Arab Countries/Communities- Over a quarter (28 per cent) of Israeli Arabs do not believe that the Holocaust ever happened, according to a report by "Jewsweek", citing an opinion poll. Among those Israeli Arabs who have graduated from high school and college, 33 per cent deny the Holocaust. Over three-quarters (76 per cent) of the respondents in the survey described Zionism as a form of racism. The poll was conducted among 721 Arab and 702 Jewish participants by Sami Smooha a sociologist at Haifa University.
- An article in the ‘Al-Risalah’ newspaper states: "The extermination of Jews is Allah’s will and is for the benefit of all humanity”. "Ahmad Bahar, president of the Hamas-dominated Palestinian Legislative Council, called for the killing of Americans as well as Jews."
- On 13 April 2007, at a mosque in Sudan, the Acting Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Sheik Ahmad Bahr, calls for Israel and America to be annihilated and for Allah to kill every single Israeli and American citizen.
Argentina- A Jewish-owned grocery was vandalized in Argentina. Windows were broken and anti-Semitic graffiti found in the store in the city of Rosario. The attack was followed by anti-Semitic remarks on the Internet. The store owner suspected that teenaged members of a local rugby team were behind the attack. The club manager expressed sympathy for the attack and called on players to apologize to the Jewish community.
Australia- January: The Muslim preacher, Sheik Feiz Mohammed, has referred to Jews as evil in a videotaped lecture still being sold in Sydney despite threats of legal action by the federal and state governments.
- Justice served: Attorney Sylvia Stolz represented Ernst Zuendel in his first trial, which was thrown out after Stolz was barred from the courtroom for what judges said was an attempt to sabotage the proceedings. Last month Mr Zuendel was convicted of Holocaust denial for doubting that Nazi Germany had exterminated six million Jews. He was given the maximum sentence of five years in prison. During the proceedings Ms Stolz concluded one of her written legal documents with the words "Heil Hitler", prosecutors in the city of Mannheim said. In addition to incitement of hatred against Jews and attempting to undermine court proceedings, Ms Stolz has been charged with using symbols of the Nazi party, a banned organisation, the prosecutors said.
- Justice served: The Federal Court of Australia has declared that material published in the internet newsletter of the self-titled Bible Believers' Church, based in western New South Wales, was unlawful under the Racial Discrimination Act. The newsletter is published by Anthony Grigor-Scott, who calls himself a non-denominational Christian minister and who claims Jesus was not Jewish. Material on the web-site implied that a Jewish international conspiracy successfully extorts money and guilt from non-Jews.
- In May, Danny Pollack, 27, was on a train heading from North Melbourne to Flinders Street when he was approached by what he said was a group of about six olive-skinned male youths who threatened to remove his yarmulka, a religious head-covering. "They started off saying 'shalom, shalom', and then 'f---ing Jews' and 'throw us your head cover'," Mr Pollack said. The men apparently referred to the fictional "running of the Jews" from the film Borat. According to Mr Pollack when he ignored the group's harassment they surrounded him and acted in a more threatening manner and then hit him on the back of his head, apparently with a newspaper. Mr Pollack attempted to leave the area and said the group tried to trip him.
Top Belgium January - Anti-Semitic graffiti was discovered in two places in Antwerp. The first place was the windows of a school and the graffiti read: "F*** Joden". The second place was the door of a shop on Lange Kievit Street and the graffiti read: "Hamas, joden aan de gas". The verbal graffiti were accompanied by antisemitic caricatures.
Top Canada- January: The oldest synagogue in Alberta was desecrated when a swastika and anti-Semitic graffiti were scrawled on the entrance wooden doors minutes before a visit by Premier Ed Stelmach to mark Beth Israel Synagogue's 100th anniversary.
- January: The war of words has coincided with Russian-related vandalism this winter in Cote des Neiges. On December, swastikas and anti-semitic slogans in Russian - "Yids are garbage," "Yids should die" - were spray-painted on a Westbury Ave. synagogue, the Saidye Bronfman Centre and Federation CJA.
- March: A TTC bus driver called police after seeing a man throw something through four windows of the Chabad of Midtown Jewish Centre on Bathurst St., south of St. Clair Ave. W., around 2 a.m., said Toronto police Const. Victor Kwong. The 20-year-old suspect was arrested within minutes. "It wasn't hard to find him because ... he was found to be with clothing and items that are representative of neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups," Kwong said, confirming the man was wearing a swastika.
- A Jewish center in the Canadian city of Montreal was targeted in a bomb attack over the Passover holiday.The bomb detonated at Montreal’s Ben Weider Jewish Community Center failed to cause any injuries or deaths, though workers were present at the time of the explosion. Damage was caused to the building.
- Justice served: The Jewish community applauded the Montreal police for the arrests last week of two men, Omar Bulphred, 24, and Azim Ibragimov, 22, reportedly Muslims, for the firebombing
attacks on the YM-YWHA Ben Weider Jewish Community Centre in Snowdon on April 3 and on the chassidic Skver Toldos Yakov Yosef school in Outremont on Sept. 2. - May: St. George's United Church in Courtenay was "tagged" with anti-Jewish slogans this week
Croatia- Following is a letter sent to the Jewish community in Zagreb: “Ivan Kesic promises you the great fight against Zionism in the Croatian media!” “Death to Zionism!” “Feel free to sue me for race and other discrimination. You made me and other Croatians laugh during the Lebanese war and you will make us laugh again! Ha, Ha, Ha”
- In some Croatian cafes, sugar packs bearing Hitler’s image and printed with vulgar jokes about Jews were being given to customers.
DenmarkThe Copenhagen synagogue on Krystalgade was vandalized on the night between January 21st - 22nd. Unknown perpetrators threw two rocks at two of the synagogue windows, both were smashed.
