Day of Holocaust Remembrance, AJC

Conversation. Warsaw, winter of 1938. Photo by Roman Vishniac

We remember!

In the Jewish tradition, we are commanded to remember (zachor) and not to forget (lo tishkach). This week we commemorate Yom HaShoah, the Day of Holocaust Remembrance. On this solemn occasion, 63 years after the end of World War II:

We remember the six million Jewish martyrs, including 1.5 million children, who were exterminated in the Holocaust.

We remember not only their tragic deaths but also their vibrant lives—as shopkeepers and craftsmen, scientists and authors, teachers and students, parents and children, husbands and wives.

We remember the richly hued and ancient Jewish civilizations that were destroyed—from Salonika, Greece to Vilnius, Lithuania.

We remember the slippery slope that began with the rantings of an obscure Austrian-born anti-Semite named Adolf Hitler and led, in the course of less than 15 years, to his absolute control over Germany.

We remember the fertile soil of European anti-Semitism—cultivated over centuries by cultural, political, and religious voices—that created an all-too-receptive climate for the Nazi objective of eliminating the Jewish people.

We remember the courage of Denmark, as well as Albania, Bulgaria, and Finland, for their extraordinary efforts to protect their own Jewish communities.

We remember the courage of thousands of Righteous Persons who risked their own lives that others might live.

We remember the millions of non-Jews—Poles and Russians, Roma and the disabled, political opponents and homosexuals—murdered under the relentless Nazi onslaught.

We remember the valiant soldiers of the Allied nations who, at such great human cost, vanquished the Third Reich.

We remember the survivors of the death camps, who endured such unimaginable suffering and who have inspired us all with their indomitable courage, spirit, and will to live.

We remember the absence of an Israel in those war-time years, an Israel which, had it existed, would have provided a haven when so shamefully few countries were willing to accept Jewish refugees.

We shall never forget those who perished.

We shall never forget those who saved even a single life.

As it is written in the Talmud: “He who saves one life has saved the world.”

We shall never forget the importance of speaking out against intolerance, whenever and wherever it occurs.

We shall never forget the inextricable link among democracy, the rule of law, and protection of human rights.

We shall never forget the age-old prophetic vision of a world of justice, harmony, and peace.

And we shall never forget that each of us, in ways large and small, can help bring us closer to the realization of that prophetic vision.

AJC Yom HaShoah Message

Hamas headquarters in Verviers, Belgium

Source: Islam in Europe The NEFA Foundation recently published a new report: The Muslim Brotherhood in Belgium (PDF) According to this report Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood have a base in Verviers, through the Al Aqsa charity organization. This organization had been banned in both Germany and the Netherlands on suspicion of supporting Hamas. Michel Privot, a convert to Islam living in Verviers, is named in the report as one of the Muslim Brotherhood heads in Verviers. He denies the accusations and warns of the dangers of such reports. Privot was also mentioned by former American Ambassador to Belgium, Tom C. Korologos, as a participant in the Belgian-US Muslim dialogue, who said the conference will help in countering "extremism fomented by alienation". The Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organizations, an organization claimed to be controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood, is one of the sponsors of this initiative. Source: HLN (Dutch)

Report: Muslim anti-Semitism 'strategic threat', by Haviv Rettig, TJP

Freedom of speech campaign: - Hitler Goes Dutroux
"Write this down in your diary Anne", cartoon by Nabucho, Arab-European League

"… we're convinced that the export of anti-Semitic myths and politics to Europe is having an effect on European Muslim communities." Judge for yourself - this is only a minute sample of what is on offer : Radio-Islam, Frustrated Arab’s Diary, Arab-Europeam League, Quibla, Islam-Belgique - the five blog in more than 20 European languages, from Catalan to Croatian and Finnish!

Read the full article here:
"Muslim anti-Semitism is growing in scope and extremism, to the point that it has become a credible strategic threat for Israel, according to a 180-page report produced for Israeli policymakers by the semi-official Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC) and obtained exclusively by The Jerusalem Post ahead of its Tuesday release.

According to the report, by educating generations of Muslims with a deep animus toward Israel and Jews, this anti-Semitism, actively promulgated by many states in the region, holds back the peace process and normalization efforts between Israel and Muslim countries. It also forms the intellectual justification for an eliminationist political program. (…)

According to the report, the past decade has seen a veritable explosion of anti-Semitic literature in the Muslim world which intentionally confuses Israel and the Jewish people and is broadcast worldwide through books, radio, television, newspapers, caricatures and Internet forums. This discourse reaches outside Muslim lands to a large Muslim audience in the West.

