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Far-right lawmaker Grzegorz Braun shocks Polish parliament by using fire extinguisher on menorah
(JTA) — In a shocking display, far-right Polish lawmaker Grzegorz Braun, a well-known antisemitic provocateur, used a fire extinguisher to blow out the candles of a menorah in Poland’s parliament building on Tuesday before calling Hanukkah “Satanic.”
Videos from the scene showed white mist from the extinguisher filling much of a chamber in the building where a large menorah had been lit.
Parliament speaker Szymon Holownia expelled Braun from Tuesday’s parliament session in Warsaw and later said Braun would lose part of his salary for three months. Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Sholom Ber Stambler, who was in the parliament building for a Hanukkah celebration, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that a woman who struggled with Braun as he sprayed the extinguisher’s fumes throughout a chamber in the building was taken to a hospital due to respiratory issues.
Stambler had lit the menorah before parliamentary proceedings, which involved the voting in of new Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and his cabinet. Braun, strongly opposed to the pro-European Union Tusk — who defeated the right-wing Law and Justice party in recent elections — left the vote and began using the fire extinguisher.
“It was a shock,” said Stambler, head of Chabad of Poland, the Hasidic movement’s local branch. “For the first few minutes, you just don’t understand what’s going on physically.”
Szymon Holownia, the Polish parliament speaker, on left with Rabbi Sholom Ber Stambler in the Polish parliament building, Dec. 12, 2023. (Chabad of Poland)
Stambler said a range of parliament members across the political spectrum reached out to send him well wishes in the hours after the incident. Braun’s own party condemned his behavior on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. A representative of Poland’s Catholic church also issued a statement apologizing to “the entire Jewish community in Poland.”
Tusk previously served as prime minister of Poland from 2007-2014 before serving as president of the European Council, an EU body, from 2014-2019. The Law and Justice party, which staunchly opposes immigration and has had mixed relations with local Jews, had been in power since 2015. In 2021, the party passed a law limiting Holocaust restitution that critics said was meant to whitewash Poland’s World War II history. The legislation also kicked off a years-long diplomatic spat with Israel.
Stambler was appointed a Chabad emissary in Poland in 2005. He said that while he has watched antisemitic incidents increase across Europe since the Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7, Jews in Poland have been relatively insulated from the phenomenon.
He attributed that to Poland’s relatively small population of Muslims. Muslim-led groups across Europe have organized large pro-Palestinian actions, some of which have seen antisemitic acts or rhetoric.
“I get to read some news and I don’t understand how can it be in our world? And I said to myself, you know, I live in Poland, but I don’t see such things,” he said. “Somebody called me from Antwerp and he said, ‘Ah, you live in Poland, you’re okay.’ Because now the most safe place in the world for Jews is Warsaw and Budapest, because there are no Muslims here.”
Braun, who is also critical of Polish Protestants, was first elected to Poland’s parliament in 2019 as a member of the far-right KKP party, which advocates for monarchism.
“He managed to get people evacuated, but I received so many messages of solidarity,” Stambler said. “I think that in a way he also made a wave of tolerance, of freedom of religion, of mutual respect. And I deeply hope that this will be the message from this entire event.”
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The post Far-right lawmaker Grzegorz Braun shocks Polish parliament by using fire extinguisher on menorah appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Pro-Israel Stalwart Ritchie Torres Hints at Run for New York Governor
US Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) speaks during the House Financial Services Committee hearing in Washington, DC, Sept. 30, 2021. Photo: Al Drago/Pool via REUTERS
JNS.org – Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.), one of Israel’s staunchest defenders in Congress, hinted at a run for higher office on Friday by taking aim at New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.
The Bronx Democrat said that like U.S. President Joe Biden, Hochul could be on the path to electoral defeat.
“Kathy Hochul is the new Joe Biden,” Torres wrote. “She may be in denial about the depth of her vulnerabilities as a Democratic nominee. A Democratic incumbent who is less popular in New York than Donald Trump is in grave danger of losing to a Republican in 2026–an outcome not seen in 30 years.”
