Anti-Semitic Activities - September 1999

Anti-Semitic Activities - September 1999

Remark: The Forum has decided to change its name with the intention of promoting the struggle against antisemitism with the full coordination between the various organizations dealing with the subject.

During September, the month of the High holidays, a number of violent incidents occurred in various places throughout the world. Although these were not as extremely violent as those previous to September, there is no doubt that the consistent trend of increased anti-Semitic violence is continuing.

Britain - Jewish boys were attacked on two occasions in London. Three Jewish school pupils were attacked in the underground by three 13 -year old boys. In the second case, two Jewish boys on their way from Golders Green to the Notting Hill synagogue were attacked by an Asian looking boy.

France - During the Tashlich prayer near the Seine river in Paris an older Jew was attacked during prayer by a group of some four skinheads. He suffered head injuries and required medical treatment.

Clashes took place between Jews and Arabs during a meeting of young people in the center of Paris.

At a synagogue in La Varenne, which is near Paris, young people threatened worshippers with knives and cursed them.

In Agenau, near Strasbourg, a synagogue door was torched in the early hours of the morning. So far nobody has claimed responsibility for the action.

Russia - A mine was discovered near a Jewish school in south west Moscow.

Poland - Unknown persons broke into the only remaining Jewish cemetery in Warsaw on the Jewish New Year and desecrated it. They broke tombstones, drew "Cult of Satan" slogans and littered the premises with dirt and garbage.

Romania - Unknown persons desecrated two headstones in the Jewish cemetery in Galati in east Romania.

Bulgaria - In August vandalous acts were committed in Ruse which included damaging 20 graves. Fascist/right-wing groups are suspected of being responsible for the actions.

Argentina - Sixty-two Jewish graves in the Jewish cemetery near Buenos Aires were desecrated.

Australia - Two yeshivah students were attacked in the center of Melbourne by three men armed with knives ( two of them skinheads). The attackers threatened the students and shouted derogatory remarks at them.

A window was shattered near the entrance to the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation synagogue.

On the eve of Succot, a pig's head was placed in the entrance to a synagogue in Adelaide.

New Zealand - Shots were fired at a synagogue in Christchurch after the prayer service when the worshippers had already left the premises. The attackers have still not been identified.

France - An announcement of a bomb plant was received in the Deloy Great Synagogue in Nice. The police searched the premises but found nothing.

In Lyon, Jewish businessmen received a threatening letter that if they did not leave the city of their own free will they would be forced to do so.

Germany - A letter threatening a bomb plant was sent to a Jewish family in Munich living in a building which houses a synagogue and a Bnai Brith meeting place.

Britain - A bomb threat was received in London in a building used by a Jewish institution. The caller left his name and address but in a search for the explosive charge, nothing was found.

Propaganda

U.S. - The recent publication of a series of President Richard Nixon's secretly recorded conversations enforces the claim that he was anti-Semitic. According to the recordings, Nixon said to his advisors that 'the communist plot against the U.S. was directed only by Jews'.

Patrick Buchanan once again attacked the Jews in his new book 'A Republic, Not An Empire' when he wrote that post World War II American leaders were obsessed by Jewish influence on foreign policy. Buchanan is running for the third time as the Republican presidential candidate and is already known for his anti-Semitism.

The Southern Baptist Church (the large Protestant stream in the U. S.), called for action to convert the Jews to Christianity, which aroused an angry response from the Jews. At the same time, during a prayer service at the Temple Israel reform synagogue in Tulsa, Oklahoma, an unknown person became rowdy during the prayer service and shouted 'the time has come for the Jewish people to change their religion to Baptist.

At the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, a student shouted derogatory remarks at an economic professor for the lecturer's Jewish appearance. Two days later, swastikas and the words 'White Pride' were drawn on a lamp post at the university.

Swastikas were drawn by unknown persons on the walls of a Jewish kindergarten in San Francisco.

In San Jose, youths threw a Molotov cocktail at the home of a judge who was mistakenly taken for a Jew.

Russia - New blatantly anti-Semitic pamphlets and stickers were distributed in Moscow metro stations. Among other things, it was written that all the parties in Russia, throughout the entire political spectrum, act according to the instructions of the 'International Zionist Connection'.

Croatia - At the Zagreb fall fair, copies of Mein Kampf and a translation of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion by the same publisher were distributed.

Italy - In the Lazio team's recent soccer game, huge anti-Semitic banners and slogans were once again waved. Anti-Semitic slogans and swastikas were also drawn in the Jewish quarter in Rome.