England - (see United Kingdom, below)
Finland- Justice expected: A 31-year-old man accused of selling neo-Nazi propaganda by mail-order has finally been brought to face the Vantaa district court on Thursday after going missing for several years. The man was apprehended at his work place in Finland on Monday. As the man had not made an appearance in court, the charges brought against him in 2003 ran the risk of becoming time-barred. The Vantaa district court declared the defendant remanded in his absence a few weeks prior to his apprehension. On Thursday the court decided the man should remain in custody until the trial.
France- French police are investigating the desecration of 53 gravestones Sunday at a cemetery in the northern city of Lille the day before the Passover holiday. Several of the markers were knocked down or broken. President Jacques Chirac condemned "this unspeakable and intolerable act" and expressed his sympathy to the families affected.
- A 45-year-old Jewish man was stabbed in front of a French Kosher restaurant Tuesday in another anti-Semitic incident which has plagued the French Jewish community. Last week, a young Jewish woman was attacked in Marseilles. The victim was identified as "Eric" and was hospitalized for injured in his left shoulder. The attack occurred in the city of Villeurbanne in southern France.
- Rabbi Elie Dahan (rabbi of a Jewish community in north of France) was assaulted this morning by a 20- year-old at the Paris train station, he was transferred bleeding and in shock, to the nearest hospital. Witnesses tried but failed to catch the felon. Dahan declared: “I arrived from Lille and was walking in the
Paris station when the man, who was accompanied by a woman, turned at me and shouted: dirty Jew, you are looking at me. I will smash your face dirty Jew.” The police say the motivations might not be religious ones.
Top Germany- January: A Holocaust memorial in the German city of Verden, Lower Saxony state, was burnt into ruins in the small hours of Friday. The arson was most likely cause of a fire which burnt out a railway carriage dating back to the Nazi era. The carriage had been established by students from a vocational school as a memorial for Holocaust victims.
- February: A Jewish preschool in Berlin, Germany was vandalized on Sunday. The vandals drew swastikas on the walls of the building. They also threw a smoke grenade into one of the rooms. The grenade failed to ignite. BERLIN However, the school, located in a northwest neighbourhood of the German capital, was not spared by the spray painting of swastikas, other Nazi symbols and anti-Semitic phrases, such as “Auschwitz,” “Juden Raus” (Jews, get out) and “Sieg Heil”, on its outer walls, as well as on toys that had been lying around in the school’s playground. A police spokesman said the attack did not cause serious damage or endanger children or staff at the school.
- The German authorities were preparing for criticism from the Jewish community after it was revealed that a Holocaust memorial in Berlin was being used as a public bathroom by tourists and by neo-Nazi sympathizers.
- An 18th century Jewish cemetery in Bavaria has been desecrated. More than half of the 60 tombstones that the vandals toppled were beyond repair, according to police in the southern German state.
- March: German police said on Thursday they were investigating four youths for spraying sheep with swastikas, the cross-like symbol used by the Nazis. The youths, between the ages of 15 and 18, painted swastikas on several sheep out of a herd of around 30 near the northwestern town of Etzenborn, police said.
- Justice achieved: A German court on Thursday convicted far-right activist Ernst Zundel of incitement for denying the Holocaust, and sentenced him to the maximum five years in prison. The 67-year-old, who was deported from Canada in 2005, was convicted on 14 counts of incitement for years of anti-Semitic activities, including denying the Holocaust, a crime in Germany, in documents and on the Internet.
- Justice achieved: A German court gave five far-right supporters in eastern Germany nine-month suspended sentences on Thursday for ceremonially burning a copy of the diary of Holocaust victim Anne Frank.
- Vandals daubed a swastika in red paint on a Berlin memorial to the Nazis' Jewish victims in April. The roughly meter-high swastika appeared during the night on the Levetzowstrasse memorial, which marks the site of a former synagogue and one of the places where Jews were gathered during World War II for deportation to concentration camps. A similar symbol was found on a nearby memorial plaque, police said; both swastikas were removed.
- For the second time in days, neo-Nazi graffiti was scrawled
Friday on a German monument commemorating Jewish women and the thousands of concentration camp victims killed on forced marches during World War II. Police in the eastern town of Soemmerda said they had no idea who had painted swastikas on the pillar during the night. The monument marks the last terrible act of the Nazis, who forced weakened inmates of the camps in 1945 to trek away from Allied armies. Thousands died of exhaustion only days before the German defeat. Thuringia state police said neo-Nazis had repeatedly attacked the monument. Authorities have been regularly scrubbing off the graffiti. Neo-Nazi graffiti was also daubed on a Left Party office in the town and on walls of the home of the mayor, Wolfgang Floegel, who is a leftist.
Top Hungary- Anti-government demonstrators and extreme-right
radicals in May, disrupted a speech by Prime Minster Ferenc Gyurcsany at a pro-tolerance demonstration on the banks of the Danube in Budapest. Hecklers, some of them throwing eggs at Gyurcsany, shouted anti-government and anti-Semitic slogans throughout the prime minister’s speech. Gyurcsany has said anti-Semitism was on the rise in Hungary since the start of anti-government protests, triggered last September by the leak of a tape on which Gyurcsany said he lied to voters on the economy to get re-elected.
Iran An anti-Semitic cartoon recently shown on Iranian TV shows a Jewish rabbi planting a Nazi swastika, covering it with dirt, watering it and watching as a giant star of David grows in its place. The rabbi, who is donning a black hat with a Star of David on the brim and a scowl, does not speak during the 56-second clip. An Iranian government-sponsored body set up to probe the veracity of the Holocaust has challenged Europe to hand over documents about the mass slaughter of Jews in World War II. Mohammad Ali Ramin, the head of the "World Holocaust Foundation" created after Iran's controversial Holocaust conference last year, said Austria, Germany and Poland in particular should supply documents.
