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Down and Out in Paris and London

The Oxford Circus station in London’s Underground metro. Photo: Pixabay

JNS.orgIn my previous column, I wrote about the rape of a 12-year-old Jewish girl in Paris at the hands of three boys just one year older than her, who showered her with antisemitic abuse as they carried out an act of violation reminiscent of the worst excesses of the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in southern Israel. This week, my peg is another act of violence—one less horrifying and less traumatic, but which similarly suggests that the writing may be on the wall for the Jews in much of Europe.

Last week, a group of young Jewish boys who attend London’s well-regarded Hasmonean School was assaulted by a gang of antisemitic thugs. The attack occurred at Belsize Park tube station on the London Underground, in a neighborhood with a similar demographic and sensibility to New York’s Upper West Side, insofar as it is home to a large, long-established Jewish population with shops, cafes and synagogues serving that community. According to the mother of one of the Jewish boys, an 11-year-old, the gang “ran ahead of my son and kicked one of his friends to the ground. They were trying to push another kid onto the tracks. They got him as far the yellow line.” When the woman’s son bravely tried to intervene to protect his friends, he was chased down and elbowed in the face, dislodging a tooth. “Get out of the city, Jew!” the gang told him.

Since the attack, her son has had trouble sleeping. “My son is very shaken. He couldn’t sleep last night. He said ‘It’s not fair. Why do they do this to us?’” she disclosed. “We love this country,” she added, “and we participate and we contribute, but now we’re being singled out in exactly the same way as Jews were singled out in 1936 in Berlin. And for the first time in my life. I am terrified of using the tube. What’s going on?”

The woman and her family may not be in London long enough to find out. According to The Jewish Chronicle, they are thinking of “fleeing” Britain—not a verb we’d hoped to encounter again in a Jewish context after the mass murder we experienced during the previous century. But here we are.

When I was a schoolboy in London, I had a history teacher who always told us that no two situations are exactly alike. “Comparisons are odious, boys,” he would repeatedly tell the class. That was an insight I took to heart, and I still believe it to be true. There are structural reasons that explain why the 2020s are different from the 1930s in significant ways. For one thing, European societies are more affluent and better equipped to deal with social conflicts and economic strife than they were a century ago. Laws, too, are more explicit in the protections they offer to minorities, and more punishing of hate crimes and hate speech. Perhaps most importantly, there is a Jewish state barely 80 years old which all Jews can make their home if they so desire.

Therein lies the rub, however. Since 1948, Israel has allowed Jews inside and outside the Jewish state to hold their heads high and to feel as though they are a partner in the system of international relations, rather than a vulnerable, subjugated group at the mercy of the states where we lived as an often hated minority. Israel’s existence is the jewel in the crown of Jewish emancipation, sealing what we believed to be our new status, in which we are treated as equals, and where the antisemitism that plagued our grandparents and great-grandparents has become taboo.

If Israel represents the greatest achievement of the Jewish people in at least 100 years, small wonder that it has become the main target of today’s reconstituted antisemites. And if one thing has been clear since the atrocities by Hamas on Oct. 7, it’s that Israel’s existence is not something that Jews—with the exception of that small minority of anti-Zionists who do the bidding of the antisemites and who echo their ignorance and bigotry—are willing to compromise on. What’s changed is that it is increasingly difficult for Jews to remain in the countries where they live and express their Zionist sympathies at the same time. We are being attacked because of these sympathies on social media, at demonstrations and increasingly in the streets by people with no moral compass, who regard our children as legitimate targets. Hence, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that while the 2020s may not be the 1930s, they certainly feel like the 1930s.

And so the age-old question returns: Should Jews, especially those in Europe, where they confront the pincer movement of burgeoning Muslim populations and a resurgent far-left in thrall to the Palestinian cause, stay where they are, or should they up sticks and move to Israel? Should we be thinking, given the surge in antisemitism of the past few months, of giving up on America as well? I used to have a clear view of all this. Aliyah is the noblest of Zionist goals and should be encouraged, but I always resisted the notion that every Jew should live in Israel—firstly, because a strong Israel needs vocal, confident Diaspora communities that can advocate for it in the corridors of power; and secondly, because moving to Israel should ideally be a positive act motivated by love, not a negative act propelled by fear.

