www.haaretz.com

Moshe Feiglin #racist haaretz.com

Former Israeli MK Moshe Feiglin quoted Adolf Hitler while commenting on the war in Gaza saying: "We can't live in this land if one Islamo-Nazi remains in Gaza," while speaking to Channel 12 news

Feiglin continued, saying that Jews "are not guests in our own land, it is entirely ours," adding that he wants to "turn Gaza Hebrew"

Feiglin's Zehut party platform in 2019 claimed that once Israelis "adopt their true identity and stop seeing themselves as an occupying force in their own country, the rest of the world will leave the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict behind and accept our legal sovereignty"

The document further stated the party would "cancel" the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians and offer three options to the "non-Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria," the first would be to leave. Israel, the platform stated, would "enable interested residents to sell their property, and will help them immigrate to the destination of their choice"

Amichai Eliyahu #racist #wingnut #psycho haaretz.com

Israel's Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu said on Sunday that dropping a nuclear weapon on the Gaza Strip is "an option"

peaking in a radio interview, the far-right minister maintained that "there are no non-combatants in Gaza," adding that providing humanitarian aid to the Strip would constitute "a failure"

Eliyahu was then asked if – since there are no non-combatants in his view – a nuclear attack on the Gaza Strip is an option. "That's one way," he responded

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded by saying that Eliyahu's comments are "divorced from reality"[…]
Later on Sunday morning, Netanyahu's office announced that Eliyahu had been suspended from government meetings until further notice[…]
Gallant's predecessor, Minister Benny Gantz, said Eliyahu's statement damages Israel and "adds pain to the families of the hostages"

Avi Maoz #fundie #racist #sexist #wingnut haaretz.com

Netanyahu Ally's Demand in Coalition Talks: Scrap Israel's Commitment to Women's Equality

The anti-LGBT Noam party, which won a single Knesset seat as part of the Religious Zionism slate, announced on Thursday that it will back Netanyahu in his bid to form a new government as expected. However, it is demanding in return that Israel cancel its official commitment to U.N. Resolution 1325, which obligates it "to include women in all decision-making bodies, especially those dealing with matters of security and peace and to take definitive action to protect women from violence and uphold international law with respect to the human rights of women and girls." Netanyahu put heavy pressure on the leaders of several far-right parties, including Noam, to run under one slate. Noam’s leader, Avi Maoz, was elected to the Knesset as a result of those efforts.

In a statement released on Thursday, Maoz presented a list of demands for supporting Netanyahu's premiership. “We will act to return to our country its Jewish character, which has been eroded in recent years,” he wrote. “We will demand to fix government decision 2331, which orders the institutions of the state to adhere to U.N. resolution 1325.” That government decision, adopted in 2014, called on all official state institutions in Israel to protect women’s rights and ensure representation and security for women.

Maoz’s list of demands also includes ending “government initiatives that work on Shabbat” and giving the ultra-Orthodox rabbinate total control over all Jewish conversions in Israel.

Leader of the opposition Yair Lapid reacted to Maoz’s statement with a warning. "This is the government you want? A racist, chauvinist government that will send Israel back to the Middle Ages? No sane Prime Minister and no sane elected official can allow this to happen.”

Rabbi Shlomo Aviner #fundie #psycho haaretz.com

Notre Dame Fire May Be Divine Punishment, Says Prominent Settler Rabbi

Urging 'God-fearing Jews' to refrain from grieving, leading religious-Zionist figure invokes 13th-century Talmud book burning as possible reason for the devastating blaze

The conflagration at Notre Dame de Paris that badly damaged the ancient cathedral on Monday was possibly divine punishment, an influential Israeli rabbi said on Wednesday, invoking a 13th-century burning of Jewish scriptures.

Addressing the fire at the 856-year-old church in Paris in a Q&A article published on religious-Zionist Israeli news website Srugim, French-born Shlomo Aviner, now the rabbi of West Bank settlement Beit El, also said it is a mitzvah - a deed done from religious duty - to set fire to churches in Israel, but warned that shouldn't be done anyway, because they would then have to be rebuilt.

Asked if the fire at Notre Dame was cause for grief, Aviner said "that isn't our function at this time. There is no command to seek out Christian churches beyond Israel and burn them down. In our holy land, things are more complicated. Indeed the Rabbi of Satmar wrote that one of his reasons against immigration to Israel is that here the command to burn churches applies but it isn't exercised," and therefore being in Israel without burning churches is prohibited.