ItalyOn 27th January 2007, International Holocaust Memorial Day, antisemitic graffiti were sprayed all over Rome. The graffiti read: "Jews, get out"! "Jews are swine"! "Dirty Jews"! An exhibition of anti-Semitic paintings is on display at a church in Umbrian city of Orvieto in Italy. One of the paintings displayed at the San Francesco Church portrays a Jewish woman baking sufganiyot (Hanukkah doughnuts) out of communion wafers. "The church is filled with paintings portraying the Jews as bloodthirsty people desecrating the Christian religion,"the Roman Association of Friends of Israel said in a letter to Pope Benedict XVI. Israeli Ambassador to the Vatican, Oded Ben-Hur, met over the weekend with Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, and expressed his shock over the exhibition.
Top Korea- The author of a best-selling Korean comic book series intended to teach children about other countries has bowed to pressure to change a chapter on Jews which has been called anti-Semitic. Rhie Won-bok maintains, however, that his depiction of Jewish control of American media and politics was based on fact and "commonly believed." The professor of visual arts at Duksung Women's University in Seoul told the Associated Press news agency: "The Jews are the invisible force that controls the US. I wrote the chapter to let people know that you can't understand the US without knowing the Jewish community."
More than ten million copies of the series entitled 'Far Countries, Near Countries' have been sold since it was first published in 1987, according to its publisher, Gimm-Young. The company boasts that at least one volume is in every home in the country of 48 million people. The comics with playfully drawn figures have sought to explain European countries, America, Japan and Korea itself. The first volume of three focusing on the United States was published in 2004. In a chapter titled 'You have to know the Jews to see the US', Rhie takes a wide-ranging look at Jewish history, mentioning the Holocaust and the fact that Jews have been spread throughout the world.
MoldovaPoland- Justice needed: A Polish member of the European Parliament has published a booklet suggesting that Jews are unethical, are obsessed with separateness and are a "tragic community" because they don't accept Jesus as the messiah. The extreme right-wing parliamentarian Maciej Giertych, an influential member of the nationalistic, Catholic-based League of Polish Families, released "Civilization at War in Europe" on Feb. 14 at the European Parliament headquarters in Strasbourg. Giertych's son, Roman, Poland's education minister and deputy prime minister, now heads the league, which has been battling the stain of anti-Semitism for years.
The 32-page booklet by the elder Giertych aims to prove that European culture, education and morality should be the province of only one civilization. Poland and other parts of Europe are depicted as having a Catholic core which cannot coexist with what he depicts as the Jews' Torah-based civilization. The anti-Semitic booklet published by a far-right Polish member of the European Parliament has continued to spark outrage among EU officials and Jewish leaders. The booklet maintains: "It is a civilization of programmed separateness, of programmed differentiation from the surrounding communities ... By their own will, they [the Jews] prefer to live a separate life, in apartheid from the surrounding communities ... They form the ghettos themselves… It was only Hitler's Germany that created the concept of forced separation," Giertych adds, claiming that "Jews are not pioneers" but migrate from poorer communities to settle among other civilizations "preferably among the rich." - Justice served: Maciej Giertych, a Polish Member of the European Parliament (MEP), whose anti-Semitic tract entitled 'Civilizations at War in Europe' caused widespread outrage, has been officially censured by the Parliament's speaker, Hans-Gert Pöttering. After summoning Giertych on Tuesday, Pöttering declared at the beginning of Wednesday's plenary session that he had reprimanded the Polish deputy and said that he "profoundly regretted" that Giertych's tract "constitutes a violation of fundamental rights and of human dignity to which our institution adheres." He added that the European Parliament (EP) could "not be associated with what has been written in your brochure."
- Justice reinforced: In March, the European parliament’s bureau rejected an appeal by Polish MEP Maciej Giertych to reverse a decision sanctioning him for publishing an anti-Semitic and xenophobic pamphlet.
- Early months of 2007: A number of buildings in Lodz have been covered with anti-Semitic slogans such as “Jews to the gas!” In another case, graffiti included a Star of David hanging on gallows. The city is covered with this kind of graffiti because it has two football teams, Widzew and ŁKS, and their supporters often call each other “Jews”, considered very offensive in many Polish circles.
Top Russia- Unknown vandals painted antisemitic threats on the walls of the “Siyanie Chesed” Jewish Center in Murmansk. The words “Beat the Kikes” and “Holocaust 2007”. In July 2006, vandals painted “Death to the kikes” on the building.
- In the late-night hours of 20th January 2007, a drunken 17-year-old vandal smashed the menorah made of ice that stood in front of the synagogue in Krasnoyarsk. The synagogue guard saw what was happening and hit the emergency button. A police vehicle arrived one minute later and apprehended the thug as he continued to smash the menorah. He was arrested and taken to jail where he will remain throughout the proceedings against him. The man whose serves as the emissary and the town's rabbi, Rabbi Benny Vogner, said: "The entire incident was recorded on the security camera, and luckily it ended with the arrest of the perpetrator".
- A member of Russia's Communist Party's Central Committee has accused Jews of committing genocide against ethnic Russians, according to a January 18 report posted on Antisemitizmu.net.
- Vandals desecrated a synagogue in a southern Russia city at the weekend with swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans. An enquiry has been launched into the incident at Voronezh, the Itar-Tass news agency reported, citing local prosecutor Mikhail Usov. The city's Jewish community condemned the act, saying it would only stir up racial tension.
- Justice served: The editor of an antisemitic newspaper in Novgorod was sentenced to two years and four months in prison for inciting ethnic hatred, according to a January 20 report by Antisemitizmu.net.
