www.jta.org

Lord Miles, Austin Franco and unnamed supporters #racist jta.org

A far-right extremist YouTuber who has said he wants to see “another Hitler” has raised more than $19,000 for a Cornell University student in the US who told a potential employer that he was “not interested in working for a jew”

The message was written by 19-year-old Austin Franco, a member of Cornell’s class of 2028, during his application process for an internship at a software company owned by two Jewish brothers, Gabe and Aiden Einhorn[…]
“This kid applied to our job on handshake, we accepted him, and then he responded this,” Einhorn tweeted. “He probably knows nothing about Jews accept [sic] for what they tell him in college and on social media. Sad world”

Einhorn’s tweet initially included a screenshot showing Franco’s name[…]
Franco drew more attention to himself the next day when he responded to Einhorn[…]
“I was stating why I was not interested after you had asked to interview 3 times,” Franco replied. “I found out you were Jewish after the fact. My experiences with Jews have not been pleasant, both in person and online. This is not to say I havent had positive experiences, but on the aggregate that is not the case”

Alluding to the criticism that he had received, he continued, “The reactions by your community only serves to further prove my point”[…]
The support Franco has elicited includes the crowdfunding page created by Miles Routledge, the far-right English YouTuber known as “Lord Miles” who last year said he hoped to see “another Hitler” by 2039. Routledge has also encouraged his followers to leave negative reviews on the Einhorns’ parents’ business page

“Jews are doxxing this man and trying to ruin his career”[…]
Comments on the donation page, which had raised more than $19,000 against a goal of $100,000 as of Wednesday morning range from “keep up the good work” to “We must separate ourselves from the Jew and his deceitfulness and every other disgusting trait they are born with, and forge a destiny decided by US without THEM”

David F.X. Army and Richard Y. Rodgers #racist #wingnut jta.org

A conservative magazine at Harvard University was suspended by its board of directors Sunday amid scrutiny over an article published in September that closely resembled the rhetoric of Adolf Hitler

In its September print issue, the Harvard Salient published an article by student David F.X. Army that read “Germany belongs to the Germans, France to the French, Britain to the British, America to the Americans,” echoing the words Hitler used in a January 1939 speech to the Reichstag in which he forecasted that another world war would lead to the annihilation of Jews

The Harvard Salient piece also argued that “Islam et al. has absolutely no place in Western Europe,” and called for a return to values “rooted in blood, soil, language, and love of one’s own” (The phrase “blood and soil” also echoes a Nazi idea that the inherent features of a people are its land and race)

In a statement to the school’s newspaper, the Salient’s editor-in-chief, Richard Y. Rodgers, claimed that Army “did not intentionally quote Adolf Hitler, nor did any member of our editorial staff recognize the resemblance prior to publication”

Rodgers continued, “The article was a meditation on how nations and cultures preserve coherence in an age of rootless cosmopolitanism and global homogenization. To confuse a defense of belonging for a manifesto on exclusion is a fault of the reader, not the writer”[…]
The school’s mainstream student newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, published three opinion pieces criticizing the rhetoric used in the Salient[…], to which Rodgers published his own article last week lamenting that “ordinary conservative thought is one headline away from criminality”

“Together, the coverage forms a coherent script. The conservative scholar becomes the reactionary theorist. The traditionalist student becomes the bigot,” wrote Rogers. “‘Fascism’ is no longer a historical reference but a weaponized cliché, a way to place opponents outside the moral guardrails of the University”

Donald Trump #wingnut #conspiracy #racist #ableist #god-complex jta.org

Trump has for years made the claim that American Jews who mostly vote for Democrats are mentally ill, and this year, he has taken to saying that Jews who vote for Democrats need to “have their head examined.” He has also repeatedly said Israel will be destroyed if he loses the election, a prediction he repeated Thursday.


But in this speech, he also said Jews would be at fault if he loses, citing the low percentage of Jewish voters who have historically supported him. He referenced a poll he said he saw showing that he could receive 40% of the Jewish vote — which itself would be a marked increase for him from 2016 and 2020.

“I will put it to you very simply and gently. I really haven’t been treated right, but you haven’t been treated right, because you’re putting yourself in great danger, and the United States hasn’t been treated right,” he said. “The Jewish people would have a lot to do with the loss if I’m at 40%. Think of it, that means 60% are voting for Kamala.”

The speech was one of two Trump gave to Jewish audiences in Washington on Thursday. He also spoke at the Israeli American Council’s conference following the “Fighting Antisemitism” event.

Rabbi Cary Kozberg #racist #pratt jta.org

“This is about a culture clash,” Rabbi Cary Kozberg, who leads Temple Sholom, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “We, as the citizens of Springfield, are being disenfranchised.”

Like Trump, J.D. Vance and others who have taken aim at Springfield’s immigrant population, Kozberg says he believes the new arrivals — most of whom are in the country legally — are changing the city’s character for the worse.

“Haiti is not known for its, shall we say, adherence to Western civilized values,” Kozberg said.

The comments might sound jarring coming from a rabbi ordained by the Reform movement. Reform Jewish congregations and rabbis have been among the most outspoken opponents of Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies stretching back across the more than nine years since he entered politics. During Trump’s presidency, Reform Jews protested against his travel ban on Muslim-majority countries, rallied across the United States in support of refugees and lobbied to support “Dreamers,” young adults who as children were brought to the country illegally by their parents. Many cited their own families’ immigrant histories as a reason to oppose Trump.

Nicolás Maduro #conspiracy #racist jta.org

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has blamed “international Zionism” for the protests sweeping his country since he was accused of stealing its presidential election[…]
This week, he pinned the turmoil on his opposition, which he said was “supported” and “financed” by “international Zionism”

“All the communication power of Zionism, which controls all the social networks, the satellites and all the power is behind this coup d’état,” Maduro said in a televised address

Daily Salinas #racist #conspiracy #wingnut #dunning-kruger jta.org

“I want to apologize to the Jewish community,” Salinas told the [JTA] on Wednesday. She was saying sorry for a Facebook post she shared in March offering a summary of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”[…]
“I’m not what the post says,” Salinas said. “I love the Jewish community”

The post came to light this week after the Miami Herald identified Salinas as the Miami Lakes, Florida, mother who petitioned her children’s school to ban students’ access to the Gorman poem. Gorman read the poem, called “The Hill We Climb,” at President Joe Biden’s inauguration

Salinas also petitioned the school to restrict children’s books about the Black poet Langston Hughes and about Black and Cuban history[…]Miami-Dade County school district opted to restrict all but one book about Cuba from grades K-5, while leaving them available to middle school students

Salinas challenged the Gorman poem — which she says she hasn’t read in its entirety — on the grounds that it contains “indirect hate messages.” The review committee said it “erred on the side of caution” in deciding to limit students’ access[…]
Post about the Protocols included a list of steps depicting how “Jewish Zionists” would achieve world domination. The graphic included stages such as “Place our agents and helpers everywhere,” “Replace royal rule with socialist rule, then communism, then despotism,” and “Sacrifice people (including Jews sometimes) when necessary”[…]
Salinas confirmed that the post about the “Protocols” was hers and apologized for it, saying she hadn’t read it beyond the word “communism.” Salinas said her aversion to communism stems from her Cuban identity. She added that English is not her first language[…]
She said she had only read parts of the books. “They have to read for me because I’m not an expert,” she said. “I’m not a reader. I’m not a book person. I’m a mom involved in my children’s education”