My view these days isn’t as clear as it was. I still believe that a strong Israel needs a strong Diaspora, and I think it’s far too early to give up on the United States—a country where Jews have flourished as they never did elsewhere in the Diaspora. Yet the situation in Europe increasingly reminds me of the observation of the Russian Zionist Leo Pinsker in “Autoemancipation,” a doom-laden essay he wrote in 1882, during another dark period of Jewish history: “We should not persuade ourselves that humanity and enlightenment will ever be radical remedies for the malady of our people.” The antisemitism we are dealing with now presents itself as “enlightened,” based on boundless sympathy for an Arab nation allegedly dispossessed by Jewish colonists. When our children are victimized by it, this antisemitism ceases to be a merely intellectual challenge, and becomes a matter of life and death. As Jews and as human beings, we are obliged to choose life—which, in the final analysis, when nuance disappears and terror stalks us, means Israel.

The post Down and Out in Paris and London first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Obituary: Ronald Weiss, 68, a musical doctor who performed a record-breaking 58,789 non-surgical vasectomies

Ronald Weiss was disciplined and determined, personal qualities that he applied to his first love of music—and then to his medical career. He was affectionately known as the “Wayne Gretzky […]

The post Obituary: Ronald Weiss, 68, a musical doctor who performed a record-breaking 58,789 non-surgical vasectomies appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.

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Harvard Antisemitism Lawsuit Cleared to Proceed to Discovery Phase

Harvard University president Alan Garber attending the 373rd Commencement Exercises at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, May 23, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder

A lawsuit accusing Harvard University of ignoring antisemitism has been cleared to proceed to discovery, a phase of the case which may unearth damaging revelations about how college officials discussed and crafted policy responses to anti-Jewish hatred before and after Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7.

The case, filed by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law (Brandeis Center), centers on several incidents involving Harvard Kennedy School professor Marshall Ganz during the 2022-2023 academic year.

Ganz allegedly refused to accept a group project submitted by Israeli students for his course, titled “Organizing: People, Power, Change,” because they described Israel as a “liberal Jewish democracy.” He castigated the students over their premise, the Brandeis Center says, accusing them of “white supremacy” and denying them the chance to defend themselves. Later, Ganz allegedly forced the Israeli students to attend “a class exercise on Palestinian solidarity” and the taking of a class photograph in which their classmates and teaching fellows “wore ‘keffiyehs’ as a symbol of Palestinian support.”

During an investigation of the incidents, which Harvard delegated to a third party firm, Ganz admitted that he believed “that the students’ description of Israel as a Jewish democracy … was similar to ‘talking about a white supremacist state.’” The firm went on to determine that Ganz “denigrated” the Israeli students and fostered “a hostile learning environment,” conclusions which Harvard accepted but never acted on.

On Friday, Brandeis Center chairman and founder Kenneth Marcus told The Algemeiner that the latest development in this case, prompted by the judge presiding over it, is a step towards achieving justice for the organization’s Jewish clients.

“Attempting to halt discovery was Harvard’s best chance to convince the court that we didn’t have a case, and they failed,” Marcus said. “The court found that our claims stated violations of the law, and we now have an opportunity to substantiate them by asking for Harvard’s documents, interviewing interrogatories of Harvard, and finding other information about the university in other discovery means. The evidence we obtain will then be used at trial.”

Harvard University has fiercely fought the lawsuits brought by its Jewish students. Another filed by a group led by graduate student Shabbos Kestenbaum recently overcame an effort it to have it dismissed on the grounds that the plaintiffs lack legal standing. At least one elite college, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has been successful in quelling the claims of its Jewish students by appealing to a similar argument.

The Brandeis Center and Kestenbaum cases cannot be so easily disappeared, Marcus said.