- A group of youths attacked four Jewish teenagers in the Ramenskoe District of the Moscow Region. On the evening of February 18, the Jewish youths, who study at the Torat Chaim school in Ramenskoe, were waiting for a commuter train when a group of youths between 18 and 25 approached them and demanded to know their ethnicities and see their passports. A brawl ensued, and the Jewish teenagers were robbed of a cell phone and an MP3 player. One of them, an Israeli citizen, was hospitalized with a concussion.
- Vandals painted a swastika and the word "kikes" on a Holocaust memorial in Kaliningrad, Russia, according to a March 30 report by the Russian Jewish web site Jewish.ru. The vandalism took place on March 29 on the grounds of a Jewish cemetery. It is not clear from the report if police are investigating the incident.
- Seven gravestones in a Jewish cemetery in St. Petersburg, Russia were vandalized, according to a March 30 report by the Russian Jewish web site Antisemitizmu.net. Vandals painted swastikas and extremist graffiti on the gravestones. Police are investigating the incident.
- On April 22, the eve of the 137th anniversary of Lenin's birth, vandals painted a Star of David on a large statue of the Soviet leader in Rostov-on-Don, Interfax reported. The perpetrators have not been found, and the motive is puzzling. Lenin, who founded the Soviet Union, had some distant Jewish ancestors but was baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church and was extremely hostile to all religions. In a 2006 poll by the ROMIR sociological service he ranked third in popularity among Russian leaders since 1917.
- A Russian Jew has been stabbed to death in northern St. Petersburg, members of the city's Jewish community told Ynetnews. Dimitri Nikoulinsky, 22, was found dead with knife wounds to his throat by his mother minutes after the assault, his friend said. Two members of the Jewish community said the attack was "exactly" like other lethal assaults carried out by neo-Nazi groups against foreign students and an anti-fascist activist, and are convinced that the attack was a hate-crime.
- A bomb exploded in a synagogue in Saratov, according
to an Interfax item on May 7. No one was hurt, but the building was slightly damaged, Russia's Congress of Jewish Religious Organizations and Communities told the news agency. - Oleg Pashchenko, a member of the pro-Kremlin party Just Russia with a long history of antisemitic publishing, has on re-election to the Krasnoyarsk Region's parliament, according to a May 2 report by the Russian Jewish website Antisemitizmu.net. Pashchenko edits the local newspaper "Krasnoyarskaya Gazeta" which features articles that refer to Jews as "kikes" and "filth."
Top Slovakia- Rabbi Meyers and his son were leaving the synagogue in Bratislava, two young thugs began shouting at them: "Jew! Jew! Jewish into oven! Juden Raus". Police, who were summoned to the place, arrested the attackers on criminal charges which carry a sentence of up to three years in prison. The Slovak Minister of the Interior denounced the attack and expressed his satisfaction with the tough reaction of the police.
South KoreaAttempted Justice, 10 million copies too late: SEOUL, South Korea -- A South Korean publisher agreed Thursday to withdraw a best-selling children's book from stores after meeting with an anti-Semitism watchdog group that accused the author of spreading messages echoing Nazi propaganda. The comic-book series by Rhie Won-bok, ''Meon Nara, Yiwoot Nara'' (''Far Countries, Near Countries''), purports to teach about the world. It has sold at least 10 million copies. One of three books on the U.S. claims Jews were the driving force for the hatred that led to the Sept. 11 attacks, that they exert control over U.S. media and says they prevent Korean Americans from succeeding in the United States.
SudanOn 13 April 2007, at a mosque in Sudan, the Acting Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Sheik Ahmad Bahr, calls for Israel and America to be annihilated and for Allah to kill every single Israeli and American citizen.
Sweden- Racial abuse, Nazi graffiti and Hitler salutes have become so widespread at a school in the village of Vännäsby that pupils are to be kept home for two days next week as staff meet to discuss ways to tackle the situation.
SwitzerlandTen percent of the Swiss population is anti-Semitic, according to a recent study. The 10 percent, the study said, had "systematic anti-Semitic attitudes," meaning across the board, Swiss news outlet NZZ online reported, while another 28 percent held some anti-Semitic views. Alfred Donath, president of the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities, told Swiss news agencies that the 10 percent figure was "worrying," but noted that it had remained constant in recent years.... The majority of respondents, 54 percent, said Israel is governed by religious fanatics and 50 percent believed Israel is carrying out a "war of extermination" in the territories.
Top Ukraine- On 13th January 2006, Neo-Nazis sprayed swastikas and antisemitic epithets such as "Jews, choke to death" and "Death to the Jews" on the walls, both inside and outside, of the last synagogue in the Ukrainian town of Mariupol.
- In early January 2007, the Golden Rose Synagogue in Lviv was desecrated. Words were daubed on the Synagogue's walls and in the area around it reading "Death to the Jews", "There will be no Jews in Lviv", "Juds must die" "Juden Raus". It is of note that the site is on the list of protected, historic sites in the country and serves as a center for religious life in the community.
- February: A monument to Holocaust victims and Jewish graves have been defaced with swastikas in southern Ukraine, an activist with a local Jewish community said Tuesday. Unidentified vandals desecrated the Holocaust Monument late Sunday with red swastikas and with the inscription "Congratulations on the Holocaust" and painted swastikas on 270 graves in a Jewish cemetery in the Black Sea port of Odessa, said Boleslav Kapulkin, a spokesman for Odessa's Jewish community. "It is awful. They insulted all Ukrainians and hurt Ukraine's image," Kapulkin told The Associated Press. The monument was erected at the site where thousands of Jews were killed and burned by the Nazis between 1941-1944. Kapulkin said police launched a probe into the vandalism.