He added that the rabbi Menachem Mendel Kasher said that building churches, "which we'll have to do" should they be burnt, is a greater offense than leaving them as is.

Gadi Gvariyahu of the Tag Meir nongovernmental organization, which monitors hate crimes in Israel and the West Bank and promotes interfaith dialogue, called Aviner's remarks "sad, angering and shocking."

"If an influential rabbi says 'there is no command to seek out Christian churches abroad and burn them down but in our holy land, the issue is more complicated' – what will the extreme right be likely to do?" Gvariyahu added.

The American Jewish Committee said in a tweet that Aviner's comments "are repulsive and un-Jewish."

These comments are repulsive and un-Jewish. We are proud that Israel protects freedom of worship and the holy sites of all faiths. https://t.co/8C6fBsR1UZ
— AJC (@AJCGlobal) April 17, 2019

At first, Aviner pulled back from explicitly calling the fire a punishment from heaven. However, when answering the question "So it can't be said that it was punishment?" the rabbi wrote, "It is possible, after all. The first big Talmud burning was in Paris, there in the plaza of the Notre Dame Cathedral."

Aviner said it was a result of the Paris trial, "In which Jewish sages in France of that generation were forced into confrontation with the Christian sages. The result was the burning of the Talmud. The Talmud books were brought to the Note Dame square in 20 wagons … and were burned there, meaning, 1,200 Tamlud books."

Answering a question about displeasing non-Jews by failing to demonstrate grief at the cathedral fire, Aviner wrote, "That is no reason to grovel. … Rabbis must remain faithful to the truth. Every God-fearing Jew must adhere to the truth."

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday that the fire-devastated cathedral be rebuilt, hopefully within five years. Hundreds of millions of euros have already been pledged by business leaders and companies for the reconstruction of the iconic 12th-century church.

Also on Tuesday, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin extended sympathy to France, tweeting," Our hearts are with the people of #France and the legends of @notredameparis, real and fictional, and we pray it will stand in eternity."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a tweet he expresses his "deep sorrow over the fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, a cultural and religious heritage site of France and of all humanity."

Bentzi Gopstein #fundie #racist #psycho haaretz.com

Israeli Extremist Who Called Christians 'Blood-sucking Vampires' Faces Criminal Investigation
Reform Movement's Religious Action Center contacted prosecution after Lehava head Bentzi Gopstein demanded Christians be deported in article entitled 'Eradicate the vampires.'
[...]

In the article, entitled “Eradicate the vampires,” Gopstein wrote, “In recent days I’ve been walking around the country feeling a very uncomfortable feeling. I’m not talking this time about the lack of personal security that stems from the government’s helplessness against the Arab enemy, but a lack of spiritual security, the destruction of the fort, the collapse of the Jewish people’s defense line against our deadly enemy for centuries – the Christian church.”


Gopstein continued that the church over the centuries had tried its best to destroy the Jewish people, but has “suffered a crushing defeat, because the Jewish people now have one of the world’s strongest armies and there’s no chance for them to destroy our bodies. There’s only one last chance for those blood-sucking vampires - the mission... If they cannot kill the Jews, they can still try to convert them.”

He added, “Stores for missionary literature are selling their wares for all to see on Jaffa Road in Jerusalem; entire communities are infested with missionaries, many businesses are run by them and serve the mission, often using camouflage and without the knowledge of their employees.”

Gopstein continued: “The same revulsion that was the lot of every Jew, the loathing that we described above that saved us during those dark days in Europe, has been fading with the ‘good life’ of the age of democracy. The barriers have come down, and the mission is waiting to attack its prey.”

Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi #fundie haaretz.com

[Link in original]

An American ultra-Orthodox rabbi who claimed last week that less than one million Jews died in the Holocaust corrected himself on Sunday and apologized for his statement.

“I wish to apologize for my incorrect statement regarding the six million Kedoshim (holy ones) that were tragically murdered in the Holocaust,” Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi of New York said in an apology emailed to the Yeshiva World News, the website reported on Sunday.

Mizrachi, who has posted thousands of popular outreach lectures online, said in the apology that he had been "shown the accurate statistics and I realize that those that were not halachically Jewish were a very small, minimal number."

[...]

In his video, Mizrachi cited high assimilation rates in Europe before World War II to claim that 80 percent of those identified as Jews killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust were not Jewish according to halachah, or Jewish law.

Orthodox Israeli settlers #fundie haaretz.com

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly condemned the "shocking images" displayed in a video recently seized by police, which shows Orthodox youths at a Jerusalem wedding dancing with guns and knives, stabbing a photo of Ali Dawabsheh, the toddler who was killed in the Duma firebomb attack that killed three members of the Dawabsheh family this past summer.