Jon Minadeo Jr. #racist #dunning-kruger #psycho #wingnut #conspiracy jta.org

Jon Minadeo Jr. posted about his arrest on Gab[…]on Sunday. He said he had been charged with “(((Hate Speech))) regarding Aushwitz”[…]
The Polish national police did not immediately respond to a request for comment[…]
Minadeo had posted pictures of himself and a fellow Goyim Defense League member, Robert Wilson, holding posters outside Auschwitz’s notorious front gate[…]
“We must continue exposing the Jewish anti white propaganda! That for decades has conditioned our people to be slaves for the Jews,” Minadeo wrote on Gab when posting the photographs. His post attacked the ADL as “an anti white terrorist organization” and says the Holocaust is “a f—ing hoax”[…]
The incident at Auschwitz was not the only one where Minadeo boasted about his provocations during his travels. He documented his vacation to Poland in a number of other photos and videos — including one in which he verbally attacks a South Asian man for more than 4 minutes

The video, which went viral on Reddit, bore the headline “American tourist in Poland goes on racial tirade against Indian guy.” It shows Minadeo[…]harassing the man on a sidewalk. He calls the man an “invader” and tells him to go back to India. “Why are you in Poland? Why are you here?” Minadeo says while following him. “You have your own country”

A different video posted on Gab shows Minadeo sitting on a restaurant patio. He is wearing a “white pride” T-shirt and a long, gold-colored swastika necklace, when a tall man in a tartan blazer approaches him and tells him it is illegal to display a swastika in Poland[…]
“Who makes it illegal?” Minadeo asks. “The Polish government,” the man replies. “No, the Jewish government,” Mindeo responds. He calls the man a “cuck”[…]and a “f—ing pussy” before asking if he would like to “go outside” to fight

Unnamed OUN-UPA March participants and Kyiv’s department of culture #racist #conspiracy jta.org

Participants in a nationalist march in Ukraine raised a banner decrying the country’s “occupation and robbery” by a “Jewish clan.”

The banner, aimed at Ukraine’s Jewish president, Vlodymyr Zelensky, appeared Wednesday at the annual OUN-UPA March, which is named for Ukrainian nationalist movements that for a time sided with Adolf Hitler against the Soviet Union.

“Celebrating the anniversary of the occupation and robbery of Ukraine by the Dnipro Jewish clan of Vova Zelensky,” the read the billboard-sized banner that was displayed in front of Zelensky’s office.

[…]

Other symbols on display at the march included the logo of the ultranationalist Azov Battalion and a banner that read “White Lives Matter.”

Separately, Kyiv’s department of culture sent a letter to a prominent rabbi in Kyiv asking him to hold prayers for “defenders of Ukraine of all generations” on Oct. 14. That date is a national holiday known as both Defender of Ukraine Day and the Day of the Cossacks, a Slavic group that perpetrated pogroms against Jews in the early 20th century. Many Ukrainian Jews objected to the establishment of Oct. 14 as a national holiday in 2015.

Eduard Dolinsky, director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, criticized the letter, which was apparently sent to multiple clergymen, calling in “bizarre.”

Dolinsky said the reference to “all generations” meant the city was asking Jews to pray for Bogdan Khmelnitsky, the 17th-century Cossak leader whose army killed countless Jews, as well as 20th century Nazi collaborators.

Pablo Giorgetti #wingnut jta.org

Police in Argentina have raided and closed down a publishing house that they say was distributing Nazi literature online

They also arrested a man who was first raided for distributing Nazi propaganda in violation of Argentine law more than a decade ago. At the time, Pablo Giorgetti was a university student; now, he is accused of running Libreria Argentina, deemed by the country’s leading Jewish organization of being “the largest Nazi and antisemitic book distributor in Argentina”

The Jewish group, DAIA, spurred the two-year investigation into Libreria Argentina after finding a book it published for sale online and denouncing it publicly in December 2021[…]
The raid was announced by Federal Police officials Juan Carlos Hernandez and Alejandro Ñamandu along with the DAIA’s president, Jorge Knoblovits. They said more than 200 books had been seized at a house in San Isidro, an affluent neighborhood in the northern area of Buenos Aires. The police also seized electronic and printing devices and a large amount of Nazi propaganda

Books had been printed and were ready to be distributed featuring images of swastikas, Iron Crosses and other emblems of the Nazi Party, according to images of the seized trove that DAIA posted online

The Jewish organization first found the books on Mercado Libre, Latin America’s biggest online retailer, which is in the process of curbing the availability of Nazi material through its sales platform

Mahmoud Abbas #racist #dunning-kruger #crackpot #conspiracy jta.org

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas peddled falsehoods about the Holocaust and other discredited distortions about Jews, drawing diplomatic fire just as the Biden administration is launching a major diplomatic initiative that could include reviving Israeli-Palestinian talks

In a speech broadcast last month to a body of his Fatah Party, which controls the Palestinian Authority, Abbas, 87, said that Adolf Hitler and antisemites before him hated and persecuted the Jews not because of who they were but because of “their role in society” having to do with “usury, money, and so on and so on”[…]
In his speech, Abbas also peddled a discredited myth and distorted or erroneous claims, including: that Ashkenazi Jews are descended solely from the remnants of a bygone kingdom on the Caspian Sea; that the term “antisemitism” describes animus toward speakers of Semitic languages; and that Jews from Arab lands emigrated to Israel primarily because they were coerced by Zionists

Itzik Zarka #racist #wingnut #psycho jta.org

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expelled a prominent activist from his Likud Party after the activist was filmed calling protesters “whores” and saying that he wishes “another six million would burn,” a reference to the Holocaust

The activist, Itzik Zarka, directed the epithets at protesters who were demonstrating on Saturday night against Netanyahu’s effort to weaken the judiciary. Weekly protests have occurred nationwide against the planned judicial overhaul, a key portion of which is set to advance to a final vote in the coming weeks

“You whores, burn in hell, burn in hell,” Zarka screamed at a demonstration near the northern Israeli city of Beit Shean. “It’s not for nothing that six million went. I’m proud, I’m proud. I wish another six million would burn”

His comments, which were condemned by a wide range of senior Likud politicians, were a crude allusion to a perceived ethnic split in Israel between supporters and opponents of the judicial overhaul[…]
The vast majority of the country’s founding left-wing elite was Ashkenazi, or Jews of European descent, and enacted discriminatory policies that disadvantaged Mizrahim, or Jews of Middle Eastern descent, particularly in the country’s early decades. Correspondingly, Mizrahi voters have long formed a key part of the right-wing Likud’s base, while the core of the country’s shrinking left has historically been Ashkenazi

Some supporters of the overhaul say that the Supreme Court is a holdout of an upper-class Ashkenazi elite[…]
On his Facebook account, which features a photo of him kissing Netanyahu on the cheek, Zarka has repeatedly apologized for what he called his “terrible words.” He wrote that he was accosted by protesters, that his words were taken out of context and that he is a descendant of a Holocaust survivor

Sergeant K.E. Bluemke #racist jta.org

A German-born sergeant in the Canadian Army was fined roughly $2,200 and given a “severe reprimand” after joking about the Holocaust while conducting an infantry training course

But the 38-year-old officer was not demoted, even though a military tribunal considered handing down that punishment

The sergeant, identified as K.E. Bluemke, pleaded guilty last October in an Ontario court martial to one count of “conduct to the prejudice of good order and discipline.” He was charged after 12 participants in the training course said he had made multiple antisemitic jokes and comments about Jews and the Holocaust