- Justice attempted: A leading Ukrainian Orthodox cleric in Ukraine has demanded that the state return confiscated Torah scrolls to the Jewish community, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) has reported. On March 13, Archbishop Yuriy of Donetzk and Mariupol called on President Viktor Yushchenko, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, and authorities in the city of Zhitomir to facilitate the return of the scrolls to their original owners.
- Justice denied: The man who entered a Kiev synagogue last year with a large knife and announced his intention to kill the country's chief rabbi has been released from custody, according to a February 13 report by the Russian Jewish web site Antisemitizmu.net. Georgi Dobryansky was never charged with a hate crime despite his confession that he blamed Jews for "genocide" against Ukrainians, but he did serve a one-year sentence that expired this month. After leaving prison, he allegedly called the offices of a Ukrainian Jewish newspaper "Evreysky Obozrevatel" and threatened violence.
- About 70 tombstones of Holocaust victims were toppled, and some destroyed, in a historic cemetery in western Ukraine. The incident in the city of Chernovtsy took place on April 12, but was reported only on April 19. Local law enforcement agencies are investigating. Among the damaged tombstones some had been restored only recently by local businessmen.
- A Holocaust memorial in the town of Khmelnitsky, in western Ukraine, was vandalized, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported on May 2. Local Jewish community sources say that the mass
grave was desecrated some time in April. The monument was erected after World War II, on the site of a Nazi massacre of 8,000 Jews. Activists have appealed to the town council to build a fence along the perimeter of the memorial.
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United KingdomJanuary: - The Jewish victim was having work done on his windows at his house and the builder who performed the work did a terrible job causing £1000 worth of damage so he phoned the company to complain. The builder was sacked and then the victim received antisemitic death threats on his answer phone at home from the builder saying that he would "Gas your kids, ****** Jew"
- A Jewish girl was on her way to school in Edgware when a girl told her to stop staring at her boyfriend and when the victim didn't respond, she said, "Are all you Jews deaf?"
- A small vehicle drove past the victim in Tyne and Wear and the occupants threw eggs at him which hit him on his hat and suit.
- A young Jewish man was walking to university when he saw a youth jump over a wall. The youth spotted the victim's star of David and shouted "Jew Boy" at him.
- Ken Livingstone: Mayor of London, participated in debate on multiculturalism in London with the eminent American scholar Dr Daniel Pipes. During the debate Livingstone said: “I would not have created an Israel.” He went on to say that the creation of Israel was a “travesty” seemingly perpetrated by a United States determined to enhance its image abroad. He added that the USA and UK ought to have taken in the Jewish refugees and not displaced the Arabs for sixty years.
- The Jewish victim was walking along the road in Crumpsall when a vehicle drove past him and the occupant shouted "Jew" at him. The vehicle then stopped and the offender got out and threw eggs at him.
- Students from a Yeshiva in Salford were playing football when a number of local youths started shouting antisemitic abuse at them.
- An observant Jewish pupil in Barnet was informed that antisemitic comments had been made about him by certain classmates because he wears his kippah in class.
- The Jewish victim was walking in a playground in Hampstead with his wife and three children when they walked past 5 youths. They started talking about Jewish people (while he had his back to them) and then he was hit on the back by some sand which they had thrown.
- A man got out of a vehicle in Salford wearing all white clothing and a "Bin Laden" mask. When he saw the victim he shouted, "F******** Jews, gonna blow you up."
- The Jewish victim went to a second hand tyre depot and the sales assistant made some antisemitic comments about two orthodox Jewish males and two children who had walked past. The victim told the man that he was Jewish and that he had no intention after his comments, to purchase any tyres from him and the man stuck two fingers up at him.
- A man walked past two Jewish charity workers as they were getting into their vehicle in Edgware. He started to shout antisemitic abuse at them including, "F******* Jews." The victim's started to follow the man and he then spat at the vehicle and threw a branch at it.
- A black male started to shout and swear abuse at a Jew and his friend in Edgware as they were walking along the road. He referred to the victim as "Hitler" and shouted at him that he should, "go back to where he belongs."
- A plaque at the Elektroterm plant in Kharkov commemorating Jews murdered there by the Nazis in 1941 was damaged and painted over with swastikas.
February: - Call for Justice: Police in London are appealing for information about a brutal anti-Semitic attack committed by three teenage thugs armed with baseball bats and rocks in one of the city’s most vibrant Jewish neighbourhoods. The attackers - one of whom was described as white, one Asian and one of Mediterranean complexion - launched their assault in Golders Green Road last Tuesday shortly after their two Jewish victims, one of whom was a tourist, left a restaurant at 9.30pm. Police say the men were given a torrent of anti-Semitic verbal abuse as they left the restaurant, and they were followed and physically attacked minutes later. The trio of thugs hit their victims with baseball bats, wooden sticks and rocks and left the men with bruises, cuts to their faces and arms as they tried to defend themselves, officers say. The London Jewish News reported that the victims were brothers. One of the victims was a 25-year-old on holiday from France, who was left with cuts to the face and arms, a swollen lip and severe bruising. His brother, 35, suffered a slashed arm in the attack, the newspaper reported. Confirming the attack was anti-Semitic, Detective Superintendent Richard Walton, Barnet’s deputy borough commander, said: "This unprovoked attack was committed by three young men who targeted the victims purely based on their religion."
March - Call for Justice: "We share the concerns of Jewish communities, and fully support the police and prosecuting authorities in taking a tough line to
stamp out anti-Semitism wherever it occurs," said Phil Woolas, minister for Local Government and Community Cohesion, in an official response by the British government on Wednesday to a parliamentary inquiry into the recent escalation of anti-Semitism in the UK.
