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Masked Activists Violently Attack Jews at North Carolina Public Library
Three pro-Israel attendees of a public event titled “Strategic Lessons From the Palestinian Resistance” reported being attacked and forcibly dragged out by anti-Israel activists also in attendance at the West Asheville Library in North Carolina on Saturday.
The event, hosed by Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair, was one of multiple anti-Israel sessions that took place during a three-day “anarchist” book fair.
The Algemeiner interviewed David Moritz, a 54-year-old son of Holocaust survivors, and Monica Buckley, who is 48 and identifies as queer. Both are Jewish and attended the event with 80-year-old Bob Campbell, who was also interviewed for this story.
Approximately 60-80 anti-Israel activists were in attendance at the event held in a public library. Almost all were masked, with the exception of one activist who is reported to regularly attend events in the area unmasked.
According to Moritz, Buckley, and Campbell, the event celebrated and glorified Hamas’ massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, when the Palestinian terrorist group killed 1,200 people and kidnapped about 250 others as hostages.
The three Jewish attendees were seated quietly along a far wall. Anti-Israel activists asked them to put on masks, which they did. Interestingly, no one asked a presenter to stop vaping as he spoke at the indoor, public library.
At one point, according to video circulated on social media, a presenter stopped the event, drawing everyone’s attention to the three pro-Israel attendees.
The others in attendance expressed concern that their public event was being live streamed by “Zionists.” The presenter immediately joked about the possibility of a “murder here.”
The attendees and anti-Israel activists were then asked by a presenter, “I’ll let you guys decide. What do you want to do?” The pro-Israel attendees were immediately told to leave with multiple people yelling out “bye.”
After further discussion, the presenter asked for a show of hands on how to proceed. An attendee said, “They are not f—king welcome here.” Someone else was heard saying, “I don’t trust them.”
At about two minutes and 20 seconds into the video, activists began encircling Moritz, Buckley, and Campbell.
While about 80 percent of the attendees were women, a group of large men stood over the pro-Israel attendees and loudly clapped their hands while yelling “Free Palestine.” The video then goes black while the audio continues with a clear struggle being heard.
According to video and interviews with those targeted at the event, an activist grabbed Buckley’s phone, instigating mob violence against the three pro-Israel attendees. She was reportedly punched, kicked, and stomped. Her phone was stolen and later found, having been thrown on nearby property.
All three pro-Israel attendees reported being dragged out of the library.
Campbell, an 80-year-old military veteran with cancer and a stent in his heart, was stomped, assaulted, and pushed to the ground, a footprint clearly visible on his shorts. His phone was also taken and later found in a trashcan. Local police encouraged Campbell to see a doctor.
“My arms are chewed up,” Campbell told The Algemeiner. For medical treatment he went to a US Veterans Affairs facility, which found he had “severe contusions.”
“What really upset me — I was laying on the floor and this big guy was on top of me,” Campbell said. “The librarian came to the door, looked me right in the eye, turned around and walked back and didn’t do a damn thing. Didn’t call the police.”
Moritz was badly beaten, a large welt clearly visible on his head. Once the activists got Moritz outside, one briefly put him in a headlock before he was able to break free. According to interviewees, police arrived and stated that while they received multiple calls, none were from library personnel.
According to Moritz, the man who put him in a headlock was allowed to leave even after the activist was pointed out to the police.
Buckley reported that when she was being dragged outside, the unmasked activist who seemingly recognized her from other local events repeatedly said, “Monica, just relax, don’t fight it.”
None of the activists in attendance came to the defense of the three pro-Israel attendees.
According to Buckley, one of the attendees was arrested. A police report confirms that one person was arrested at the library.
Moritz said that the police showed him video footage that caught some of the attack, but did not provide him a copy. It is unclear if the police have obtained additional video footage from an outside camera or any additional cameras of the incident.
On Monday, the Asheville Police Department issued a statement that they “are investigating an assault that occurred during an ACAB [Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair] seminar held Saturday afternoon at the West Asheville Library.”
The statement noted that a 35-year-old was charged with two counts of “resisting, delay, and obstruct,” adding, “The investigation into the robbery and assault is ongoing.”
The Algemeiner has reached out to the police for additional information and comment.
Peter Reitzes writes about issues related to antisemitism and Israel.
The post Masked Activists Violently Attack Jews at North Carolina Public Library first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Treasure Trove explores the curious case of a stamp from an imaginary land
This 1 V. postage revenue stamp from West Refaim was postmarked in Virikoso in South Giantsland 100 years ago. Problem is—none of these places ever existed. There is a second […]
The post Treasure Trove explores the curious case of a stamp from an imaginary land appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Israel Has Told ICC It Will Contest Arrest Warrants, Netanyahu Says
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant during a press conference in the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv, Israel, Oct. 28, 2023. Photo: ABIR SULTAN POOL/Pool via REUTERS
Israel has informed the International Criminal Court that it will contest arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant over their conduct of the Gaza war, Netanyahu’s office said on Wednesday.
The office also said that US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham had updated Netanyahu “on a series of measures he is promoting in the US Congress against the International Criminal Court and against countries that would cooperate with it.”
The ICC issued arrest warrants last Thursday for Netanyahu, Gallant, and Hamas leader Ibrahim Al-Masri, known as Mohammed Deif, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict.