“Waiting until it’s too late gave us a Republican President in 2024 and could give us a Republican governor in 2026,” he added. “Let’s avoid repeating history and avoid sleepwalking toward impending disaster and defeat.”
Torres in recent days has said that there is a “crisis of governance” in New York State and New York City.
“I think part of the story of the election is an indictment of misgovernance in New York state and New York City,” Torres said in an interview on Monday with Spectrum News NY1. “With few exceptions, nowhere was there a greater swing toward Donald Trump than in New York, which was a vote of no confidence in the leadership of New York state.”
U.S. President Joe Biden carried more than 60% of the vote in New York state in 2020, but in November, Trump narrowed that lead, with Harris winning just 56% of the vote to Trump’s 44%.
The largest swing of any county in New York towards Trump occurred in Torres’s Bronx county, driven by the massive shift towards Republicans among Latino voters.
A poll in September showed that Hochul had just a 34% job approval rating, and in 2022 she defeated then-congressman Lee Zeldin by just 6 percentage points, the worst performance by a Democrat in a statewide race in two decades.
Since taking his seat in Congress in 2021, Torres, 36, has been widely lauded by the Jewish community for his vocal efforts to combat Jew-hatred and his support for Israel in the House.
“I see my freedom as a Black Latino from the Bronx as inextricably bound to the freedom of the Jewish people,” Torres told pro-Israel rally-goers after he was awarded the Jewish Federations of North America’s Courageous Leadership Award earlier this month.
Though Torres has not directly criticized New York City Mayor Eric Adams by name in the way that he has called out Hochul, Torres could also make a run for Gracie Mansion in the 2025 election as Adams fights federal bribery charges.
A spokesman for Torres told JNS that “the congressman has yet to make a final decision regarding his future” as to whether he planned to announce a run for mayor or governor.
The post Pro-Israel Stalwart Ritchie Torres Hints at Run for New York Governor first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Mossad Looking Into Disappearance of Chabad Official in Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
i24 News – A member of a Jewish mission in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been missing since Wednesday, fueling reports he could have been kidnapped or murdered by Iran-linked operatives, according to Israeli media.
According to the Walla News website, the Mossad and UAE intelligence services are looking into the the suspicious disappearance of a Chabad official in Abu Dhabi.
The post Mossad Looking Into Disappearance of Chabad Official in Abu Dhabi first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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ICC Warrants Are Binding, EU Cannot Pick and Choose, EU’s Borrell Says
An exterior view of the International Criminal Court in the Hague, Netherlands, March 31, 2021. Photo: REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
European Union governments cannot pick and choose whether to execute arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court against two Israeli leaders and a Hamas commander, the EU’s foreign policy chief said on Saturday.
The ICC issued the warrants on Thursday against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas leader Ibrahim Al-Masri, for alleged crimes against humanity.
All EU member states are signatories to the ICC’s founding treaty, called the Rome Statute.
Several EU states have said they will meet their commitments under the statute if needed, but Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has invited Netanyahu to visit his country, assuring him he would face no risks if he did so.
“The states that signed the Rome convention are obliged to implement the decision of the court. It’s not optional,” Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, said during a visit to Cyprus for a workshop of Israeli and Palestinian peace activists.
Those same obligations were also binding on countries aspiring to join the EU, he said.
“It would be very funny that the newcomers have an obligation that current members don’t fulfil,” he told Reuters.
The United States rejected the ICC’s decision and Israel said the ICC move was antisemitic.
“Every time someone disagrees with the policy of one Israeli government – (they are) being accused of antisemitism,” said Borrell, whose term as EU foreign policy chief ends this month. “I have the right to criticize the decisions of the Israeli government, be it Mr. Netanyahu or someone else, without being accused of antisemitism. This is not acceptable. That’s enough.”
In their decision, the ICC judges said there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Gallant were criminally responsible for acts including murder, persecution and starvation as a weapon of war as part of a “widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza”.
The warrant for Masri lists charges of mass killings during the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. Israel says it has killed Masri.
The post ICC Warrants Are Binding, EU Cannot Pick and Choose, EU’s Borrell Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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