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United Nations (UN)For the first time (but probably not the last), we include the United Nations in our annual survey of anti-Semitic incidents. Their yearly diatribes against Israel, and only Israel, for so much of what is wrong with the world, cannot, in all honesty, be seen as anything but veiled hatred against Jews. The record of bias is unassailable. The current 61st U.N General Assembly has passed 22 anti-Israel resolutions and condemned only a handful of the 191 other U.N. member states. Every year the body passes about 19 anti-Israel resolutions, while not once censuring systematic human rights violators such as Cuba, Zimbabwe, Uzbekistan, Syria, China and countless others. U.N. Watch reports that at the 2005 annual assembly of the World Health Organization only one country was singled out by special resolution. Israel was found to violate the health rights of Palestinians. Similarly, that same year, at the annual meeting of the International Labor Organization, only one country-specific report was made part of its agenda. Israel was charged with violating the rights of Palestinian workers. Some examples of United Nations sponsored/allowed anti-Semitism: - The Holocaust is a “historical claim”, “the number of perished” is a particularly “legitimate question,” and there are “serious opposing ideas over the issue.” — Iranian Ambassador Alireza Moayeri, in letter circulated Jan. 11, 2007 by Secretariat of the Human Rights Council
- “Hezbollah is everyday simple people resisting, resisting an occupation...” — Cuban Ambassador Juan Antonio Fernández Palacios, Oct. 4, 2006.
- “The one who has monopoly on the violation of human rights is Israel... the darling of the High Commissioner.” — Palestinian Ambassador Mohammad Abu-Koash, Dec. 1, 2006, mocking Louise Arbour, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, for daring to cite Palestinian obligations to stop terrorism in addition to her regular criticisms of Israel.
And more... The UN’s new Human Rights Council is about to wrap up a year-long negotiation over reform with—what else?—an escalation of its attacks on Israel. The new body was supposed to remedy the defects of its predecessor, the discredited Commission on Human Rights, which became paralyzed by its obsession with condemning the Jewish state half of the time, and otherwise ignoring most of the world’s abuses. Amazingly, the new Council went further. In the past year, 100 per cent of its condemnations have targeted Israel. This week, however, things will only get worse. Contrary to assurances made last year by proponents of the supposed reform, the majority of the council—dominated by repressive regimes—is now threatening to eliminate the independent experts who report on violations in Cuba, Belarus, Burma and North Korea, and impose new restrictions that will make it even harder to scrutinize abuser governments. At the same time—again, contrary to what was promised—the council is expected to adopt a special agenda item that will single out Israel, placing it under permanent indictment. Top
United States- California: Nobel laureate and Holocaust scholar Elie Wiesel was dragged from an elevator and roughed up during a peace conference at a San Francisco hotel, according to police. (Feb. 10)
- California: A spray-painted swastika on the wall of San Francisco’s largest synagogue on the eve of Passover is being investigated as a hate crime, according to police Sgt. Neville Gittens. Security personnel at the Congregation Emanu-El discovered the mark on their Lake Street temple Monday morning. "A swastika was painted on the side of the building that was described to me as being about 10 inches tall, blue in color. This was discovered at about 11:05," said Gittens. Rabbi Stephen Pearce said there have been one or two similar incidents at the temple in the past 25 years.
- California: Nazi swastikas were found spray-painted on a garage door at one house, on a neighboring mailbox and on the street itself. Racial slurs also were found on the spray-painted mailbox. A 14-year-old girl was arrested Wednesday night in connection with the incident.
- California: San Francisco’s Emanu-El synagogue, the largest in the city, was defaced with swastikas over the Passover festival. Congregants discovered the vandalism Monday morning. San Francisco’s mayor condemned the Nazi graffiti. "San Francisco is known as a city that embraces people of all faiths," Mayor Gavin Newsom told CBS news. "We strongly condemn this act of hatred and intolerance."
- According to community spokesperson Isaac Abraham, at least one swastika was painted inside a building at Bedford Gardens, a residential complex that is home to nearly 700 tenants, where most of the residents are Jewish. The complex is part of the Mitchell-Lama housing program, and according to Abraham, this is just the latest of several similar incidents which have occurred in the eight-building complex in the past year. A swastika and an anti-Semitic remark were written on a sand trap, which a resident photographed before raking over.
- In an interview James D. Watson asks rhetorically, "Should you be allowed to make an anti-Semitic remark?" He answered: "Yes, because some anti-Semitism is justified. Just like some anti-Irish feeling is justified. If you can't be criticized, that's very dangerous. You lose the concept of a free society." Apparently a firm believer in eugenics, Watson also feels "Ashkenazi Jews" - Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities in the area of Germany - have higher intelligence than other people. "I've wondered why people aren't more intelligent," Watson says. "Why isn't everyone as intelligent as Ashkenazi Jews? And it may be that societies work best when there's a mixture of ability - the bright people would never be an army." Scientist James D. Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA and a Nobel Prize winner
- California: Pacifica police are hunting for the vandal or vandals who ignited a blaze in a storage closet and littered the walls of Oceana High School with anti-Semitic, racist and homophobic slogans in the wee hours of the morning Tuesday, April 24. The vandalism comes on the heels of a similar instance earlier this month at South San Francisco High School. Vandals spray-painted anti-Semitic and racist epithets on the walls and committed $8,000 worth of damage; a juvenile suspect has been charged with felony vandalism.
- California: In May, a vandal glued drawings of swastikas and two
anti-Semitic messages to the front of the Sherman Oaks office of Los Angeles City Councilman Jack Weiss. Epoxied to the glass front door were three 8 1/2 -by-11-inch sheets of paper, each showing the Nazi flag in color. Another sheet, glued above Weiss' name on the door, contained a printed message: "Mein Fuhrer Die Office Official of Natziesque Extraordinaire." The final sheet contained a long message that began: "Our policy: we have no time to listen to Jewish American children!!! If you don't believe us, just try talking to us…. Hail Weiss!" - Connecticut: Vandals leaned a plastic Israel Fair sign splayed with anti-semetic slurs and swastikas against a School Road resident's mailbox Friday. The incident is being investigated as a hate crime. No arrests have been made but Wilton police said they are treating the matter seriously. The incident comes three weeks after another incident in which vandals spray painted swastikas and phallic symbols on a garage on April 1. Police made no arrests in that incident either. Police are still investigating that incident.