...

The clip, which aired on Channel 10 news Wednesday night, shows that amid classical wedding dancing, guests with ear locks and kippas, skullcaps, danced with guns and knives. One masked youth held up a firebomb. Another is seen stabbing a photo of the Dawabsheh toddler, Ali.

The video was shown on Channel 10 news Wednesday night.

According to the Channel 10 report, the wedding was of a couple “very well known in the radical right.” The couple’s friends who were dancing were described as being friends of the suspects in the Dawabsheh murders.

In the video one can see dozens of teens and young men singing a song in praise of revenge, while holding up guns and knives. According to the report, the IDF-issue rifles and licensed pistols were passed around at the reception from hand to hand, including to children.

Vladimir Putin #conspiracy haaretz.com

Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested in an interview with U.S. TV network NBC News that Jews were behind Russia's alleged interference in the U.S. presidential election.

In the interview, which was aired by NBC late on Friday, the Russian president was asked if he condoned the interference by 13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies detailed in a US indictment.

“I do not care at all, because they do not represent the government,” he said, according to the interview transcript posted Saturday by the Kremlin.

“Maybe they are not even Russians but Ukrainians, Tatars or Jews but with Russian citizenship, which should also be checked; maybe they have dual citizenship of a green card; maybe the U.S. paid them for this. How can you know that? I do not know either,” he said.

Following the release of the transcript, Israeli lawmaker Ksenia Svetlova (Zionist Union) said she expects the government to condemn Putin's "harsh" words, saying that "if Israel does not defend the Jewish people, no one will."

"Maybe the Jews meddled in the U.S. elections. Maybe the Jews rule the world, maybe the Jews slaughtered Jews in Poland – all of these claims have one root cause – a hatred of Jews," Svetlova said.

In the interview, Putin said Russia has neither the tools nor the will to meddle in elections. He repeatedly complained during the interview that Washington has brushed off Russian initiatives to work together on cybersecurity issues.

"But the U.S. refuses to work like this and instead throws 13 Russians to the media," he said, going on to list the possible ethnicities that would make the suspects "not even Russian."

"Maybe they have dual citizenship or a green card; maybe the U.S. paid them for this. How can you know that? I do not know, either," the Russian leader said.

Putin claimed that the United States interferes in Russian elections "all the time" but that it was "impossible for us" to do the same.

"First, we have principles whereby we do not allow others to interfere in our domestic affairs and do not get into the affairs of others....Secondly, we don't have this quantity of tools," he said.

The NBC News interview was conducted in two parts, on March 1 and March 2. Kelly noted that Putin made the remark about not having the tools to disrupt the U.S. election shortly after he announced that Russia had developed major new nuclear weapons.

"This isn't missiles. This is an absolutely different sphere of activity," Putin responded.

Putin also mocked the "yelling and hollering in the United States Congress" over the alleged meddling and called for the U.S. to supply hard evidence.

“I have to see first what they’ve done. Give us materials, give us information,” Putin said.

When asked whether Moscow would take action against these individuals, Putin replied that “We cannot respond to that if they do not violate Russian laws.”

Yair Netanyahu #conspiracy haaretz.com

Yair Netanyahu, the son of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, posted an image on his Facebook page Saturday that seems to suggest a conspiracy is behind his family’s growing legal problems. The meme is laden with anti-Semitic imagery.

The meme, captioned "the food chain," features a photo of George Soros dangling the world in front of a reptilian creature, who dangles an alchemy symbol in front of a caricature of a figure reminiscent of the anti-Semitic “happy merchant” image.

image

The other figures in the chain are former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, anti-Netanyahu protest leader Eldad Yaniv and Meni Naftali, a former chief caretaker at the Netanyahus’ official residence who implicated Sara Netanyahu in the case she is being indicted in.

Alex Jones #conspiracy haaretz.com

Radio host, conspiracy theorist and U.S. President Donald Trump supporter Alex Jones — who earlier this year ranted about a “Jewish mafia” run by billionaire George Soros — was at it again Sunday with a theory that “leftist Jews” may have impersonated Nazis to discredit white supremacist protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Speaking on “The Alex Jones Show,” Jones recalled his own experience, he said, protesting the Ku Klux Klan:

"I mean, quite frankly, I’ve been to these events, a lot of the KKK guys with their hats off look like they’re from the cast of 'Seinfeld.' Literally they’re just Jewish actors. Nothing against Jews in general, but they are leftist Jews that want to create this clash and they go dress up as Nazis. I have footage in Austin — we’re going to find it somewhere here at the office — where it literally looks like cast of 'Seinfeld' or like Howard Stern in a Nazi outfit. They all look like Howard Stern. They almost got like little curly hair down, and they’re just up there heiling Hitler. You can tell they are totally uncomfortable, they are totally scared, and it’s all just meant to create the clash."