"Until about 10-15 years ago, anti-Semitism was imported into the Muslim Arab world from Europe," says [Reuven] Erlich. "They translated The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Mein Kampf into Arabic. Over the past 10-15 years, there's been a deep change. Today it isn't an import, but an export. This needs more research, since we don't have access to European mosques, but we're convinced that the export of anti-Semitic myths and politics to Europe is having an effect on European Muslim communities." (…)

Anti-Semitism finds governmental sanction, and often support, in Islamic as well as secular states, among those who are at peace with Israel and those still in a state of war with Israel, the study finds. In countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt and Syria, daily promulgation of anti-Semitic messages are carried out through media that are under the supervision and censorship of the regimes. (…)

Part of the problem, he said, is that the rest of the world has simply grown used to Muslim anti-Semitism. "We respond to anti-Semitism only where large, vibrant Jewish communities exist. This is a mistake. It is incredibly dangerous that young Muslims are brainwashed with anti-Semitism. It starts with the Jews, but it won't end with the Jews."

While the report notes that there are Muslim intellectuals who have rejected the growing anti-Semitism, they are in the extreme minority. They neither enjoy the support of the regimes nor possess enough influence or numbers to reverse the trend, says Erlich.

Other Muslim intellectuals have explained the phenomenon as a side effect of justifiable anti-Israel sentiment. According to the report, however, while anti-Zionism feeds the growing anti-Semitism, specifically anti-Jewish sentiments are intentionally spread by religious and intellectual leaders in many Muslim societies, whose statements do not distinguish between Israelis and Jews. (…)

The report makes clear that the phenomenon of Muslim anti-Semitism is now widespread, popular and expanding. "The anti-Semitism that fed the Holocaust isn't dead," Erlich says. "It is prospering.""

Masarat, Belgium in the Middle East, by the Islam in Europe blog

Article by Esther in Islam in Europe:

Masarat is an art project subsidized by the Walloon government. It brings Palestinian artists to Brussels, some of whom had made controversial hateful statements against Israel and calls for violence.

One of their art projects is the following picture, showing Israel as Flanders, the West Bank as Wallonia and the Gaza Strip as the disputed municipality of Voeren. Jerusalem is transformed into Brussels.
Masarat has removed the picture from their site after it was criticized in the news. [The map was removed because of strong Flemish opposition (see below), and not out of regard for Belgian Jews' alarm at the way the Belgian French-speaking government seems to be turning a blind eye to the most hostile aspects of the festival, such as qualifying the separation wall as "the wall of segregation" ("mur de la ségrégation") and the displaying of the Zan Studio posters in Belgium and France.]

Huub Broers, mayor of Voeren, was not happy about his municipality being portrayed as the Gaza Strip. He said that the the intention was to portray both Flemish and Israelis as villians who occupy land and oppress others. Broers says that this can lead to new problems in the Belgian "language-battle" and that peace in the Middle East will never come about through taking one-sided points of view.

The Flemish minister of the interior, Marino Keulen, said that this picture comes to shock and provoke and not to inform, and that he finds it tasteless.

The exhibition had been shown in Paris. The UPFJ (French Jewish Business Union) criticized the Walloon government for subsidizing such a project, and thereby confirming such sick propoganda which is shockingly both anti-Flemish and anti-Israel.

Michael Freilich, head editor of Belgian Jewish magazine Joods Actueel, says this picture calls for the destruction of Israel. I don't think it calls for the destruction of Israel more than it calls for the destruction of the Arab Palestine.

The French speaking Belgians, rich off their natural resources, have for years oppressed the majority Flemish. The Flemish, being an industrial nation, have prospered in the current economy and are now subsidizing the poorer Walloons. If Flanders would secede from Belgium, would Wallonia be able to survive as an independent state? Palestinians are usually portrayed as the helpless victims against the Israeli superpower, but I'm not sure this art project paints either 'Palestine' or Wallonia in good light.

Brussels is a historically Flemish city which through government aided immigration has been transformed into a French-speaking city. The city is now divided among enclaves of Dutch and French speakers. There is certainly a basis to compare it to Jerusalem, a historically Jewish city which has regained its Jewish majority in the mid 1800s, except that nobody expects the 'Brussels-problem' to be solved by the end of the year.

This art project super-imposes a European problem on the Middle East, but I think that it just emphasizes the complexity of the European issues. These problems are not less complex than what goes on in the Middle East, but they enjoy much more favorable PR, as well as a wish to solve problems peacefully, without resorting to violence.

See also: Marking Israel's 60th anniversary...
2008: Israel is wiped off the map and replaced by Flaanderen (Flanders)
Content of Belgian-sponsored Palestinian festival irks Jews, JTA
Palestinian festival sparks controversy - Belgium
Zan Studio of Ramallah - anti-Israeli artists invited to Belgium
Brussels: Lebanon war mock tribunal condemns Israel and U.S.