- Virginia: (February) The word "Jew" also was painted on a gym wall behind the seats of Bishop Sullivan Catholic High School students attending the Feb. 2 game at Norfolk Academy, said Dennis W. Price, principal of the Virginia Beach school. Price who also watched the game, said the rivals exchanged chants, "Then, at some point, our students were chanting, 'We love Jesus.'" "It was obviously in reference to the Jewish population of Norfolk Academy; that's the only way you can take that," he added.
- Illinois: (March) Anti-Semitic vandalism of a stairwell outside Alderman Bernard Stone's office included slurs such as "Death to the Jews." The incident comes one week after ADL's 2006 Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents showed that anti-Semitic incidents in Illinois nearly doubled from 2005. Ald. Bernie Stone (50th) is calling for cooler heads to prevail after he received a racist flyer in the mail. Stone, who represents West Rogers Park in the City Council, is running against three opponents. The envelope contained a campaign flyer with a picture of Stone and Mayor Richard M. Daley. Stone's face was blurred out by a swastika, while an X was drawn across Mayor Daley's face.
- Illinois: Chicago police are investigating the Passover eve spraying of graffiti on the walls of a Chicago synagogue. Anti-Israel messages, including "Death to Israel," were painted in English and in Arabic. "This is what American Jews have to look forward to. You can hear the deafening silence," said Jack Berger, a Chicago Jewish community leader.
- In Connecticut, police are investigating what they called a "bias crime" after a swastika was sprayed on the garage of an Olmstead Hill Road home. According to homeowner Jeanne Roberts, the swastika was on the middle of her garage door, though it looked like the vandals had second thoughts and sprayed the bottom in different directions.
- Washington: (March)Two Centralia men were accused of spray painting swastikas and white power slogans in Pullman.
- New York: Yonkers (March) - Jewish and Christian religious leaders decried the painting of a red swastika on a Yonkers synagogue today. The swastika was discovered on an exterior wall at Temple Emanu-El, 306 Rumsey Road, at 5:24 a.m. The vandalism comes just five days before congregation members, along with Jews all over the world, begin observing the weeklong holiday of Passover on Monday. Rabbi Allen Kaplan of Temple Emanu-El said that the congregation has experienced nothing like this during its 40 years in the building. "This is a hate crime," he said. "They chose a swastika, a red swastika. That is a statement. This is a hate crime."
- New York: What many local residents consider a hate crime, signs of racial animosity have been carved in concrete on the beach block of Beach 114 Street in Rockaway Park and have remained there for months despite complaints to city agencies. This Swastika, the symbol of Nazi Germany was clearly carved into the concrete when it was newly-poured several months ago, residents say.
- Hollywood/New York: Law and Order's Anti-Semitic episode questions Jewish loyalty: The plot line of the February 27 installment of Law and Order: Criminal Intent, a fictional police drama broadcast across America on NBC, centers on a journalist who is poisoned after his girlfriend uncovers a foul-up by Israeli intelligence. The show depicts Israeli bulldozers destroying Palestinian schools, with at least one character referring to "Israeli brutality."
It also includes a Jewish police captain who agrees to cover up for Israel by shutting down a criminal investigation at the urging of the head of the local pro-Israel group. In one scene, after Captain Danny Ross tells his officers to halt their investigation, Detective Mike Logan confronts him and asks, "Are you a Jew first and a cop second?" - Georgia: A metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia official has resigned her position after posting anti-Israel remarks on a web site. Cherokee County Planning Commission member Mary Catarineau wrote last month that Israel "was artificially created to provide a place for Jews to avoid persecution after the Holocaust. The Holocaust is not going to recur, and Israel has caused nothing but problems. Jews can remain or leave, but give the land back to the Muslims."
- New Jersey: In the heavily-Jewish populated Bergen County region of New Jersey, swastikas and anti-Jewish graffiti were found engraved into the playground of a Wallington park on Passover eve. Bergen County Police spokesman Kevin Hartnett said, "We run into graffiti in the parks all the time, but we don't see these types of possible bias crimes often.”
- Pennsylvania: A rough drawing of a building labeled “Jewish library” with missiles headed toward it was found in a Princeton University common room. Also in the path of the missiles were stick figures labeled “little Jews.” A swastika graced the top of the sketch. Jewish students presume the drawing is a reference to a Jewish fundraising drive for an elementary school in northern Israel damaged during the Second Lebanon War last summer.
Pennsylvania: - According to Herky Pollock, the incident occurred Thursday, May 3, at Mortons Steakhouse, Downtown, while Pollock and two friends were dining there. David Sunseri, owner of the Pennsylvania Macaroni Company, was invited to join them for a drink. After a short time, Pollock said, Sunserie started to complain about the bread. "'He then picked up the bread and proceeded to squeeze it, break it and show it off to two waiters, while echoing the same sentiments to them. He then launched into the following statement, 'only Jews would like this bread.'" Pollock said he asked Sunseri if he meant all Jews. "'He replied 'No, just Pittsburgh Jews.' To which I asked 'why?' He replied that 'Pittsburgh Jews had no taste....'" The other two diners at the table, neither of whom is Jewish, confirmed Pollock's account of the incident when contacted by The Chronicle. David Sunseri has apparently apologized for the remarks.