“Our complaint is much more detailed and laden with a greater number of incidents described in detail and show matters of real gravity, including physical assault,” he continued. “The Harvard Kennedy school matter is one which resulted in the university’s own independent investigator’s determining that Ganz’s actions constituted violations of Harvard’s rules. Harvard, meanwhile, had a significant amount of time to address these problems and has failed to do so, but it has repeatedly failed to do the right thing.”

The Brandeis Center is seeking injunctive relief “preventing defendant [Harvard] violating Title VI [of the US Civil Rights Act] going forward” and the awarding of attorneys’ fees.

According to court documents, the situation for Jewish students at Harvard worsened after Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught. Following the tragedy, while scenes of Hamas terrorists abducting children and desecrating dead bodies circulated worldwide, 31 student groups at Harvard issued a statement blaming Israel for the attack and accusing the Jewish state of operating an “open air prison” in Gaza. Students stormed academic buildings chanting “globalize the intifada,” a mob followed and surrounded a Jewish graduate student, screaming “Shame! Shame! Shame!” into his ears, and the Harvard Law School student government passed a resolution that falsely accused Israel of genocide and ethnic cleansing.

High-level university officials and faculty also engaged in questionable conduct.

In December, former Harvard president Claudine Gay told a US congressional committee that calling for a genocide of Jews living in Israel would only violate school rules “depending on the context.” In February, Harvard Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine — a spinoff of a student group allegedly linked to terrorist organizations — shared an antisemitic cartoon on social media which showed a left-hand tattooed with a Star of David, containing a dollar sign at its center, dangling a Black man and an Arab man from a noose. The group’s former leader, history professor Walter Johnson, later participated in a “Gaza encampment” protest in which students clamored for a boycott of Israel.

Harvard president Alan Garber, installed after Gay resigned from office after being outed as a serial plagiarist, has, experts have said, been inconsistent in managing the campus’ unrest.

During summer, The Harvard Crimson reported that Harvard downgraded “disciplinary sanctions” it levied against several pro-Hamas protesters it suspended for illegally occupying Harvard Yard for nearly five weeks, a reversal of policy which defied the university’s previous statements regarding the matter. Unrepentant, the students, members of the group Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine (HOOP), celebrated the revocation of the punishments on social media and promised to disrupt the campus again.

Earlier this semester, however, Garber appeared to denounce a pro-Hamas student group which marked the anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks by praising the brutal invasion as an act of revolutionary justice that should be repeated until the State of Israel is destroyed, despite having earlier announced a new “institutional neutrality” policy which ostensibly prohibits the university from weighing in on contentious political issues. While Garber ultimately has said more than Gay when the same group praised the Oct. 7 massacre last academic year, his administration’s handling of campus antisemitism has been ambiguous, according to observers — and described even by students who benefited from its being so as “caving in.”

Now, committed to fighting lawsuits it could have settled with terms favorable to the alleged victims of discrimination — a course of action taken by Columbia University and New York University — Harvard’s handling of antisemitism may be decided by a judge.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post Harvard Antisemitism Lawsuit Cleared to Proceed to Discovery Phase first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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‘F—k Israel’: Monument in France Honoring Nazi Victims Defaced With Antisemitic Graffiti

Sign reading “+1000% of Antisemitic Acts: These Are Not Just Numbers” during a march against antisemitism, in Lyon, France, June 25, 2024. Photo: Romain Costaseca / Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect

A monument honoring victims of the Nazis located in eastern France was vandalized over the weekend with graffiti reading “Nique Israël,” or “F—k Israel” in English, continuing a surge in antisemitism over the past year that has devastated the French Jewish community.

The vandalism in Bron, a suburb of the city of Lyon, was discovered on Saturday afternoon, according to French media.

The defaced World War II memorial pays tribute to 109 Jews and anti-Nazi resistance fighters, detainees at Montluc prison in Lyon, who the Germans took to Bron and murdered in August 1944 before leaving the area. Days later, Montluc — which the Nazis used to intern, torture, and kill people during their occupation of France — was liberated.