According to court documents, which were first reported on Friday by CTV News Vancouver Island, Bluemke began the training course by asking, “Is anyone here Jewish?” Throughout the course, he proceeded to make comments such as, “Move with the sense of urgency as a certain group did leaving Germany in 1939,” and “Why do Jews have big noses? Because the air is free”[…]
“I am having difficulties finding the right word to qualify the use of stereotypes and the reference to the unspeakable horrors suffered by the Jewish community before and during the Second World War to make adverse comments intended as jokes,” Cmdr. Martin Pelletier[…]wrote in his decision. “The word ‘distasteful’ does not suffice. It is in my opinion utterly disgusting. Regardless of who in the [Canadian Armed Forces] engages in such conduct, it should make a reasonable member cringe and worry about belonging to the same organization as the perpetrator”[…]
Soldiers in the training course described Bluemke’s conduct as “offensive, demeaning, and unprofessional”[…]Pelletier specifically cited a Jewish soldier’s victim impact statement as an “aggravating factor” in Bluemke’s sentencing

Kathleen Collins #racist jta.org

A Boston-area woman has been arrested and charged with leaving a series of paper swastikas outside the house of a Jewish lawyer who is representing her child’s father in an ongoing custody battle

The case had been a source of fear and confusion in the local community for months, since the Jewish woman being targeted, Stephanie Lyons, first found the swastikas on her front lawn in Stoneham in November

Lyons told The Washington Post that the swastikas had particularly unnerved her amid a larger climate of antisemitism; the incident came only a few days after rapper Kanye West launched what would become an extended antisemitic tirade

“I just burst into tears,” she told the Post. “Someone had taken the time to cut these swastikas out of paper and write those words. They knew where we lived. They knew we were Jewish”

Now local police have concluded that the culprit did in fact know Lyons. They have charged Kathleen Collins with a civil rights violation and two counts of witness intimidation, the Boston Globe reported

Collins had previously made derogatory statements about Lyons during a video call with her son and his father, according to the police report, which also said she later reportedly admitted to the father that she had put out the swastikas. They also contained antisemitic messages including “JESUS HATER” and “GO TO HELL, JEW BITCH”

Noor Ahmad Noor #racist #psycho jta.org

A Muslim imam in Norway who has led interfaith dialogue projects has made antisemitic statements on Facebook, including on how Jews are dangerous and “should be killed,” for years

The Norway branch of Minhaj-ul-Quran, an international Muslim organization that is considered moderate and geared toward outreach, suspended Noor Ahmad Noor indefinitely on Monday following an expose published last week by the Vartland newspaper on his antisemitic statements. Noor had served for years as the branch’s director
[…]
In one post from 2019, Noor wrote that Jews “put the world in danger” and it is “necessary to kill them”

In a short statement to the Norwegian media, Noor said: “My posts were published in frustration over attacks in Gaza. Innocent children and women were killed. My criticism and frustration should have been directed at the regime. And not against a group of people. I apologize”

Cassandre Fristot #conspiracy #racist jta.org

Police in France detained a woman for carrying a sign widely deemed antisemitic at a demonstration against COVID-19 emergency measures

Cassandre Fristot, an activist for the far-right National Rally party, held up a brown cardboard poster at the rally Saturday in Metz condemning President Emmanuel Macron and several well-known Jewish people as “traitors.” Fristot, who lost her 2012 bid for a local council on the National Rally ticket, is suspected of inciting hatred of Jews, Le Monde reported Monday

The poster also featured the question “but who?” with one of the letters decorated with devil’s horns. It listed as traitors several politicians and businesspeople who are Jewish or have Jewish roots, including former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius, former Health Minister Agnès Buzyn, government spokesperson Gabriel Attal, George Soros and philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy

The rally was protesting the introduction of a COVID vaccine pass to be used at many public spaces as a requisite for admission

Unnamed Austrian soldier #wingnut jta.org

An Austrian soldier who posted online pictures of a swastika tattoo on one of his testicles was sentenced to 19 months in prison.

The sentence handed out earlier this month by an Austrian court to the 29-year-old soldier, who was not named in the Austrian media, owes also to an earlier conviction for displaying Nazi symbols, which is forbidden in Austria. He had received a suspended prison sentence for posting online pictures of Nazi World War II memorabilia.

That sentence was activated, however, when the soldier showed others with whom he had served the pictures of the swastika tattoo. The soldier said he had been very drunk when he got the tattoo earlier this year, the Kleine Zeitung newspaper reported earlier this month.

Camp Hikon and Naftali Schwartz #dunning-kruger #quack jta.org

Camp Hikon is aiming to prepare yeshiva boys for what it calls the “political, environmental and economic” changes to come. Despite its stated interest in preparing campers for “natural disasters,” it will not allow any vaccinated campers or staff to attend.

Naftali Schwartz, the Brooklyn-based self-described “health coach” with no formal training in medicine or public health who is launching the camp, said the rule is unlikely to keep anybody away.

“Because of the kinds of demographic that I’m drawing from, most people who are coming will not have taken the vaccine,” Schwartz told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Drawing on a debunked theory spread by the anti-vaccination movement, the camp’s website cites the “experimental nature” of the COVID-19 vaccines. According to the false theory, living in close quarters with vaccinated people could “enhance” the spread of the coronavirus. The website refers readers to a site called NutriTruth, which claims vaccines are a “biological weapon,” and to a livestreamed discussion between several notable anti-vaxxers.

“We regret that we will be unable to accept campers or counselors who have already received any of these injections,” according to the website.

Schwartz said he made the rule because of “suspicious symptoms that occur to unvaccinated people who have spent a lot of time in the company of vaccinated people.”

“It’s also been reported to me from parents of my to-be campers that this is a real thing and it’s worrisome,” Schwartz said.

Waldemar Wojciechowski #racist jta.org

A local politician in Poland used language that critics said was anti-Semitic during a regional council meeting about agriculture.

“Why don’t Jews buy land? Because you can’t cheat the earth,” Waldemar Wojciechowski, a representative of the right-wing Law and Justice ruling party, said at a meeting Tuesday of the council of the Lodz District.

The meeting was on a subject unrelated to Jews and Judaism, and Wojciechowski was quoting a saying to make a point about the need to be fair to farmers, the Gazeta news site reported Wednesday.

Fritz Berggren #racist #fundie #conspiracy jta.org

A U.S. State Department employee named Fritz Berggren has been moonlighting as a blogger devoted to attacking Jews and promoting white Christian nationalism.

“Jesus Christ came to save the whole world from the Jews — the founders of the original Anti-Christ religion, they who are the seed of the Serpent, that brood of vipers,” Berggren wrote in an Oct. 4, 2020, post on his website titled “Jews are Not God’s Chosen People. Judeo-Christian is Anti-Christ.”

Later in the post he writes, “Jewish ideas poison people.”

Berggren has been sharing his extremist and anti-Semitic views under his real name for years while working as a mid-level civil servant. Politico first reported the connection on Friday after being tipped off by current and former State Department officials.

Berggren espouses the idea, common among the far-right, that white people are at risk of being eliminated through demographic change and organized persecution. He commonly rails against Black Lives Matter and other social movements identified with the left.
[…]
Politico reported that Berggren works for a State Department unit that handles special immigrant visas for Afghans. He has been identified as a Foreign Service worker since as early as 2009.

Travis Patron #wingnut #racist #conspiracy jta.org

The leader of a far-right political party in Canada has been arrested and charged with willfully promoting hatred against Jews – reportedly a first for a Canadian political party.

Travis Patron, the founder and head of the Canadian Nationalist Party, or CNP, was taken into custody in the Saskatchewan town of Carlyle.

Wednesday’s arrest of Patron, 29-year-old native of that province, stemmed from a 2019 social network video called “Beware the Parasitic Tribe” that news reports said cast Jews as “swindlers” and “snakes.”

