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Antisemitism Watch

October 30, 2012 | Jewish TribunecloseAuthor: Jewish Tribune Name: Jewish Tribune
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Two men attack Jewish schoolboy

PARIS (JTA) – Two men hit and threatened a Jewish schoolboy at a Paris bus stop, according to the security unit of France’s Jewish community, SPCJ. The two men, both in their 40s, hit the 12-year-old boy with a belt on Oct. 22 and told him to remain silent, SPCJ wrote in a statement last Wednesday. The boy was waiting for a bus to take him to school.

The attackers also hurled insults in Arabic at the boy, the report said. The SPCJ defined the incident as “an antisemitic act of aggression.” The parents have filed a complaint with the police and with the SPCJ, the unit’s report said.

In the first eight months of 2012, SPCJ counted 386 of what it calls “antisemitic acts,” the organization said in a report published earlier this month. It was a 45 per cent increase compared to the corresponding period in 2011, when SPCJ counted 266 such incidents.

Israeli flag burned in front of synagogue

BUDAPEST (JTA) – An Israeli flag was burned in front of a Budapest synagogue reportedly by members of Jobbik, an ultrarightist Hungarian political party. Last Tuesday’s incident took place at the Dohany Street Synagogue, in the downtown central part of the Hungarian capital. Jobbik members reportedly were taking part in the day’s events recalling the Hungarian anti-communist revolution in 1956.

Israel’s ambassador to Hungary, Ilan Mor, appearing last Tuesday on the liberal opposition’s Hungarian television program on the ATV channel, demanded that “Hungarian democratic forces should refuse this unacceptable anti-Israeli act and criticism.”

Jobbik leader Gabor Vona as part of the revolt’s commemoration criticized any cooperation between Hungary and Israel, saying the “agreement between Hungary and Israel should be cancelled.”

European Parliamentarian denies Holocaust

BUCHAREST (JTA) – Corneliu Vadim Tudor, a Romanian member of the European Parliament, denied the Holocaust on television, the country’s National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust said.

The Bucharest-based Elie Wiesel National Institute for the Study of Holocaust in Romania said in a statement issued last week that Vadim Tudor, leader of the nationalist Greater Romania Party, said Oct. 18 on the talk show Romania a la Raport on the Realitatea network that “in Romania there was never a Holocaust.” He reportedly added, “I will deny it till I die because I love my people.”

The National Institute expressed “outrage” at the remarks. A statement signed by its director general, Alexandru Florian, said that Vadim Tudor’s words desecrated the memory of more than 280,000 Romanian Jews who perished in the Holocaust. The institute also called on authorities to investigate whether Vadim Tudor’s statements violated the law on hate speech.

Additionally, the institute called on the country’s Audiovisual Council to probe Realitatea TV for providing Vadim Tudor with a podium for alleged Holocaust denial. The network is owned by Elan Schwartzenberg, a Jewish businessman who had lived in Israel before moving to Romania.

In July, a Romanian politician who said that Romanians never participated in the persecution of Jews during World War II was appointed minister for parliamentary affairs. Dan Sova, a Social Democrat, added that only 24 Jews, not thousands, had died during the violent Iasi pogrom, which he attributed to the German army. Sova later retracted his statements.

Holocaust-denying bishop expelled from radical Catholic sect

(JTA) – Bishop Richard Williamson, who has denied the Holocaust, was expelled from a radical Catholic sect for disobeying his superiors. Williamson was expelled from the Society of Saint Pius X, which opposes church reforms decided by the Second Vatican Council, the society said last week. The British bishop is opposed to recent society efforts to reintegrate into the Catholic Church.

He and three other bishops who are members of the society were excommunicated from the Catholic Church in 1988. Pope Benedict XVI rehabilitated the bishops in January 2009 in hopes of healing a rift between conservative and progressive Catholics.

Williamson gave an interview just before the rehabilitation to the Swedish SVT broadcaster in which he called the murder of Jews in gas chambers during the Holocaust "lies, lies, lies.”

He also allegedly denied that any Jews were murdered in gas chambers during the Holocaust and insisted that not more than 300,000 European Jews were killed in total.

The interview, given in Regensburg, Germany, also was was available on the Internet.

In 2010, the Regensburg court found him guilty of incitement to hate and fined him.

Tags: antisemitism attack current hate hate crime hatred synagogue