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Austria increases Holocaust survivor payments for first time in decades
(JTA) — For the first time in more than 20 years, the Austrian government has agreed to pay every living Austrian Holocaust survivor an additional direct compensation payment of approximately 5,000 euros ($5,290) each in 2023.
The decision, which will affect an estimated 2,500 survivors living worldwide, followed extensive deliberations between the Conference for Jewish Material Claims Against Germany and the Austrian Ministry of Finance. The total payout equals 12.5 million euros (about $13.23 million), and survivors who are determined to have special needs will be eligible for a second payment of about the same amount this year, along with additional annual payments.
Most Austrian survivors are living in the United States and Israel, but some also call Great Britain, Australia, Canada, South America and several Western European countries home. The Claims Conference already gives certain subsets of survivors monthly pension payments.
The organization made clear that this decision was made well before the start of the Israel-Hamas war and is not linked timing-wise to the conflict.
Before World War II, Austria was home to about 192,000 Jews, according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. By 1939, about 135,000 Jews had fled Austria, which in 1938 was annexed by Nazi Germany. Approximately 65,000 Jews of Austrian origin were murdered in the Holocaust.
Gideon Taylor, president of the Claims Conference, called the decision “a substantial breakthrough with the Austrian government.” The payments will be administered through the National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism.
“Austrian Holocaust survivors living globally deserve this recognition,” said Greg Schneider, executive vice president of the Claims Conference, in a press statement. While survivors from Austria have received support over the years through the Claims Conference for home care and other welfare services, the additional payments “will go a long way for some of the more vulnerable in that waning population,” he added.
Claims Conference special negotiator Ambassador Stuart E. Eizenstat called the additional payment a “gesture of responsibility” that acknowledges the suffering of those robbed of home and family.
In addition to the new payments, the Austrian Holocaust Survivors Emergency Assistance Program has been doubled to 3 million euros for 2024. The funds are distributed via social welfare agencies to eligible Austrian survivors in the form of emergency grants to cover medical needs, eviction prevention and other urgent short-term expenses.
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The post Austria increases Holocaust survivor payments for first time in decades appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iran Says Eight Arrested for Suspected Links to Israel’s Mossad Spy Agency
The Mossad recruitment ad. Photo: Screenshot.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday they had arrested eight people suspected of trying to transmit the coordinates of sensitive sites and details about senior military figures to Israel’s Mossad, Iranian state media reported.
They are accused of having provided the information to the Mossad spy agency during Israel’s air war on Iran in June, when it attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and killed top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.
Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
A Guards statement alleged that the suspects had received specialized training from Mossad via online platforms. It said they were apprehended in northeastern Iran before carrying out their plans, and that materials for making launchers, bombs, explosives and booby traps had been seized.
State media reported earlier this month that Iranian police had arrested as many as 21,000 “suspects” during the 12-day war with Israel, though they did not say what these people had been suspected of doing.
Security forces conducted a campaign of widespread arrests and also stepped up their street presence during the brief war that ended in a US-brokered ceasefire.
Iran has executed at least eight people in recent months, including nuclear scientist Rouzbeh Vadi, hanged on August 9 for passing information to Israel about another scientist killed in Israeli airstrikes.
Human rights groups say Iran uses espionage charges and fast-tracked executions as tools for broader political repression.
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Body of Idan Shtivi, Murdered on Oct. 7, Retrieved from Gaza in Special IDF Operation
Idan Shtivi. Photo: Courtesy of the family
i24 News – The body of Idan Shtivi, a 28-year-old murdered by Palestinian jihadists at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, was recovered in a joint operation by the IDF and Shin Bet in central Gaza, it was cleared for publication on Saturday.
Shtivi’s remains were returned to Israel alongside the body of Ilan Weiss, another hostage killed during the October 7 massacre.
“Idan Shtivi was abducted from the Tel Gama area and brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists after acting to rescue and evacuate others from the Nova music festival on October 7th, 2023. He was 28 years old at the time of his death,” read an IDF press release.
“Following an identification process conducted at the National Center for Forensic Medicine, along with the Israel Police and the Military Rabbinate, the Hostages and Missing Persons Headquarters notified his family.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Shviti “was a gifted student of sustainability and governance, and a courageous individual” who acted heroically on October 7, helping others flee.
“He was killed in the process and his body was abducted to Gaza by Hamas. My wife and I send our heartfelt condolences to the Shtivi family. So far, 207 hostages have been returned, 148 of them alive. We will continue to act tirelessly and decisively to bring back all our hostages—living and deceased.”
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Woman Stabbed at Ottawa Grocery Store in Latest Antisemitic Attack
A social media post by the alleged attacker, Joseph Rooke of Cornwall, Ontario. Photo: Screenshot via i24
i24 News – The stabbing of a Jewish woman at an Ottawa grocery by a man with a long history of antisemitic posts on social media, the latest antisemitic hate crime in Canada, sparked outrage and prompted condemnation from officials including the prime minister.
Both the victim and the attacker are in their 70s. The woman is reportedly in serious condition.
The suspect was identified as Joseph Rooke, who has authored a series of lengthy rambling screeds on social media, ranting against Israel and Jews.
“Judaism is the world’s oldest cult,” he writes in one post, going on to say “over time jews have become insidious in governments, businesses, media conglomerates, and educational institutions in order to do what they do better than anyone else. Jews are the world’s masters of propaganda, gaslighting, demonization, demagoguery, and outright lying. Using their collective wealth they have become masters of reprisal.”
“I am under no obligation whatsoever, legal, moral, or otherwise, to like jews and I do not. If that means I meet the jewish definition of an anti-semite, so be it.”
Canada has seen a steep spike in antisemitic attacks over the past two years, including a recent incident in Montreal where a Hasidic Jew was beaten in front on his children.
After Prime Minister Mark Carney condemned the incident, many, including former Israel’s ambassador the US Michael Oren, pointed out that Carney’s rhetoric and policies contribute to the increasing insecurity of Canada’s Jewish community through uncritical embrace of outrageous and easily disprovable allegations that Israel and its supporters were guilty of the worst crimes against humanity.