Patron also has a social media history of denying the Holocaust, according to the Canadian Anti-Hate Network.

In his video, Patron claimed that Jewish people “infiltrate the media, they hijack the central bank, and they infect the body politic like a parasite,” and “what we need to do … is remove these people, once-and-for-all, from our country.”
[…]
CNP is registered with Elections Canada as a political party that can run candidates in an election, but it won’t get federal political party status until it has elected members of Parliament. That seems unlikely in the near future since its three candidates in 2019 garnered only a few hundred votes.

Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) #conspiracy #dunning-kruger jta.org

Among the many posts being unearthed amid renewed scrutiny of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s social media history is one in which the new congresswoman implicated “Rothschild Inc” in connection with a deadly forest fire that, she wrote, was started using laser beams from space.

Greene, a freshman Republican from Georgia who made waves during the campaign for her promotion of the QAnon conspiracy theory, made the accusation in a 2018 Facebook post that is no longer visible. In the post, Greene offers a mix of evidence-free speculation as to what caused the 2018 Camp Fire, which burned more than 150,000 acres and killed 85 people.

In reality, the fire was determined to have been started by electrical wiring belonging to Pacific Gas and Electric.

In her post, Greene noted that Roger Kimmel, a board member at Pacific Gas and Electric, was also the vice-chairman of Rothschild Inc. Greene also wrote that PG&E had invested in technology to beam solar energy from space down to Earth. She claimed in the post that that technology had caused the fire. The post was first reported on Thursday by Media Matters for America, a liberal media watchdog.

Thanos Plevris and Constantinos Plevris #psycho #racist jta.org

Greece has appointed a health minister who defended the antisemitic writings of his father in court more than a decade ago

Thanos Plevris, who was named to his post as part of a government reshuffle, said Wednesday in a statement that he did not mean to offend anyone with his 2009 defense
[…]
Constantinos Plevris was appealing his conviction for incitement to hatred for passages he wrote in his book titled “The Jews: The Whole Truth.” The elder Plevris appeared to advocate for keeping Auschwitz, the former Nazi death camp, “in good condition,” allegedly for the day it would again serve to kill Jews.

Defending his father in court, Thanos Plevris contested that interpretation of the Auschwitz reference. Even if it were true, he added, “What kind of instigation is this? What incitement is this? Is it that one is not allowed to believe and want to believe that ‘I want to exterminate someone?'” he said

The appeals tribunal acquitted Constantinos Plevris

Thanos Plervis wrote on Facebook that he “completely disagrees” with his father and “never meant to offend the Jewish people and I apologize if I did.” The post followed the statement by the Central Board, the main Jewish umbrella in Greece

"Melanie Rettler" #conspiracy #racist jta.org

An antisemitic tirade at a school board meeting in suburban Phoenix last week has spurred an extensive response among local officials and Jewish leaders — some of whom say they were distressed that board members did not rebut the comment at the time

During the public comment portion of the meeting of the Chandler Unified School District board, a woman who identified herself as Melanie Rettler spoke for over a minute about critical race theory and vaccines — topics not listed on the meeting agenda but at the center of heated public debate nationwide

Her comment crescendoed with an antisemitic claim drenched in the language of right-wing conspiracy theories

“Every one of these things, the deep state, the cabal, the swamp, the elite — you can’t mention it, but I will — there is one race that owns all the pharmaceutical companies and these vaccines aren’t safe, they aren’t effective and they aren’t free,” Rettler said. “You know that you’re paying for it through the increase in gas prices, the increase in food prices — you’re paying for this and it’s being taken from your money and being given to these pharmaceutical companies and if you want to bring race into this: It’s the Jews”
[…]
After Rettler walked away, Barb Mozdzen, the board president, addressed everybody in the room. “Comments really need to be related to what the school board can do something about, and this was not something we can do something about,” she said. “So please have your comments with something that is within our jurisdiction”

Calin Georgescu #wingnut jta.org

A Romanian political hopeful who could become honorary president of the country’s fourth-largest political party praised an antisemitic 1930s fascist leader during a primetime TV interview on Monday night, drawing sharp condemnation from Jewish and other groups

Speaking on Antena 3 news channel, Calin Georgescu, a sustainability expert formerly affiliated with the United Nations, said Corneliu Zelea Codreanu “fought for the morality of the human being.” An interviewer had asked Georgescu why he put Codreanu on a list of national “heroes” in a 2020 Facebook video which garnered over 700,000 views

Codreanu led the fiercely antisemitic Legionnaire Movement until his execution in 1938. The group espoused an extreme version of ethnic and religious nationalism that involved political murders and acts of terrorism
[…]
Georgescu’s interview marked the first time in years that a prominent political figure openly defended Codreanu’s record on a mainstream Romanian television channel

Georgescu also referred to Antonescu, under whose rule at least 280,000 Jews were killed, as a “martyr”
[…]
Georgescu’s 2020 Facebook video has circulated widely in Romania after he was nominated to be honorary president of the far-right AUR party[…]In announcing the nomination, AUR’s co-chair George Simion said that the party is also considering supporting Georgescu as its presidential candidate
[…]
Simion told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that Georgescu’s comments “do not represent in any way the position of AUR,” adding that Georgescu “will have to clarify” his remarks. Asked whether he is considering revoking Georgescu’s nomination as AUR’s honorary president, Simion said “It is one of the options”

The JTA also questioned Simion over the broader AUR party’s views regarding Antonescu and Codreanu

“The party’s official position cannot be other than what the law says in Romania”

Arizona State Sen. Wendy Rogers (R-6th district) #conspiracy #wingnut #racist #psycho jta.org

Jewish organizations have lambasted Rogers for a series of social media posts in which she repeatedly attacks “anti-Christian” bankers for opposing her and for spurring Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. She has named George Soros and the Rothschild family, both frequent targets of antisemites, as the “anti-Christian” bankers she is targeting

The censure motion which passed Tuesday 24-3 in the Republican-led chamber was directed at comments she made last week at a conference organized by white nationalist Nick Fuentes, in which she called for politicians who have implemented coronavirus prevention mandates to be hanged

“When we do take back our god-given rights we will bring these criminals to justice. I’ve said we need to build more gallows,” Rogers told the America First Political Action Committee in a video quoted by Vice. “If we try some of these high-level criminals, convict them and use a newly built set of gallows, it’ll make an example of these traitors who have betrayed our country”

She separately threatened to “destroy the career” of any Republican who called her out for her statements
[…]
The Arizona Mirror reported that references to Rogers’ antisemitism were removed by the Republican leadership
[…]
Arizona Senate President Karen Fann said those passages were removed because the statements in question by Rogers were protected by the First Amendment while specific threats of violence were not

State Rep. Sarah Fowler Arthur (R-Ashtabula) #dunning-kruger jta.org

A Jewish lawmaker in Ohio is deriding legislation to restrict race education in the state’s schools as the “draconian Holocaust censorship bill” after one of the bill’s Republican sponsors suggested that it is appropriate to teach about the Holocaust from the perspective of the Nazis

State Rep. Sarah Fowler Arthur, who co-sponsored the bill, made the comments when explaining to a local news station why she believes that “divisive concepts” should be taught from multiple points of view

“Maybe you’re going to listen to the perspective of someone from Poland when they were undergoing similar displacement, or when they were being incorporated into the war and to some of these camps. Or maybe you’re listening to it from the perspective of a Jewish person that has gone through the tragedies that took place,” she said, describing how a hypothetical lesson that complies with the law could unfold. “And maybe you’ll listen to it from the perspective of a German soldier”