As Jones explained in a video of his remarks video posted Saturday titled “Virginia Riots Staged To Bring In Martial Law, Ban Conservative Gatherings.”

Thomas Lopez-Pierre #racist haaretz.com

Thomas Lopez-Pierre says he’s not an anti-Semite.

He just believes a cabal of “greedy Jewish landlords” is conspiring, funded by money from Israel, to conduct “ethnic cleansing” of black and Latino residents from Harlem. He believes the Jewish media are covering it up. And if his rhetoric makes Jews upset?

“Too bad,” he says. “I don’t care.
“Only now am I realizing that Jewish people can’t seem to separate themselves from each other,” he told JTA in an interview Friday. “An attack on greedy Jewish landlords is perceived to be an attack on all Jews. And you know what? Too bad. If that’s the way the Jewish community wants to take it, too bad.”

Lopez-Pierre is running a primary campaign against Democratic City Council member Mark Levine, who since 2014 represents a district covering much of West Harlem in Upper Manhattan. Lopez-Pierre previously ran for the seat in 2013, unsuccessfully.

His screed against Jewish landlords is at the center of his campaign. His Twitter bio reads “Jewish landlords OWN 80% of private rental buildings in Upper Manhattan; GUILTY of GREED for pushing Black/Hispanic tenants out.”

The Anti-Defamation League released a statement calling Lopez-Pierre’s statement a “deeply offensive anti-Semitic stereotype.” During a 20-minute conversation, I tried to extract why Lopez-Pierre thought the landlords’ religion was important.

He repeated the 80 percent figure — but wouldn’t provide any evidence for it — and launched into a lecture on what he called “group economics,” or how members of a certain ethnicity or religion work together for their mutual benefit.

“If they were Italian, I would say Italian,” he said. “We live in neighborhoods based on race, class and religion. It’s a fantasy to believe otherwise. There are Jewish neighborhoods, there are Puerto Rican neighborhoods, there are Jamaican neighborhoods, there are Indian neighborhoods.”

Lopez-Pierre alleged that there was a scheme among Jewish landlords in Harlem to take investment money from Israel, buy apartment buildings in the historically black neighborhood and push tenants out.

“These Jewish landlords are using their ownership to engage in ethnic cleansing of black and Latino tenants,” he said. And he added that Jewish journalists choose not to report on it.

“Your colleagues in the Jewish media, they don’t want to talk about this,” he said. “But maybe you have a pair of balls. I’d be impressed.”
Lopez-Pierre says he’s a licensed real-estate broker. He’s also behind a series of apparent business ventures in Harlem to promote African-American patronage of African-American-owned businesses, but it’s unclear how active any of them are.

One venture was the “Harlem Restaurant Book,” a guide to black-owned restaurants in the neighborhood. But now, the website harlemrestaurantbook.com is the homepage for the Harlem Family Eviction Prevention Fund, a tenants’ rights group also chaired by Lopez-Pierre. The fund has an empty events calendar, and its record of “bad landlord news” ends in 2015. Lopez also created a site for the Harlem Real Estate Fund, where he’s the only employee.

At least one venture of Lopez-Pierre’s appears to have netted him some cash. According to the New York Post, he raised more than $5,000 with a crowdfunding campaign by pretending it was an effort to oppose him. Lopez-Pierre dismissed the idea that he was engaging in anti-Semitic bigotry.

“If Jewish doctors are angry with me because I’m attacking greedy Jewish landlords, if Jewish social workers are upset with me because I’m attacking greedy Jewish landlords, too bad, I don’t care,” he said. ‘It’s not my job to care about their feelings.”

Chicago Dyke March organisers #racist haaretz.com

Three people carrying Jewish Pride flags were asked to leave the annual Chicago Dyke March on Saturday.

The Chicago-based LGBTQ newspaper Windy City Times quoted a Dyke March collective member as saying the rainbow flag with the Star of David in the middle "made people feel unsafe," and that the march was "pro-Palestinian" and "anti-Zionist."

