to think that multiplying anti-Semitic provocations in a so-called humorous tone will help increase its audience."

Last October a young Flemish TV chef sparked protests by announcing that he wanted to teach VRT viewers how to prepare what he said was Adolf Hitler's favourite meal, trout cooked in butter.

VRT pulled the programme because of the protests, but there was new trouble when on New Year's Day it aired part of a show by comedian Philippe Geubels. Geubels deplored the decision not to run the chef's programme and said the Jewish reaction was over the top.

"What would they do if there was a major gas leak in Antwerp? Accuse the town of provocation?" he asked."

Source: EJP

- Cultural boycott of Israel: Tel Aviv architecture exhibition cancelled in Brussels
- Belgian radio: Comedian jokes about the Holocaust
- Belgium: Hitler favourite dish TV show scrapped due to pressure exerted by "Semites"
- Culinary tv program featuring Hitler’s 'favourite meal' will not be aired tonight
- Public tv channel makes promotion with Hitler caricature ad