In a post on X/Twitter, the prefect of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, the region that includes Bron, lambasted the defacement and said law enforcement had launched an investigation into the incident.

“The act of vandalism committed on the monument in homage to the dead of Montluc, victims of Nazi barbarity in Bron, is despicable,” the prefect wrote. “The [police] made the findings and opened an investigation under the direction of the judicial authority.”

So far, the perpetrators have not been identified, according to the regional French newspaper Le Progrès.

Saturday’s incident came as France has experienced a record surge of antisemitism in the wake of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7. Antisemitic outrages rose by over 1,000 percent in the final three months of 2023 compared with the previous year, with over 1,200 incidents reported — greater than the total number of incidents in France for the previous three years combined.

This year, anti-Jewish hate crimes in France have continued to skyrocket.

Last month, for example, a man wearing a sports jersey with the words “Anti-Jew” written in French was photographed riding the Paris metro, prompting an investigation by law enforcement and outcry from Jewish leaders who lamented what they described as public indifference to surging antisemitism in France.

Days earlier, a visibly Jewish teenager was assaulted by two youths as he was leaving a metro station in the northwest suburbs of Paris.

That incident followed three men brutally attacking a Jewish woman at the entrance to her home in Paris on the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities. The victim stated that the assailants threatened her with a box knife, made antisemitic threats, and mentioned the events of last Oct. 7.

In September a kosher restaurant in Villeurbanne, near Lyon, was defaced with red paint and tagged with the message “Free Gaza.”

The incident came days after French police arrested a 33-year-old Algerian man suspected of trying to set a synagogue ablaze in the southern French city of la Grande-Motte.

Two months earlier, an elderly Jewish woman was attacked in a Paris suburb by two assailants who punched her in the face, pushed her to the ground, and kicked her while hurling antisemitic slurs, including “dirty Jew, this is what you deserve.”

In another egregious attack that garnered international headlines, a 12-year-old Jewish girl was raped by three Muslim boys in a different Paris suburb on June 15. The child told investigators that the assailants called her a “dirty Jew” and hurled other antisemitic comments at her during the attack. In response to the incident, French President Emmanuel Macron denounced the “scourge of antisemitism” plaguing his country.

Around the same time in June, an Israeli family visiting Paris was denied service at a hotel after an attendant noticed their Israeli passports.

In May, French police shot dead a knife-wielding Algerian man who set fire to a synagogue and threatened law enforcement in the city of Rouen.

One month earlier, a Jewish woman was beaten and raped in a suburb of Paris as “vengeance for Palestine.”

Such incidents are part of an explosion of antisemitic outrages across France that has continued since last Oct. 7.

In August, then-French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin warned that incidents targeting the country’s Jewish community spiked by about 200 percent since Jan. 1.

“Two-thirds of anti-religious acts … are against Jews,” he added, according to French broadcaster BFM TV.

Darmanin’s comments followed him stating weeks earlier that antisemitic acts in France have tripled over the last year. In the first half of 2024, 887 such incidents were recorded, almost triple the 304 recorded in the same period last year, he said.

Amid the wave of attacks, France held snap parliamentary elections in July which brought an anti-Israel leftist coalition to power, leading French Jews to express deep apprehension about their future status in the country.

“It seems France has no future for Jews,” Rabbi Moshe Sebbag of Paris’ Grand Synagogue told the Times of Israel following the ascension of the New Popular Front (NFP), a coalition of far-left parties. “We fear for the future of our children.”

The largest member of the NFP is the far-left La France Insoumise (“France Unbowed”) party, whose leader, Jean-Luc Melenchon, has been lambasted by French Jews as a threat to their community as well as those who support Israel.

Despite widespread concern among French Jews, senior officials including Macron have repeatedly said they are committing to combating antisemitism and supporting the country’s Jewish community.

The post ‘F—k Israel’: Monument in France Honoring Nazi Victims Defaced With Antisemitic Graffiti first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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