The Chicago Dyke March is billed as an "anti-racist, anti-violent, volunteer-led, grassroots mobilization and celebration of dyke, queer, bisexual, and transgender resilience," according to its Twitter account.

Laurel Grauer, a member of the Jewish LGBTQ organization A Wider Bridge, told the Windy City Times "it was a flag from my congregation which celebrates my queer, Jewish identity which I have done for over a decade marching in the Dyke March with the same flag."

"They were telling me to leave because my flag was a trigger to people that they found offensive," she added.

Another participant asked to leave because of a Jewish flag was Eleanor Shoshany-Anderson. "The Dyke March is supposed to be intersectional. I don't know why my identity is excluded from that. I felt that, as a Jew, I am not welcome here," she told the Windy City Times.

In January 2016, a Shabbat service and reception for Jewish participants at a gay activism conference in Chicago, hosted by A Wider Bridge, was disrupted by hundreds of protesters who chanted "Hey hey, ho ho, pinkwashing has got to go.”

Pinkwashing is the term used to describe alleged efforts by Israel to cover up its treatment of Palestinians by touting its strong record on gay rights.

Social media support for the decision to remove the three participants from Saturday's march also claimed that their flag was a form of pinkwashing.

Richard Spencer #racist haaretz.com

For Richard Spencer, the leading ideologue of the so-called “alt-right,” Donald Trump’s Holocaust Remembrance Day statement that failed to mention Jews or anti-Semitism was an important, perhaps revolutionary, step.

Spencer dubbed it the “de-Judaification” of the Holocaust.

Jewish activists, Spencer wrote in a short post for his new website Altright.com, have long insisted on making the Holocaust “all about their meta-narrative of suffering” and a way to “undergird their peculiar position in American society.”

The Holocaust, in Spencer’s eyes, has become a sort of moral bludgeon — used against white nationalists like himself.

“We can’t limit immigration, because Hitler. We can’t can’t be proud of ourselves as a Europeans, because Holocaust. White people can be Christian, but not too Christian, because Auschwitz,” he wrote.

Spencer went on: “Effectively, any policy, idea, or belief that is markedly right-wing and traditional — that evokes identity, power, hierarchy, and dominance — must be regulated by the possibility that it could potentially lead back to the German Führer.”

Spencer, a onetime Duke University PhD student, popularized the term “alt-right,” a broad label that defines a new generation of white nationalists.

While other influential members of the movement, like Andrew Anglin, clearly identify with Nazis (Anglin’s Daily Stormer website is named after the Nazi propaganda sheet Der Stürmer), Spencer says he is not a Nazi and denies the label that is often attributed to him, preferring the term “identitarian,” a reference to a far right political movement that has roots in France.

Spencer dismissed Jewish responses to Trump’s statement as “kvetching,” using a Yiddish term for complaining.

In speaking about Hitler and the Holocaust, Spencer has also elided Jewish suffering, telling the Daily Caller that “terrible things were done to many different people during that terrible war.”

He also does not outright condemn Hitler, calling him a “historical figure.” “He’s done things that I think are despicable,” Spencer told the Daily Caller, but did not go into details. “I’m not going to play this game.”

In Spencer’s eyes, the “de-Judification” of the Holocaust is a quintessentially “Trumpian” statement. Spencer championed Trump through the presidential campaign — and though he has been critical of the president at times, seems to have come around to Trump.

“Trump is a white nationalist, so to speak, he is alt-right whether he likes it or not,” Spencer in a recent interview on “The David Pakman Show.”

Anonymous anti-Semites #racist haaretz.com

Anti-Semitism in the U.S. conquered the headlines on Monday, after 15 Jewish Community Centers across the country received bomb threats and were evacuated. The threats turned out to be false alarms, but they still managed to create at least a temporary sense of fear for some people. A Washington, DC resident whose children were evacuated from the local JCC told Haaretz: "I am sure there was never an actual security threat, but extremely unpleasant nonetheless. I didn’t relish having to explain to my 4 year old about his first encounter with anti-Semitism."

In the D.C. Metro area, another case of anti-Semitic threats became national news during the weekend, when a Jewish family in the Maryland suburb of Rockville received a threatening letter adorned by a yellow star. The local police is investigating the case as a hate crime.

The incident occurred after Sonya and Mikey Franklin hung a banner outside of their apartment last week in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. They took down the banner within days, after the association at their apartment building asked them not to display political messages. Still, two days after their sign was taken down, a hand-written note containing anti-Semitic symbols and threats was left in their car, which was vandalized during the night.