Fowler Arthur also mischaracterized how many Jews were murdered in the Holocaust and why they were murdered in her remarks, originally made to News 5 Cleveland in early March but not publicized by the station until Tuesday

“What we do not want is for someone to come in and say, ‘Well, obviously the German government was right in saying that the Aryan race is superior to all other races, and therefore that they were acting rightly when they murdered hundreds of thousands of people for having a different color of skin,'” she said

Robert Regan #wingnut #racist #conspiracy #sexist jta.org

During his campaign for a state House seat, Michigan Republican nominee Robert “RJ” Regan had told local outlets that, “My words aren’t as smooth and polished as the politicians are because I’m not a politician.” And there were many ways Regan wasn’t like other politicians

For one, most politicians’ public Facebook pages aren’t filled with antisemitic memes blaming Jews for the Sept. 11 attacks, calling Jews the “real virus” instead of COVID-19, or calling feminism “a Jewish program to degrade white men.” Most politicians also don’t have recorded video of themselves making jokes about their own daughters being raped. Regan had both

Most politicians also run with the full backing of their parties, but the Michigan GOP[…]refused to aid Regan in his Grand Rapids-area special election after he won the primary in March. Although the state party had initially congratulated him on his primary victory, it reversed course when his comments came to light[…]
Finally, unlike most politicians, Regan lost a seat he was heavily favored to win. In the May 3 special election[…]he lost the conservative district to Democrat Carol Glanville, who got 7,288 votes to Regan’s 5,697 and became the first Democrat to hold the seat in a decade[…]
In his concession, Regan called himself “an America First Republican” and lashed out at “the RINO Republican establishment”[…]
During his campaign, Regan had insisted he was “not antisemitic” but did not apologize for his social media posts, instead attacking “the left trolls trying to get some attention because they know where I stand on the issues”

Bracken County Republican Party #racist #conspiracy #wingnut jta.org

When Steve Dettelbach was confirmed last week as the director of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, he became the beleaguered bureau’s first head to pass a Senate confirmation in eight years. For some, the confirmation offered hope of a changing tide in America’s sea of mass shootings

But a county Republican group in Kentucky saw a different story: that Dettelbach is part of a “Jewish junta” that “is getting stronger and more aggressive”

The Bracken County Republican Party, representing a rural county with a population of around 8,400 along the Ohio River near Cincinnati, made the comment Friday on its official Facebook page, two days after Dettelbach’s July 12 confirmation

In calling Dettelbach “a Jewish anti-gun activist,” the county GOP group attacked the two Republican senators, Susan Collins of Maine and Rob Portman of Ohio, who voted for his appointment. It also attacked two Republican Senators, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and James Risich of Idaho, who were not present for the vote, saying, “It’s obvious they want to move on from having to defend rural gun owners”

The group deleted the comment from its Facebook page later that day, after being contacted by the Louisville Courier-Journal. The county’s GOP chair, Karin Kirkendol, did not respond to the paper’s questions about the post, but later signed a Facebook post from the group disavowing it

Ebrahim Raisi #dunning-kruger jta.org

Iran’s leadership has returned to Holocaust denial, its leader made clear in an interview with “60 Minutes,” after distancing itself from the phenomenon

“Historical events should be investigated by researchers and historians,” Ebrahim Raisi, the Iranian president, said in an interview on the CBS News flagship broadcast Sunday when he asked if he believed the Holocaust occurred. “There are some signs that it happened. If so, they should allow it to be investigated and researched”

The interview aired at the same time that PBS was showing the first installment of a six-hour new documentary, by Ken Burns, about the Holocaust. “The U.S. and the Holocaust” is the latest prominent work to make use of the vast trove of research available to scholars and laymen to show in meticulous detail evidence of the Nazi genocide of European Jewry

The falsehood that research that would deny the Holocaust is being repressed is a commonplace trope among Holocaust deniers[…]
Responding to a tweet quoting Raisi, Israeli interim prime minister Yair Lapid offered just two words — “Some signs” alongside four black-and-white photographs showing starved and murdered Holocaust victims. He was one of many people to lampoon the Iranian president’s comments on social media.
https://twitter.com/yairlapid/status/1571732099547398145

Vladimir Solovyov, Dmitry Popov and Agnia Krengel #conspiracy #racist jta.org

Russian President Vladimir Putin cracked down on the open antisemitism[…]
As Russia’s war effort in Ukraine founders, openly anti-Jewish rhetoric is entering the country’s mainstream media[…]
The shift in rhetoric about Jews in Russian media began about two months ago, according to Roman Bronfman, a former Israeli lawmaker who has published a book about post-Soviet Jewry[…]
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has left him isolated on the world stage[…]As Russia’s war machine stalls in Ukraine[…]there are mounting signs that the Putin-era taboos on displays of antisemitism are falling

In July, Vladimir Solovyov, a popular talk show host who has Jewish ancestry himself, listed on air the names of Jews whom he faulted for lacking patriotism[…]
In a Sept. 18 article in Moskovskij Komsomolets, a highbrow Russian daily, a senior and veteran writer named Dmitry Popov compiled a list of well-known Jews whom he called “foreign agents”[…]He added sarcastically that the Jews might one day form a government in “the beautiful Russia of the future” — ostensibly after Putin exits office[…]
More evidence of a shift in tolerance for antisemitic rhetoric came last week as Bernard-Henri Lévy, a prominent French-Jewish journalist[…], visited the war-torn country

The Strategic Culture Foundation, a Russian conservative think tank[…]published[…]
“This 74-year-old French citizen, born in a family of Algerian Jews, smells blood with his nose and, without delay, flies to lap it up — and for good money,” read the article, which was signed by Agnia Krengel

Matt Keefer #wingnut jta.org

A local school board candidate in a suburb of Indianapolis is drawing criticism for insisting that “not all Nazis were bad” and that teaching that they were would represent “indoctrination”

Matt Keefer, an anesthesiologist who is running for school board in Zionsville, Indiana, initially made the comment in response to a Facebook user who pressed him for specifics about his platform, which starts with the statement, “Empower teachers to educate, not indoctrinate.” The user asked: Would teaching students that all Nazis are bad cross the line?

Keefer said it would. “All Nazis weren’t ‘bad’ as you specify. They did horrible things. They were in a group frenzy,” he wrote, adding, “Who is to say if we were both there in the same place and time, that we wouldn’t have done the same thing”

Keefer doubled down Thursday night as reports of his comments, first collected by a local Twitter account and first reported by an Indianapolis TV station on Thursday, burst into public view. “A few days ago I made the comment ‘not all Nazis were bad’ in my response to a question posed to me on Facebook. I am correct,” Keefer wrote in a lengthy statement on Facebook. But he added, “To be clear: I never was, am not now, and never will be a Nazi sympathizer”[…]
Keefer entered politics, he has said, because he was upset about pandemic restrictions and vaccine requirements, which he said one day might be perceived in hindsight as equally objectionable to Nazism

Ignazio la Russa #wingnut jta.org

Ignazio la Russa, a senator from Cologno Monzese, a municipality in Milan, wrote alongside a picture of an MSI campaign poster: “In memory of my father, who was one of the founders of the Italian Social Movement in Sicily and who chose the path of free and democratic participation with the MSI throughout his life in defense of his ideas respectful of the Italian Constitution”

Leaders within Italy’s Jewish community were dismayed by his decision to link MSI to the post-World War II Italian constitution. The ascendance of far-right leaders who have expressed nostalgia for the fascist period in Italy — which nearly spelled the near destruction of Italian Jewry — has Italy’s present-day Jewish community worried

“Today we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the promulgation of the Republican Constitution, the affirmation of our anti-fascist democracy,” Noemi Di Segni, president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, said on Tuesday[…]“Yet there are those who believe they are celebrating another anniversary, that of the foundation of the MSI, a party which, after the fall of the fascist regime, placed itself in ideological and political continuity with the RSI, the government of diehard fascists who actively collaborated for the deportation of Italian Jews”[…]
La Russa took office as Senate president in October, after the victory of a right-wing coalition gave his Brothers of Italy (FDI) party a plurality in the senate and made Giorgia Meloni prime minister[…]
For most of its history, MSI branded itself as the defender of Italy’s fascist history, even long after the death of dictator Benito Musolini. 