The move comes after the ICC prosecutor Karim Khan announced on May 20 that he was seeking arrest warrants for alleged crimes connected to the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas and the Israeli military response in Gaza.
Israel has rejected the jurisdiction of the Hague-based court and denies war crimes in Gaza.
“Israel today submitted a notice to the International Criminal Court of its intention to appeal to the court, along with a demand to delay the execution of the arrest warrants,” Netanyahu’s office said.
Court spokesperson Fadi El Abdallah told journalists that if requests for an appeal were submitted it would be up to the judges to decide
The court’s rules allow for the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution that would pause or defer an investigation or a prosecution for a year, with the possibility of renewing that annually.
After a warrant is issued the country involved or a person named in an arrest warrant can also issue a challenge to the jurisdiction of the court or the admissibility of the case.
The post Israel Has Told ICC It Will Contest Arrest Warrants, Netanyahu Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jewish Girls Attacked in London With Glass Bottles in Antisemitic Outrage
Shomrim officers at the scene of a hate crime in London in which Jewish girls were struck with glass bottles. Photo: Shomrim Stamford Hill/Screenshot
A group of young Jewish girls were the victims of an “abhorrent hate crime” when a man hurled glass bottles at them from a balcony as they were walking through the Stamford Hill section of London on Monday evening.
One of the girls was struck in the head and rushed to the hospital with serious but non-life threatening injuries, according to local law enforcement.
A spokesperson for London’s Metropolitan Police said officers were called to the Woodberry Down Estate in the city’s borough of Hackney following reports of an assault on Monday evening at 7:44 pm local time.
“A group of schoolgirls had been walking through the estate when a bottle was thrown from the upper floor of a building,” the spokesperson said. “A 16-year-old girl was struck on the head and was taken to hospital. Her injuries have since been assessed as non-life changing.”
Police noted they were unable to locate the suspect and an investigation is ongoing before adding, “The incident is being treated as a potential antisemitic hate crime.”
Following the incident, Shomrim, a Jewish organization that monitors antisemitism and serves as a neighborhood watch group, reported that the girls were en route to a rehearsal for an upcoming event. The community, the group added, was “shocked” by the attack on “innocent young Jewish girls,” calling it an “abhorrent hate crime.”
14-year-old girl rushed to Hospital with head & facial injuries following an attack in #StamfordHill.
Young Jewish girls on their way to a rehearsal were pelted with glass bottles by a male on a balcony at Woodberry Down Estate N4.
This… pic.twitter.com/MzHPHusgyX
— Shomrim (London North & East) (@Shomrim) November 26, 2024
Since then, another Jewish girl, age 14, has reported being pelted with a hard object which caused her to be “knocked unconscious, and left feeling dizzy and with a bump on her head,” according to Shomrim.
Monday’s crime was one among many which have targeted London Jews in recent years, an issue The Algemeiner has reported on extensively.
Last December, an Orthodox Jewish man was assaulted by a man riding a bicycle on the sidewalk, two attackers brutally mauled a Jewish woman, and a group of Jewish children was berated by a woman who screamed “I’ll kill all of you Jews. You are murderers!” A similar incident occurred when a man confronted a Jewish shopper and shouted, “You f—king Jew, I will kill you!”
Months prior, a perpetrator stalked and assaulted an Orthodox Jewish woman. He followed her, shouting “dirty Jew” before snatching her shopping bag and “spilling her shopping onto the pavement whilst laughing.” That incident followed a woman wielding a wooden stick approaching a Jewish woman near the Seven Sisters area and declaring “I am doing it because you are Jew,” while striking her over the head and pouring liquid on her. The next day, the same woman — described by an eyewitness as a “serial racist” — chased a mother and her baby with a wooden stick after spraying liquid on the baby. That same week, three people accosted a Jewish teenager and knocked his hat off his head while yelling “f—king Jew.”
According to an Algemeiner review of Metropolitan Police Service data, 2,383 antisemitic hate crimes occurred in London between October 2023 and October 2024, eclipsing the full-year totals of 550 in 2022 and 845 in 2021. The problem is so serious that city officials created a new bus route to help Jewish residents “feel safe” when they travel.
“Jewish Londoners have felt scared to leave their homes,” London Mayor Sadiq Khan told The Jewish Chronicle in a statement about the policy decision earlier this year. “So, this direct bus link between these two significant communities [Stamford Hill in Hackney and Golders Green in Barnet, areas with two of the biggest Jewish communities in London] means you can travel on the 310, not need to change, and be safe and feel safer. I hope that will lead to more Londoners from these communities using public transport safely.”
Khan added that the route “connects communities, connects congregations” and would reassure Jewish Londoners they would be “safe when they travel between these two communities.”
However, it doesn’t solve the problem at hand — an explosion of antisemitism unlike anything seen in the Western world since World War II. Just this week, according to a story by GB News, an unknown group scattered leaflets across the streets of London which threatened that “every Zionist needs to leave Britain or be slaughtered.”
Responding to this latest incident, the director of the Jewish civil rights group StandWithUs UK Isaaz Zarfati told GB News that the comments should be taken “seriously.”
“We are witnessing a troubling trend of red lines being repeatedly crossed,” he said. “This is not just another wave that will pass if we remain passive. We must take those threats and statement seriously because they will one day turn into actions, and decisive steps are needed to combat this alarming phenomenon.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Jewish Girls Attacked in London With Glass Bottles in Antisemitic Outrage first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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