Content of Belgian-sponsored Palestinian festival irks Jews, JTA

The whole thing is alarming, if only because no Belgian French-speaking politician, scholar, columnist, newspaper has voiced a single word of protest, let alone condemnation. Hopefully their silence only betrays ignorance or indifference. Why were these shocking posters displayed in Paris?

“Belgian Jewish leader Joël Rubinfeld had a queasy feeling last year when he first heard about a state-sponsored Palestinian cultural festival planned for Belgium.

Now, he says, his worst suspicions have been confirmed.

A preview of the festival last month in Paris featured posters that called for a boycott of Israel and compared Israeli raids on militants in the Gaza Strip to Hitler's bombing of Guernica, Spain. The posters were displayed at the Paris offices of Belgium's French regional government for one week in late March.

With the display slated to move to Belgium in the fall, Rubinfeld, the president of Belgium’s main French-speaking Jewish umbrella group, the Brussels-based Coordinating Committee of Belgian Jewish Organizations, is not pleased. He is pressing the event's sponsor, Belgium's French regional cultural ministry, to spike the posters.

Rubinfeld's angst could foreshadow a controversy that may ensue when the festival of visual arts, dance, theater, debates and film makes its rounds in September and October throughout Belgium’s French-speaking region, which is home to some 3.4 million people, including about 17,000 Jews.

One boycott poster featured in the festival shows a teddy bear in chains and urges viewers not to buy “products of the occupation” because “Israel imprisons Palestinian children”. The poster was created by the Ramallah-based Zan Studio, whose founder has said Israel has no right to exist. Another poster shows Hamas and Fatah shaking hands and making the victory sign.“The French community of Belgium is saying it’s supporting art, but they are supporting a political event”, complained Odile Margaux, a Belgian Jew who represents the Israeli Labor Party in Belgium.

“We see these as political, not cultural, posters”, Rubinfeld said. “Why is my government paying for this?”

He said the cultural minister of Belgium's regional French government, Marie-Dominique Simonet, promised him several months ago that she would not allow “hate-mongering” to be part of the festival, which is called Masarat, Arabic for “path”.

Masarat is being spearheaded by the Palestinian Authority's mission to the European Union in Brussels.

P.A. representatives did not return e-mails or calls from JTA seeking comment on the festival’s content.

Simonet’s chief of staff, Alain Demaegd, said the festival gives “Palestinian artists a space for expression, which they have very little of at the moment”. The festival, he added, “is not political”. Demaegd said there are rules governing the tone of the exhibits.

“The guidelines are no encouragement of violence, no denying Israel's right to exist, no defense of violent terrorism”, he said.

After the festival’s posters went on display last month in Paris, Rubinfeld complained to Demaegd, who said as of now “there is no decision” about whether the posters violate those guidelines.

The minister “is not going to judge the artistic merits of the works”, Demaegd said.
“They just don’t get it”, Rubinfeld told JTA. “They don’t understand how having such posters can and will hurt Jews within their country, and it is citizens of their country they should be responsible to”.

Rubinfeld said he wrote an official letter of complaint to Simonet demanding that the posters and similar inflammatory material not be shown in Belgium. (…)

Isaac Franco, a board member of Belgium’s Radio Judaica, said Masarat is about defaming Israel.

“The posters shown incite hatred, anti-Semitism and promote terrorism”, he said. “We want the ministry to make sure these posters do not come to the festival”.

Rubinfeld says he does not object in principal to his government's funding of the Palestinian festival, but questions why a non-country should receive such support.

“It’s not like we have sponsored a Tibetan festival or a Kurdish festival”, he said.

“It’s good that people learn about Palestinian culture, but we are afraid of importing the Middle East conflict to Belgium. You promote hostility against Israel, and the next day a rabbi gets beat up”.

Demaegd suggested the reason the festival has stirred up controversy is because it’s rare for a European government to sponsor any type of Palestinian event.” Read the full article here

See also:
Palestinian festival sparks controversy - Belgium
Zan Studio of Ramallah - anti-Israeli artists invited to Belgium
Brussels: Lebanon war mock tribunal condemns Israel and U.S.
Waals Palestina project zet kwaad bloed