FDI is seen by many as MSI’s successor in Italy

Father Michał Woźnicki #racist #fundie #conspiracy jta.org

A Polish priest with a long track record of antisemitic comments has been sentenced to community service after being convicted of insulting Jews and inciting hatred against them, in what his critics say is a landmark case

Father Michal Woznicki, a Catholic priest from the city of Poznan, must perform 30 hours of community service a month for the next six months, according to the order handed down by a judge earlier this month

Woznicki was on trial for comments made during a sermon in October 2021. “Jews in the world have assumed the role of a leech, a tick, a body that lives on the host’s body, swells, leading the host’s body to death, moving on to the next one,” he said, according to Polish media. He also said that Jews were in league with the devil and responsible for the spread of sexual impropriety in Poland

Woznicki is already facing sanctions from the church because of his record of controversy, and he delivered the sermon online because he has been suspended from his pulpit. But because he remains an ordained priest, his conviction is groundbreaking, according to the civil society group that pressed for him to face charges[…]
“Woznicki is well known for his antisemitic diatribes and anti-church tirades (he has called Pope Francis a heretic),” Poland’s chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency by email. “The Polish court has handed down a clear verdict that antisemitic hate speech is illegal in Poland. We are hopeful that the Polish courts will continue to find others guilty of this crime”

After the Polish judge ruled that Woznicki was guilty of insulting Jews because of their nationality and inciting hatred on the basis of national differences, the priest lashed out in comments to journalists

“I am convicted of preaching,” Woznicki reportedly said. “Apparently, the Jews do not like me very much because I love the Lord Jesus. As a non-Jew, I concede to the Jewish king, while the Jews do not so much to their king”

Ahmed Chekhab #racist jta.org

(JTA) — A local Socialist politician from France’s Lyon region was booted from the party for making statements deemed anti-Semitic.

...

Chekhab was heard telling the president of a local sports club: “Would you rather get fucked by Zittoun, by a Jew, then get the help of someone like yourself?”

Chekhab was commenting on Philippe Zittoun, his Jewish predecessor as deputy mayor. He was angry at the sports club president over the cancellation of a sports event for 800 children.

Blood and Soil #racist jta.org

(JTA) — A banner with an anti-Semitic slur hung over a synagogue’s Holocaust memorial and fliers left on cars in a New Jersey township are related to the arrest of several area haredi Orthodox couples for welfare fraud, police said.

The incidents occurred over the weekend in Lakewood, where at least seven haredi Orthodox couples were arrested last week for underreporting their incomes to receive government benefits, including a rabbi and his wife as well as his brother and his wife.

Brazen anti-Semitic hate on full display as #Holocaust memorial in #Lakewood is defaced pic.twitter.com/7CMCh2ivkl

— ADL New Jersey (@ADL_NJ) July 2, 2017

The banner hung at Congregation Sons of Israel reads “(((Heebs))) will not divide us,” using the anti-Semitic echo symbol popularized by the “alt-right” to highlight Jewish names. Heebs stands for Hebrews and is used as an ethnic slur against Jews. The banner also lists a website for a white supremacist group.

Anti-Semitic fliers referencing the arrests were placed on cars throughout the township as well, the Asbury Park Press reported.

New Jersey Attorney General Christopher Porrino in a tweet posted Sunday called the incidents “sickening.” He also reminded the public of the $10,000 reward from the state for information that leads to a bias crime conviction.

Amira Jumaa #racist jta.org

[Bolding mine]

Amira Jumaa is the first student to be expelled from the institution since it was founded in 1872, according to Haaretz. She reportedly was expelled in December in a decision by the university’s disciplinary committee, which is made up of students and professors, Haaretz reported, citing a report in the French weekly Nouvel Observateur.

[...]

The Facebook posts came to light in October while Jumaa worked as an intern at the French Consulate in New York as part of a school program. She was fired immediately by the consulate and suspended from the university pending an investigation.

The posts were exposed by a website called the Inglourious Basterds, whose stated goal is to expose anti-Semitism in social media.

“Friends, there is a big catch. She’s young, she’s rich, she’s jet set, she enjoys horseback riding, and she hates the Jews,” the site said in introducing Jumaa. According to the site, Jumaa liked a Facebook page called “I hate Israel.”

[...]

She wrote in one: “Yes you Jews deserve to learn these lessons. What did you expect, taking over people’s lands and killing them? Hugs?”

Jumaa also wrote: “You don’t belong anywhere in this world — that’s why you guys are scums and rats and discriminated against wherever you are. Do not blame it on the poor Palestinians.”

In response to being accused of racism, Jumaa wrote: “First of all you dispersed rat, i am not an immigrant from France. I am from Kuwait so my country can buy you and your parents and put you in ovens.”

Unnamed Yellow Vests #racist jta.org

(JTA) — French philosopher and writer Alain Finkielkraut was came under a verbal anti-Semitic attack by Yellow Vest protesters in central Paris.

The incident on Saturday was captured on camera, with protesters yelling “Dirty Jew,” “you’re a hater, you’re going to die, you’re going to hell,” “Dirty Zionist,” “France is ours,” and “return to Tel Aviv.” Police intervened to protect Finkielkraut.

French President Emmanuel Marcon condemned the attack in a series of tweets. “The anti-Semitic insults he has been subjected to are the absolute negation of what we are and what makes us a great nation. We will not tolerate it,” Macron tweeted.

“The son of Polish immigrants who became a French academician, Alain Finkielkraut is not only a prominent man of letters but the symbol of what the Republic allows everyone,” he also tweeted.

The Paris prosecutor’s office on Sunday said an investigation has been launched into the “public insult based on origin, ethnicity, nationality, race or religion.”

Finkielkraut, 69, has expressed support in the past for the social movement. His philosophical writing mostly discusses identity-based violence, including antisemitism.

The Yellow Vests began in the fall as a series of protests against a hike on fuel prices but has been mired since in countless instances of violence against police and a substantial amount of anti-Semitic hate speech.

The incident comes a week after a series of anti-Semitic incidents throughout Paris.

diégo de la véga, Memoires2legendes? and unnamed other Twitter users #racist jta.org

(JTA) — A satirical article suggesting that the French-Jewish philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy plans to emigrate if a far-left politician is elected president triggered a slew of anti-Semitic comments on Twitter.

In the fake interview published last week on the satirical website NordPresse, Levy, one of the country’s best-known celebrities, is quoted as saying, “If Melenchon is elected, I’m leaving France.”

Jean-Luc Melenchon, who is the presidential candidate of the French Communist Party and several other far-left groups, has made considerable gains in polls ahead of the first round of the presidential elections on April 23.

Using the hashtag #BHL — the Jewish philosopher’s initials — hundreds of Melenchon supporters circulated the fake interview on Twitter, adding anti-Semitic comments about it.