The note, written all in capital letters, read: "Hello, it has come to our attention that you support the racist terror group that is blataly [sic] anti white and anti police, of course we are talking about BLM. You have kept your racist anti white cop hating banner even after Dallas (meaning the sniper attack in the Texan city that resulted in the death of five police officers in July 2016) and the torture of the disabled Goy, Austin Hillbourn by 4 black BLM members. This is in the name of Austin and the dead police officers. Your lack of care and racism is very annoying and disgraceful. And for this we would like to award you a gold star. Enjoy the mayhem."

Beneath the text were two drawn symbols – a Star of David painted in yellow with the word "Jude" written next to it in bold letters, and a crosshairs sign. Mikey Franklin, who told Haaretz on Monday that he and his wife hung the Black Lives Matter banner outside their window " to encourage discussion" with their neighbors, added in a phone interview that the local police were in touch with them and has yet to discover who was behind the anti-Semitic note.

Franklin told Haaretz that "this is far from the first time I've experienced anti-Semitism. It happens from time to time. I've had my Kippah taken off my head once. Another time someone called me a Kike on the Metro. And last year, my synagogue was vandalized by people who drew swastikas on it." This event, however, was different, says Franklin: "This wasn't a stranger on the street who saw my Kippah and decided to harass me. It's someone who knew who we are and what our car looks like. It's probably someone who lives near us."

The Franklins informed the police about the incident on Sunday, and while the police arrived and examined the letter, the couple was disappointed when the initial police reaction was to say that "there's nothing in there that is anti-Semitic" and that it's unknown what the word "Jude" means. A local police spokesman added that the letter was most likely written by kids. On Monday, however, the police announced it was treating the event as a hate crime, and that it was committed to providing "the highest levels of police services" to all residents.

Mikey Franklin posted a photograph of the letter on Twitter, and it was retweeted and shared by thousands of users. He says that following the initial tweet, he has received hundreds of supportive messages from friends, neighbors and even complete strangers on the internet – but at the same time, has also become exposed to vast anti-Semitic harassment on social networks. "My Twitter mentions are full of Nazis now," he explains. One popular Neo-Nazi publication published a picture of the Franklins' months-old baby.

"We're not going to change anything because of this," Franklin told Haaretz. "I'm going to keep wearing my Kippah and we're not going to stop being supportive of racial injustice. The aim of this was to scare us. These people feel there are now no consequences for what they do. They feel they can behave however they want."

Over the weekend, anti-Semitism made headlines also in the state of Montana, where far-right activists plan to hold a protest march next Monday in the town of Whitefish. The march will take place on Martin Luther King Day, and is a reaction to attempts by the local Jewish community to limit the operation of a Neo-Nazi website from the town's area. Over the weekend, a counter-event was held in Whitefish, under the title "Love Not Hate," bringing together residents who oppose the upcoming far-right demonstration. A local police chief told Montana Public Radio last week that if the Neo-Nazis and their sympathizers "are going to protest in our city, I want them to understand they're going to do it our way, or we're going to kick their ass."

Alain Verlaak #racist haaretz.com

A Belgian tennis club suspended a player who told a Jewish competitor on the court, “All of you should have been gassed.”

Alain Verlaak made the remark to a Maccabi player at the Tennis 7th Olympics club in Antwerp on July 22, the Belgian monthly Joods Actueel reported Tuesday.

The incident occurred during a tournament of the VTV national tennis association of the Flemish Region – one of the three states that make up the Belgian federal kingdom.

Anonymous Trump supporters #racist haaretz.com

Erin Schrode, a 25-year-old Jewish activist who hopes to become the youngest representative in U.S. Congress, says she has been targeted with a torrent of anti-Semitic online abuse.

In a Facebook post published overnight Sunday she quoted some of the messages she received:

"Everyone knows it's TIME for America's first evil retarded teen cunt Congress kike!"

"Fire up the oven!"

"All would laugh with glee as they gang raped her and then bashed her bagel eating brains in."

Another message she received, quoted by Buzzfeed News, reads: “Get out of my country, kike. Get to Israel where you belong. That or the oven. Take your pick.”

Schrode, a Democrat running in California's second congressional district, said the online campaign was coordinated with the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi blog that has endorsed Donald Trump. She said her cell phone number, email address and social media handle were posted there by commentators.

"I woke up yesterday and today to hundreds of such vile messages," she said, noting she notified law enforcement agencies.

"This unspeakable vitriol goes far beyond anti-Semitism," she added. "It is not merely an attack on me or on one people, but rather an attack on any individual or group who is targeted because of faith, race, nationality, gender, ability, orientation or other arbitrary classification."