- Oregon: (Justice achieved) a far-right extremist has been sentenced to more than eleven years in federal prison for an attack on the synagogue in Eugene, Oregon, in 2002. According to federal prosecutors Jacob Laskey, 26, who calls himself a white supremacist, admitted as part of a plea bargain that he wanted to commit acts of violence against Jews, blacks and other ethnic or racial groups. Laskey admitted throwing rocks etched with swastikas through stained glass windows at Temple Beth Israel while about 80 people were inside attending a service.
- The Daily Kos collaborative weblog, one of the most popular American political websites, is featuring anti-Semitic graphic content since Thursday.
The content is featured in a "diary" by one of the site's contributors, a Belgian graphic artist. It shows a composite of Minister Avigdor Lieberman's face and Adolf Hitler's face holding a skull painted with a Star of David, under the caption "Zionism was and remains a racist ideology."
Top Vatican and Churches- Pope Pius XII, who allegedly turned a blind eye to the Holocaust as head of the Catholic Church during World War II, has been placed on the path to sainthood. A group of 15 bishops and cardinals known as the ‘Congregation for the Causes of Saints’ voted on Tuesday to approve the beatification of Pius. Current Pope Benedict XVI has to approve the proposals and two miracles will have to be found that can be attributed to Pius XII. Pope Pius’s wartime record was the source of a recent dispute between the Vatican and Israel’s Holocaust memorial institution, Yad Vashem. The Vatican’s ambassador to Jerusalem threatened to boycott the annual Shoah commemoration there ceremony unless a passage saying that Pius "abstained from signing the Allied declaration condemning the extermination of the Jews" and "maintained his neutral position throughout the war" was removed from an exhibit. The Vatican claims that it has evidence that Pius quietly intervened on behalf of Jews, but still blocks access to Vatican archives from that period.http://www.worldjewishcongress.org/news/globalnews/gn_archives/2007/05/gn_070511_catholic.html
- A group of 12 Orthodox priests have called on their Church to review its longstanding theological positions toward Jews and the State of Israel, and to excise anti-Semitic passages from its liturgy. The dissident priests made their demands in a 12-point declaration adopted during a weeklong visit to Israel that is meant to spur debate in the Orthodox Christian world and to challenge centuries-old anti-Semitic views. "Sadly, there are some Orthodox Christians who propagate disgusting anti-Semitism under the banner of Orthodoxy ... ," said Rev. Innokenty Pavlov, professor of theology at Moscow's Biblical Theological Institute.
"We have to raise our voices and call on Orthodox laity and the Church leadership to formulate an official position of the Orthodox Church toward our relations with Judaism, as it was formulated a few decades ago by the Catholic Church," he added, referring to the Second Vatican Council of 1962 to 1965. The 10-page declaration issued Thursday calls for the renunciation of replacement theology and the removal of anti-Semitic passages from Church liturgy - particularly Easter services - and endorses the eternal connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel. The passages appear in the standard Orthodox liturgy all over the world. The dozen Orthodox priests who signed the declaration - some in open defiance of directives from church leadership - represent five different Orthodox churches, including the Russian, Greek, Ukrainian, Georgian and Ecumenical Orthodox Churches. "We came to the firm belief that it is high time for the Orthodox Church to correct its attitude toward Jews and Judaism," the declaration states. Unlike the Catholic and Protestant churches, the Orthodox Church has never removed anti-Semitic passages from its liturgy, which still refers to Jews as Christ killers, said Dr. Dmitry Radyehsvky, director of the Jerusalem Summit, a conservative Israeli think tank that co-sponsored the visit. He said the anti-Semitic passages were most conspicuous during Easter services, and included statements such as "the Jewish tribe which condemned you to crucifixion, repay them, Oh Lord," which is repeated half a dozen times, and "Christ has risen but the Jewish seed has perished," as well as references to Jews as "God-killers."
Yemen- Jews living in the Sa'ada District in North Sana'a, the Yemeni capital, were recently the victims of unequivocal threats by the adherents of the radical cleric Hussein Badr-a-Din al-Huthi, ordering them to evacuate their homes within 10 days. Following complaints by the Jews about the threats they had received, a meeting of the local authorities was held on Monday, 8th January in the presence of the sheikhs from the district. Among other things the Jews demanded that they be treated as citizens of Yemen enjoying equal rights. At the end of the meeting a fatwa (a Muslim religious ruling) was handed down defining relations between Jews and Muslims. Nevertheless, this decision, to which a group of Jews were also signatories, does not actually ensure their immunity from the threats made to them. While Yemeni security forces initiated efforts to convince the Jews to remain in the areas in which they were living, their fears were stronger than the attempts at calming them down, which forced the Yemeni authorities to grant them financial assistance to allowing them to pay for accommodations in guest houses. The explicit language of the threats read as follows: "They engage in activities and movements that serve first and foremost World Zionism which works enthusiastically in order to demoralize the people and to cause them to abandon their values, the values of morality and their religion and to spread every kind of abomination within society". Those threatening the Jews, had, according to the wording of the threat, reached the conclusion that "After scrupulous monitoring of the Jews living in the Al-Hid region in the Sa'ada District…our religions faith orders us to fight against these pernicious [elements] and refute them". Yiyeh Yosef Mussa, one of the Jews who had fled their homes in Al-Hid, said that the commander of the threatening youths, Yahya al-Hadir, made it clear to him and his friends that they do not want to see even one Jew in the Sa'ada District. According to this Jew, although they did return to their homes on 10th January, the young members of the organization continued to threaten them, including threats of abduction and robbing them of their money and their vehicles.
"Where do they want to send us"? Mussa asked. "The second threat came after we had returned to our homes. Four masked men came to us and said that if we remained until Friday, they would make trouble for us. The Sheikhs in the region are the last ones that can do anything for us". The Jews have issued complaints to the District Governor and to Yemeni President "Ali Abdullah Saleh, demanding that they protect them from these threats.
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