“Shove off to Israel or the States, you son of a bitch,” one Twitter user wrote in an apparent reference to the fact that Levy, who is a citizen neither of Israel nor of the United States, is Jewish. Another wrote, “If Melenchon wins BHL knows where he can return.” The latter added a banner advertising Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to tourists.

The L’Expresse daily accused the satirical website of encouraging anti-Semitic discourse by inventing a quote by Levy.

“I cannot agree to a 90-percent taxation of my revenues” in explaining his opposition to Melenchon. “The Jews, as we all know, are rich,” L’Expresse wrote sarcastically.

Levy has criticized Melenchon, whose policies he has called “dangerous.” This week, Levy wrote on Twitter: “A reminder on the deplorable remarks by Melenchon following 2014 rallies featuring chanting about death to Jews.”

The post included a link to an article about Melenchon that was published on the Levy-owned opinion website Le Regle du Jeu recalling Melenchon’s statement on Aug. 24 that protesters against Israel in Paris “remained dignified and embodied better than anyone the founding values of the French republic.”More than nine synagogues were attacked in July that year in the French capital by pro-Palestinian protesters, some using firebombs. In a July 2014 incident at one synagogue, a gang of 150 assailants besieged dozens of worshipers.

[...]

Melenchon has climbed to third place in an Ifop survey from April 14 with 19 percent of the vote — matching the Republican candidate Francois Fillon — moving up from fifth in February and 9 percent. Emmanuel Macron, the centrist candidate, topped the April poll with 23 percent, followed by Le Pen of the National Front party with 22 percent.

Jean de Dieu Momo #racist jta.org

(JTA) — A Cameroon government minister said that the Jews brought the Holocaust on themselves because they wielded all the economic power.

The African nation’s government disavowed the comments made by Jean de Dieu Momo, the deputy justice minister, in a primetime interview on public television. Momo warned the opposition leader, Maurice Kamto, that he was leading the native Bamileke people to a fate similar to that of the Jews during the Holocaust, the French news service AFP reported.

“In Germany, there was a very rich community who wielded all economic power,” he said. “They [the Jews] were so arrogant that the German people were frustrated. Then one day, a certain Hitler came to power and put them in the gas chambers.”

The government of Cameroon distanced itself from Momo’s comments.

“The Government of the Republic of Cameroon wishes to point out that [Jean De Dieu Momo] was speaking on a strictly personally basis,” Communications Minister Réné Sadi said in a statement, the English-language Journal du Cameroon reported. “The government of Cameroon strongly deplores the irrelevant comments of [Momo] and completely dissociates itself.”

Unnamed Brugge soccer club fans #racist jta.org

(JTA) — Soccer fans in Belgium chanted about burning Jews during a match in the city of Bruges, Belgian media reported.

La Derniere Heure published footage from the Aug. 26 match on Wednesday. It shows dozens of fans celebrating their local team’s victory over Brussels’ Anderlecht team that day by singing in Flemish: “My father was in the commandos, my mother was in the SS, together they burned Jews ’cause Jews burn the best.”

The chant, whose use was first reported by the media in 2015, has proliferated in the Netherlands and Belgium in recent years. In some cases, fans chant it to taunt counterparts from rival teams that are seen as historically Jewish. Some fans say Anderlecht is such a team, although that soccer club is not famously associated with Jews.

[...]

The soccer club of Brugge, a city located 40 miles west of Brussels, said in a statement: “We strongly condemn this behavior,” the HLN news website reported. The club said several fans have been identified and slapped with a ban on entering the team’s Jan Breydel Stadium.

[Bolding mine]

Valerie Plame #racist jta.org

(JTA) — Former CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson resigned from the board of an anti-war foundation after retweeting an article accusing American Jews of pushing the U.S. into a war with Iran.

Wilson, whose paternal grandfather was Jewish, made the announcement on Sunday about leaving the the Ploughshares Fund in a series of tweets.

“Actions have consequences, and while I have been honored to serve on the board of the Ploughshares Fund — to avoid detracting from their mission, I have resigned,” Wilson said in consecutive tweets.

“I take full responsibility for my thoughtless and hurtful actions, and there are no excuses for what I did.”

She also tweeted that she was “horrified and ashamed” for retweeting articles from the Unz Review website “without closely examining content and authors.”

“The white supremacist and anti-Semitic propaganda espoused by this website is disgusting and I strongly condemn it,” she also tweeted.

Wilson, a former operations officer for the Central Intelligence Agency, had her identity leaked to the press by an official in President George W. Bush’s administration in 2003 and left the agency in 2005. A 2010 film about the affair, “Fair Game,” portrayed the popular theory that her cover was blown as political retribution for an article by her husband charging that the White House manipulated intelligence to make the case for invading Iraq.

The article she retweeted, titled “Americas Jews Are Driving America’s Wars,” included several anti-Semitic tropes, including that American Jews are guilty of dual loyalty to Israel, and that Jews control the media, the entertainment industry and politics.

Unnamed armed burglars in Livry Gargan #racist jta.org

(JTA) — A French Jewish leader and his family were assaulted in their home near Paris in what representatives of French Jewry said was an anti-Semitic attack.

In the attack Thursday night, three men, two of whom were wearing masks, broke into the home of Roger Pinto, the president of Siona, a group that represents Sephardic Jews. The attackers beat Pinto’s son and wife in the home in the northeastern suburb of Livry Gargan, the Dreuz news website reported Sunday.

One of the attackers said: “You Jews have money,” according to the family members.

The family members told police that the attackers, who they said were black men in their 20s or 30s, took their credit cards and jewelry, interrogated them for hours about additional items them could steal and threatened to kill them. The men ran away after Roger Pinto managed to discretely call rescue services on a mobile phone.

The Pintos were taken to hospital for treatment. They suffered some minor injuries and were deeply traumatized, the report said.

The incident, one of several cases in France in recent years in which criminals apparently singled out Jews based on the belief that they have money, provoked passionate condemnations from the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish communities and the National Bureau of Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism. Both groups said the incident was an anti-Semitic attack.

[...]

In 2014, three men broke into the home of a Jewish family in Creteil near Paris. One of them raped a young woman there while another guarded her boyfriend, whom they took prisoner. A third took the couple’s credit card to extract cash from an ATM machine. They too allegedly said they targeted the couple because they are Jewish.

Jean-Frédéric Poisson #fundie jta.org

(JTA) — French Jews demanded the country’s Republican Party take disciplinary action against a primary candidate who said Hillary Clinton endangers Europe because she is controlled by Zionists.

The president of CRIF, the umbrella group of French Jewish communities, made the demand in a statement Thursday about Jean Fréderic Poisson, a National Assembly lawmaker whose Christian Democratic Party is a right-wing outlier of the Republicans’ center-right coalition in the 2017 presidential election.

In an article published Wednesday by the Nice Matin newspaper, Poisson was quoted as saying about Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate in the United States, that her “closeness to the super funders of Wall Street and her submission to Zionist lobbies are dangerous for Europe and for France.”

CRIF President Francis Kalifat wrote in his statement that “beyond its insidiously anti-Semitic character, this remark reanimates conspiracy theories that we know to be the basic currency of extremists of the most violent kind.”

Poisson, whose party opposes gay marriage and euthanasia, is one of seven candidates competing in the open primaries of the Republicans, the new name of what used to be the UMP party of former presidents Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy.

In addition to Sarkozy, whose paternal grandfather was Jewish, the list of primary candidates includes former Prime Minister Alain Juppe and Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, a former Cabinet minister whose ancestors were Polish Jews but who is not Jewish herself.