There is “more and more anti-Semitism this election cycle," Schrode told BuzzFeed News.

This is not the first time that Trump supporters are being accused of anti-Semitic online abuse. Trump supporters directed anti-Semitic vitriol recently against journalists who have been critical of the Republican candidate. Two of them were New York Times editor Jonathan Weisman and GQ writer Julia Ioffe.

Weisman, who called out anti-Semitism in the ranks of Trump supporters on Twitter, was sadly immediately vindicated, when he was inundated with a flood of bigoted tweets from purported fans of the presumptive Republican nominee. 

Julia Ioffe, a regular contributor for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist at Foreign Policy, was bombarded by hateful tweets, phone calls and emails, seemingly from Trump supporters, over a profile of Trump's wife Melania that was published.

The online assault came after the Daily Stormer urged followers to “go ahead and send her [Ioffe] a tweet and let her know what you think of her dirty kike trickery.”

Javad Zarif #racist haaretz.com

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum challenged a claim by the Iranian foreign minister that Iranian government authorities had nothing to do with a Holocaust cartoon contest.

“The organizations associated with the contest are sponsored or supported by government entities, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Tehran Municipality, and the Ministry of Islamic Guidance,” the museum said Friday in a statement.

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“Previous contests in 2006 and 2015 have had the endorsement and support of government officials and agencies,” the museum said. “There are reports in the Iranian press that the Ministry of Culture is asserting its support for the upcoming contest.”



Javad Zarif last week told the New Yorker that his government “does not support, nor does it organize, any cartoon festival of the nature that you’re talking about.”

He said the festival is organized by a non-governmental organization “that is not controlled by the Iranian government.”

Zarif likened those organizing the cartoon festival, which solicits cartoons denying the Holocaust or questioning its importance in recent Western history, to the Ku Klux Klan.

“Why does the United States have the Ku Klux Klan?” he said when asked why the government allows the festival to go ahead. “Is the government of the United States responsible for the fact that there are racially hateful organizations in the United States?”

Zarif said the government’s role in this case is limited to issuing visas for those who attend.

“We take into consideration that people who have preached racial hatred and violence will not be invited,” he said. He also said that he and President Hassan Rohani, who have both issued Jewish holiday greetings in the past, would not attend.

In its statement, the Holocaust museum said it “urges global leaders to hold the Iranian government to Foreign Minister Zarif’s promise to deny visas to some contest participants and that neither he nor President Rohani would attend the contest.”

Oliver Stone #conspiracy haaretz.com

Jewish control of the media is preventing an open discussion of the Holocaust, prominent Hollywood director Oliver Stone told the Sunday Times, adding that the U.S. Jewish lobby was controlling Washington's foreign policy for years.

In the Sunday interview, Stone reportedly said U.S. public opinion was focused on the Holocaust as a result of the "Jewish domination of the media," adding that an upcoming film of him aims to put Adolf Hitler and Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin "in context."

"There's a major lobby in the United States," Stone said, adding that "they are hard workers. They stay on top of every comment, the most powerful lobby in Washington."

The famed Hollywood director of such films as "Platoon" and "JFK," also said that while "Hitler was a Frankenstein," there was also a "Dr Frankenstein."

"German industrialists, the Americans and the British. He had a lot of support," Stone told the Sunday Times, adding that "Hitler did far more damage to the Russians than the Jewish people, 25 or 30 [million killed]."

Referring to the alleged influence of the powerful Jewish lobby on U.S. foreign policy, Stone said that Israel had distorted "United States foreign policy for years," adding he felt U.S. policy toward Iran was "horrible."

"Iran isn't necessarily the good guy," Stone said, insisting that Americans did not "know the full story."

Stone's comments to the Sunday times echo previous remarks by the Hollywood director, regarding what he perceives as the distorted view of figures such as Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin in U.S. media.

Earlier this year, Stone, speaking at the at the Television Critics Association's semi-annual press tour in Pasadena said that "Hitler is an easy scapegoat throughout history and it's been used cheaply."

Rabbi Shalom Cohen #fundie haaretz.com

Rabbi Shalom Cohen, Shas’ new spiritual leader, recently came out against higher education for ultra-Orthodox women, a belated reaction to a 15-year-old education revolution in the community he represents.

Rabbi Cohen wrote in an official letter Shas party letter: “women students should not even think of enrolling in academic studies in any setting whatsoever, since that is not the way of the Torah.” According to the Hebrew-language Haredi website Kikar Hashabbat, which published the letter on Monday, it is the first official letter Rabbi Cohen has written since he took office about two months ago.