France - At the Notre Dame De Nazareth synagogue in Paris, a pamphlet containing 'Hitler's Will' was found.

The director of the RCJ radio station in Paris received anti-Zionist mail.

Egypt - A government magazine published an article praising Buford Furrow, the NeoNazi who perpetrated the attack on the Jewish center in Los Angeles in July 1999. The magazine stated that help should be given to destroy all Jews in the U.S.

South Africa - In the popular daily 'Citizen', a number of articles were published in the past two weeks on Holocaust denial which has aroused much protest.

Australia - In Sydney, swastikas and Ku Klux Klan abusive slogans were drawn on a wall in one of the city's main streets.

Anti-Semitic mail continues to be sent to Jewish organizations, senior community officials and Jewish families in Melbourne, Queensland, and Sydney. The Adelaide Institute and the Strategy magazine continued disseminating anti-Semitic propaganda.

On two occasions, accusing statements were shouted at Jews in Melbourne, such as 'All the Jews have to die, 'Heil Hitler' and 'We'll bring the gas'.

An anti-Semitic organization distributed anti-Semitic pamphlets in a shopping mall in New South Wales.

During a charity event in the 'Moriah' school in Melbourne, unknown persons left flyers with anti-Semitic messages and swastikas on a number of cars.

U.S. - Under the hate crimes law, a 16-year-old boy was accused by the local New Jersey authorities of disseminating anti-Semitic statements by e-mail. The statements were usually sent to Jewish students.

The Home Center chain in Seattle paid 50,000 dollars compensation to a man who claimed he was fired from his job for being a Jew. He said that following his complaint against anti-Semitic statements made against him by a fellow worker, he was fired by his superiors.

Canada - An event called 'European Heritage Week' was to have taken place in Fredericton but due to the protest of Jewish organizations who claimed that the name of the event was a code for promoting white supremacy in Canada, the mayor decided to cancel the event.

Russia - The Israeli embassy in Moscow recommended a media campaign be initiated against the prevailing belief that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is an historical authentic document.

Hungary - Jewish leaders strongly criticized the Hungarian government for distorting the historical facts associated with the negative role Hungary played in persecuting Jews during the Holocaust. This criticism followed an exhibition held at Auschwitz in Poland where the anti-Semitic tendencies of the Hungarians were emphasized.

Czech Republic - A vigorous protest by the Jewish community in Prague, which mustered to this end the Jewish organizations in the U.S., led to the foiling of a plan to construct an underground parking lot in the 13th century ancient Jewish cemetery.

Austria - The trial opened in Linz of 12 youths suspected of renewing Nazi activity. Over a number of years the gang created provocations by shouting Nazi and anti-Semitic slogans and provoking brawls which developed into violent clashes.

Belarus - Belarus's Minister of Religious Affairs promised Israel's Minister of Religious Affairs that the synagogues owned by Jews before the Holocaust would be transferred to the local Jewish community.

Czech Republic - Hundreds of Holocaust survivors convened in Prague for their 12th conference. Some of the ceremonies were held in Therezenstadt.

Poland - The house in which the Pope was born and raised in the town of Woddwice will be returned to its Jewish owners in the near future.

A competition was held in Plonsk, the birthplace of David Ben Gurion, for memoirs written on Polish-Jewish subjects. The first prize was won by a Polish Jewess who had hidden her Jewish origins until 1994.

A Jewish high school was opened in Warsaw for the first time since the Holocaust.

Austria - An international conference called 'The Presence of the Absence' was held in Vienna which dealt with aspects of Holocaust research.

Germany - A scandalous movie called Nothing But the Truth', on the Nazi criminal Joseph Mengele, which was screened in Germany aroused many reactions there. The movie deals with a trial, as it were, against Mengele for his part in the Holocaust. The movie won acclaim from German critics who claim that it reflects the discomfort Germany feels due to its Nazi past.

France - The French Judge Stefan summoned the former Nazi officer Aloise Bruner who is apparently in Syria to appear before the criminal court in Paris for crimes against humanity.

U.S. - In an emotional unprecedented letter, Cardinal John O'Connor of New York expressed his deep distress and shame over the Catholic Church's anti-Semitism towards the Jews.

China - In a Shanghai synagogue which recently underwent renovations, a New Year prayer service was conducted for the first time in 50 years. Some 200 Jews live in Shanghai.

Egypt - The owner of the 'Pharaonic Village' project, Dr. Abd Al-Salam Ragab will establish a mini-museum, on Judaism in general and the Jews in Egypt in particular, inside the village's tourist compound.