“With his revolting remarks, Jean Frédéric Poisson has placed himself beyond the margins of the primary of the right and center bloc,” Kalifat said of the Christian Democratic candidate.

Some commentators believe Poisson will endorse the far-right National Front party of Marine Le Pen if he fails to win the Republican nomination.

Unnamed Pruchnik Easter celebrants #racist #fundie jta.org

WARSAW, Poland (JTA) — A town in southern Poland reenacted the custom of casting judgement on Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Jesus, using a life-size effigy of a stereotypical Jew with a hooked nose and sidelocks.

The event in the town of Pruchnik, called “Judgment over Judas,” took place on Friday afternoon. On a pole on Pope John Paul II Street, the residents hung the large effigy of the Jew which bore the label “Judas 2019, traitor!”

The crowd cut the effigy down from the post, dragged it on a rope through the town, stopping at the square in front of the church and at a street crossing to beat it 30 times. After reaching the local river, the head of the effigy was cut off and the rest was burned.

The rite attracted a crowd of onlookers. Children were encouraged to beat the figure. There were some anti-Semitic cries, such as “Five more hits for wanting compensation from Poland.”

The custom of the judgment over Judas has occurred at least since the eighteenth century and takes place in the days preceding Easter. In the past, it was accompanied by acts of direct violence against Jewish residents. In the years of the Polish People’s Republic, the tradition gradually disappeared.

Andrey Rachkov #racist jta.org

A Ukrainian ultranationalist filmed himself toppling a Hanukkah menorah in downtown Kyiv while shouting about death to Jews.

The man, identified by the Ukrainian media as Andrey Rachkov, a provocateur with a criminal record, is the subject of a police investigation after video of the vandalism emerged on Thursday, the Ukrainian news site Zik reported Saturday.

Rachkov posted the video of his actions on Facebook, adding: “How to treat foreigners who are engaged in usurpation of power, occupation of territories, genocide.”

As he toppled the large menorah, he shouted: “To Ukrainians the power, Jews to the graves.”

Kyle Chapman #racist jta.org

One of the leaders of the Proud Boys, the far-right group that President Donald Trump told to “stand back and stand by” during a presidential debate, is trying to rebrand the organization as explicitly white supremacist and anti-Semitic.

Kyle Chapman, the founder of a “tactical defense arm” of the Proud Boys known for engaging in street violence, claimed in a message on the encrypted chat app Telegram that he has staged a “coup” against the current leader of the Proud Boys — a Black man named Enrique Tarrio.

“We will confront the Zionist criminals who wish to destroy our civilization,” Chapman wrote after using other bigoted language. “We recognize that the West was built by the White Race alone and we owe nothing to any other race.”

Chapman also wrote that he has renamed the group the Proud Goys, referring to the Jewish term for non-Jews that neo-Nazis have tried to appropriate and use to symbolize their anti-Semitism.

The move comes as the Proud Boys are preparing to protest with other right-wing groups in Washington, D.C., on behalf of Trump’s unsubstantiated claims that the presidential election was stolen from him through widespread voter fraud.

It is unclear how Chapman’s call has been received by others in the group. Other Proud Boys channels on Telegram have not reflected the changes he wants to institute, and a message from the administrator of one said, “No, we are not the Proud Goys. No, Kyle didn’t stage a coup,” and then referred to him with an ableist slur.

Deputy Inspector James Kobel #racist jta.org

The New York City Council oversight division identified “Clouseau,” who posts frequently on “The Rant,” a message board where law enforcement officials vent anonymously, as Deputy Inspector James Kobel, who is the commander of the Equal Employment Opportunity Division.
[…]
Kobel denied the charge to the New York Times but has been relieved of his job pending the completion of an Internal Affairs Bureau investigation, the New York Times reported on Thursday. The IAB query has uncovered more evidence linking Kobel to the Clouseau identity, the Times said.

Clouseau referred to former President Barack Obama as a “Muslim savage” and described a Black woman who in a video was complaining about President Donald Trump as a “savage” who “reproduces little carbon copies of ‘herself/hisself’… someone please throw a gallon of bleach in the human gene pool.”

Responding to a posting of an article about Orthodox Jews wearying of being photographed by tourists, Clouseau said: “I think that eventually all of the inbreeding may lead to the demise of these clowns. The severity of birth defects will only increase. Unfortunately, the local taxpayer is going to be on the hook for the bill when the children need special programs in the local school districts and the parents continue to leach [sic] off the system.”

Walid Khass #conspiracy #racist jta.org

The yearlong battle between a doctor and a New York hospital trying to fire him over anti-Semitic and anti-gay posts will be back in court next week.

New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital has tried to dismiss Walid Khass from his position as a pediatric resident since 2019, the Forward reported Thursday. In recent years, Khass has written on separate posts on social media “Go beat up a Zionist,” “You trust the Jews — I never did” and “I hope only Israelis get ebola.” He also wrote that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s mother was Jewish, meaning that she belongs to a “higher group run the corrupt world.”

Khass was admitted to the hospital’s residency program, but then was informed he had been found unsuitable. He sued the hospital to be readmitted to the program and won.

The hospital, which treats many Jewish patients, appealed the decision and is due to argue its case at a Sept. 17 hearing in Brooklyn state Supreme Court, according to the Forward. It says Khass cannot remain because some of his posts condoned or encouraged violence.

Michael Robert Solomon and Benjamin Ryan Teeter #wingnut jta.org

Two members of the Boogaloo Bois, a far-right anti-government movement, were arrested and charged with conspiring and attempting to give material support to Hamas.

Michael Robert Solomon, 30, and Benjamin Ryan Teeter, 22, were arrested Thursday, according to a Justice Department statement.

According to the Justice Department, the two men were recorded by a purported Hamas member promising to act as mercenaries for the group in exchange for cash. They later gave weapons to the purported Hamas member, who was secretly working with the FBI. The men thought they were working with the purported Hamas member to help overthrow the U.S. government.

[...]

According to the department, Solomon and Teeter are members of the Boogaloo Bois, a loose network of anti-government extremists seeking to attack the police and other public institutions. They are also members of a subgroup of the movement called the “Boojahideen,” a play on the Arabic word “mujahideen,” which means jihadists. According to the statement, a witness saw Solomon openly carrying firearms in Minneapolis following the death of George Floyd in May.

Mary Ann Mendoza #conspiracy #racist jta.org

Mary Ann Mendoza, a mother who had been scheduled to speak at the Republican National Convention Tuesday night, was dropped from the program after she urged her Twitter followers to read a thread from an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist.

Hours before her scheduled appearance at the convention, Mendoza shared a months-long thread posted by a feed called WarNuse that includes multiple anti-Semitic slanders, including arguing that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a notorious forgery that claims Jews control the world, is not a fabrication.

“Do yourself a favor and read this thread,” she posted.

Virtually every tweet in the thread, posted by an adherent of the QAnon conspiracy theory, reflects anti-Semitic tropes. After The Daily Beast published a story about Mendoza’s tweet, she deleted it and said she had not paid attention to everything in the thread.

[...]

But Mendoza had tweeted previously about the theory, which holds that the Rothschild banking family has engineered an international war. In November 2018, she shared a now-deleted tweet and wrote, “And there you have it: The Rothschilds have used their globalist media mouthpiece to declare that Donald Trump is threatening to destroy the New World!”

Mendoza is an “Angel Mom,” the term that President Donald Trump, whom Mendoza had been set to endorse formally, uses to describe mothers of victims of crimes by undocumented immigrants. Mendoza’s son was killed by a drunk driver with a criminal record.