Though the letter specifically addresses the issue of female students, his objections apparently apply equally to men.

In the letter, Rabbi Cohen wrote, “We are witness to the fact that women students, graduates of religious seminaries, wish to enroll in academic studies. Our rabbis, the sages of Israel (may their merit protect us), were absolutely opposed to academic studies, even in Haredi colleges, since many of the lecturers are university graduates and do not have the purely Torah-based outlook in which we were brought up,” He added, “The material studied in the colleges is based on scientific research and methods that fly in the face of Torah-based views! Therefore, women students should not even think of enrolling in academic studies in any setting whatsoever, since that is not the way of Torah.”

Rabbi Elyakim Levanon #fundie haaretz.com

Rabbi Elyakim Levanon says that Israeli soldiers should not have to hear women sing at military events:

"The [[Israeli]] army’s insistence on men hearing women sing is such a serious attack on religious freedom, according to one prominent far-right rabbi, that “we’re close to a situation in which we will have to tell soldiers, ‘You have to leave such events even if a firing squad is set up outside, which will fire on and kill you.’”

Ultra-Orthodox Jews #fundie haaretz.com

More than 4,000 people say they will attend a march in Beit Shemesh [Israel] this week to protest the exclusion of women and girls from the public sphere and the increasing Haredization of the city. The day, time and venue of the event have yet to be announced.

A number of times in recent weeks girls and women in Beit Shemesh have been been cursed and spit at, and even had rocks thrown at them, by members of the city's ultra-Orthodox community who claimed their dress was immodest.

A sign put up in the city center under the aegis of the municipality instructs women to use separate sidewalks and "walk quickly, without drawing a crowd and without talking to each other."

But it is the tears of a 7-year-old girl, broadcast on Channel 2's Friday-night news magazine this weekend, that is galvanizing thousands; only two days were needed for those 4,000 people to confirm their attendance at the march. Na'ama, who lives with her religiously observant family in Beit Shemesh, is afraid to walk the 300 meters between home and school because of the violence she has faced from Haredi men who say her clothes are too revealing.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef #fundie haaretz.com

ADL slams Shas spiritual leader for saying non-Jews 'were born to serve Jews'

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef says in Saturday sermon that 'Goyim have no place in the world - only to serve the People of Israel'; ADL chief calls Yosef's words 'hateful' and 'divisive'.

The Anti-Defamation League on Tuesday condemned comments about non-Jews made this past weekend by Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.

In a sermon given on Saturday on laws concerning what non-Jews are permitted to do on Shabbat, Yosef said: "Goyim [non-Jews] were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of Israel."

"Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat."

According to Yosef, death has "no dominion" over non-Jews in Israel.

"With gentiles, it will be like any person - they need to die, but [God] will give them longevity. Why? Imagine that one’s donkey would die, they’d lose their money. This is his servant... That’s why he gets a long life, to work well for this Jew.”

Yossi Heiman #fundie haaretz.com

[Lieberman's settlement bars Russian-Israeli families from buying homes]

"The biggest problem is that if you accept 10 families in which the mother isn't Jewish, then soon there will be 30 children, and tomorrow your son could fall in love with the good-looking girl next door. It's a real problem," Heiman said.

"It's difficult enough with the dozens of terrorists who enter each morning," added Nokdim resident Amit Gruen, in apparent reference to Palestinians employed in home construction in the settlement.

"We have to separate ourselves from the gentiles in commerce and everything else - particularly when it comes to living with them. It could lead to assimilation or idol worship; it opens the door to all kinds of trouble. They might lead us into committing offenses that Jews normally don't do, like idolatry and incest and all kinds of other perversions. That's why we have no place for them here," he said.

Chritian Crusader #racist haaretz.com

America is MY county. It was founded on CHRISTIAN values; not jewish values.

You jewish people are guests in MY country. Christians have given you jewish people freedom, liberty, and economic opportunity. Do not disrespect us by changing our Christian ways.

If you jewish people do not like America then return to your own land, where you belong.

Ambassador Naftali Tamir #racist haaretz.com

[Israel's ambassador to Canberra, Australia's "masterful strategy" to gain financial leverage in Asia.]

Israel and Australia are like sisters in Asia, we are in Asia without the characteristics of Asians. We don't have yellow skin and slanted eyes. Asia is basically the yellow race. Australia and Israel are not - we are basically the white race. We are on the western side of Asia and they are on the southeastern side.