German Leftists Declare Solidarity with Israel, by Elif Kayi

From: Z word blog: Elif Kayi, Z Word’s European press reviewer, reports on Gregor Gysi’s declaration of solidarity with Israel. There is a common perception that the European left is uniformly hostile to Israel. In that respect, Germany appears to have bucked the trend. Last week, Gregor Gysi, who jointly heads the party Linkspartei with Oskar Lafontaine, delivered a speech about Israel that was, by the prevailing standards of the European left, quite startling. Speaking at a conference organized by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Gysi warmly congratulated Israel on its 60th anniversary and called on his party to “show solidarity” with the Jewish state. Critically, Gysi defined such solidarity as an integral part of Germany’s “raison d’etat.” In so doing, Gysi harshly criticized the historic position of the PDS - the direct descendant of the communist party which ran the totalitarian East German state and now one of the constituent elements of Linkspartei - for its faithful reflection of Moscow’s line of implacable hostility towards Israel. “The leadership of the DDR (German Democratic Republic) did not only lack understanding of Israel’s security interests,” said Gysi. “It also did not understand the specific responsibility towards Jews that emerged from the eternal warning of the Shoah.” Gysi also counselled against classic left-wing anti-Zionism. “The concept of imperialism does not apply to Israel,” he said. Israeli democracy, he added, “is a really great achievement, that deserves admiration.” In an op-ed published in the daily Tageszeitung, journalist Stefan Reinecke described the importance of Gysi’’s speech: “Maybe more important than the criticism of the traditional leftist opposition to Israel is the commitment to the raison d’etat itself. This is a concept Linkspartei…have always avoided. Gysi interprets this concept not as authoritarian, but as rational - and the course is clear. If the party recognizes Israel as part of the German raison d’etat, it shows that it has finally accepted the western value system.” An editorial published in the daily Tagesspiegel also underscored the significance of the speech: “The speech…brings to an end a chapter in the party’s history: its often unclear position on the terror of extremist Palestinians. Not so long ago, during a visit in Teheran, Oskar Lafontaine tried to curry favour with the rulers of Iran, who are hostile to Israel. Hopefully, Gysi has set standards within his party that Lafontaine cannot pretend to ignore.” The head of the German Young Socialists (JuSo), Franziska Drohsel, also warned against antisemitism from the left and denounced the identification of some leftist groups with the Islamists: “The goals of the Islamist organizations are not compatible with the leftist concept of emancipation…Antisemitism is evil and has to be fought against, no matter who expresses and defends it”.

Inauguration of a memorial to the Jewish victims of the 1506 massacre in Lisbon

"Among these were two Dominican friars, who went through the city of Lisbon with crucifixes on their shoulders, inciting the people...they attacked the weak and defenseless group of ill-baptized New Christians with spears and unsheathed swords. They killed four thousand of them, robbed them..they maimed them, dashed children against walls and disembered them, defiled women and girls and then killed them. They threw many pregnant women out of windows onto spearpoints awaiting them below..."

Consolation for the Tribulations of Israel, by Samuel Usque, 1553, Ferrara (translated from the Portuguese by Martin A. Cohen, Jewish Publication Society of America, 5737-1977 (Ladina))

The Massacre, from EJP:

"Historians estimate that between 2,000 and 4,000 "New Christians" - Jews who were forced by the state to convert in 1496 - were thrown into pyres set up across the city centre before authorities regained control of the Portuguese capital.

The violence erupted on April 19, 1506 after a man believed to be a "New Christian" suggested that a light emanating from a crucifix at a chapel was likely caused by natural causes instead of divine intervention as thought by many Christians.

He was dragged from the church by a group of women who beat him to death, according to several historical accounts.
A priest then made a fiery sermon against "New Christians" while two other priests, crucifix in hand, marched through the cobblestoned streets of Lisbon inciting people to kill them.

In the ensuing violence even Catholics who were thought to look like "New Chistians" were killed or saw their homes destroyed.

King Manuel, who was outside of the Portuguese capital when the massacre began, ordered the ringleaders rounded up and hung while those convicted of murder or pillage received various corporal punishments.
When the king forced the Jews to become Christians, many of them decided to leave the country, including a number of highly educated people, such as the astronomer and mathematician Abraão Zacuto, who went to Turkey, and Baruch Espinosa's (Spinoza) parents, who went to Holland.

The massacre highlights the growing unease in Portugal at the time with "New Christians." Spain had launched its Inquisition in 1492 which aimed to expel or forcibly convert to Christianity all Jews and other non-believers, prompting thousands to cross the border into Portugal where they sought shelter.

But nearly five decades later Portugal launched its own Inquisition which led hundreds of Jews to be tortured or burned at the stake in the 16th and early 17th century after being accused by church tribunals of being heretics.

The forced conversion of Jews together with the Inquisition drastically reduced the number of Jews in Portugal, leading the memory of the "Lisbon massacre" as it has come to be known to fade.
"Since Jewish culture practically disappeared from the country, there was no one to evoke the memory of the massacre," author Richard Zimmler, who has written novels set against the purge of Jews in Portugal, said in an interview published in daily newspaper Público last Sunday. Some historians estimate that 20 percent of Portugal’s population, or 200,000 people at that time, before the start of the Inquisition were Jewish.

Many were successful traders and scientists whose international visibility made the term "Portuguese" be synonymous with "Jew" at the time.

Today there are just some 3,000 Jews in Portugal, a nation of just over 10 million people. Most are concentrated in Lisbon and the majority came to the country after Portugal’s Inquisition was officially abolished in 1821."

Read more on Friends of Marranos