Uncategorized
First antisemitism report conducted with the Polish Jewish community shows how ‘Jew’ is used to discredit enemies
WARSAW (JTA) — A Jewish association has released what is being called the first report on antisemitism conducted with direct input from Polish Jewish community organizations, counting 488 incidents in 2022 submitted via an online portal and collected through extensive interviews with community members.
The incident total released on Monday by the Czulent Jewish Association is more than four times the number reported for 2021 by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights.
The report’s lead author, Anna Zielińska, said 86% of incidents involved online harassment and insults. She added that the word “Jew” is frequently used online to label an “enemy” as “disloyal, an outsider and unpatriotic.”
“There is not a Polish politician who hasn’t been called a Jew,” Zielińska told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Czulent’s 2022 report detailed one violent act that resulted in injury, four additional violent attacks, 20 threats, 34 instances of damage to Jewish property and memorial sites, 68 cases of antisemitic mass mailings and 372 instances of “abusive” behavior. Zielińska said there was no way to know the real number antisemitic incidents that occur because the “internet is a bottomless pit of hate.”
She is convinced that Czulent, a nongovernmental organization promoting tolerance that cooperates closely with Polish Jewish communities, has just scratched the surface.
“Time and again when I interviewed people they told me they were reluctant to report incidents because it wouldn’t change anything,” said Zielińska, a member of the Warsaw Jewish Community, one of the multiple communal groups under the Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland umbrella.
Antisemitic hate speech is more part of the public discourse than it was a decade ago, she added, and focuses on conspiracy theories such as a Jewish involvement in the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Czulent report documented 84 cases of public antisemitic statements that were also anti-Ukrainian. When Polish President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki met earlier this month with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is Jewish, the Polish leaders were accused online of serving Jewish causes, according to Zielińska.
“The context of the Ukrainian-Russian war was used to attack Jews more freely and seemingly legally,” said Zielińska. “In this way antisemitism is being used to discourage the public from supporting Ukrainian refugees.”
Over the past four years, some of the most high-profile antisemitic language in the political arena has been deployed by Grzegorz Braun, a leader of the far-right Confederation Liberty and Independence Party. Braun’s most recent target has been Ukrainian refugees, whom he accuses of seeking to create a “Ukro-Poland” — a reference to “Judeo-Poland,” an expression popularized in the early 20th century by politicians who said Jews wanted to replace Poland with their own state.
In 2019, while he was campaigning, Braun said the United States was a “political and military tool of Jewish blackmail against Poland” and wrote that “Jews have waged war against the Polish nation for centuries, in fact against the whole Christian world.” His party, referred to in Poland as Confederation, is the country’s third most popular, with support from 11% of the electorate, according to a March survey by the independent polling agency Ipsos.
In the upcoming fall parliamentary elections, some analysts have predicted that the ruling right-wing Law and Justice party, which spends significant funds on Jewish monuments and culture, will need the support of Confederation and its voters to form a government. That is one reason some Law and Justice leaders have at times turned a blind eye towards antisemitism, the party’s critics allege.
“We wrote Law and Justice that they had antisemitic comments on their Facebook feed and they didn’t remove them,” Zielińska added.
Over the past five years, specific political developments have fueled negative attitudes towards Jews, she noted. In 2019, thousands of Polish nationalists protested in front of the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw against U.S. efforts to require Poland to compensate Jews whose families lost property during the Holocaust.
Michael Schudrich, Poland’s chief rabbi, said that although he agreed that online public discourse in Poland could be antisemitic, violent acts of antisemitism were incredibly rare. In 2006, a man who yelled “Poland is for Poles,” hit Schudrich and attacked him with pepper spray.
“Thousands of Hasidim come to Poland each year for various anniversaries and there has never been a real problem” he said. “And as for me, the only time anyone attacked me was under a left-wing government.”
He said he sees no evidence that antisemitism in Poland is on the rise, but he believes the government’s push for a nationalistic patriotic narrative of the past — focused on Polish heroism during the Holocaust — and its courting of the extreme right has had consequences.
“Antisemites today feel more empowered to say what’s on their minds,” he said.
Jews in Poland range in number from more than 15,000, according to a government census, to fewer than 10,000, according to the World Jewish Congress.
—
The post First antisemitism report conducted with the Polish Jewish community shows how ‘Jew’ is used to discredit enemies appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Trump defends Tucker Carlson, whose interview with antisemite Nick Fuentes split Republicans
(JTA) — President Donald Trump defended Tucker Carlson’s recent interview with avowed antisemite Nick Fuentes, weighing in on a debate over antisemitism that has roiled the Republican party.
“I’ve found him to be good. He’s said good things about me over the years,” Trump told a reporter over the weekend who asked about Carlson’s interview. “You can’t tell him who to interview. If he wants to interview Nick Fuentes, I don’t know much about him, but if he wants to do it, get the word out.”
The president’s comments were his first on a growing divide within the Republican party over Carlson giving a platform on his top-rated podcast to Fuentes and over the growth of the antisemitic Fuentes-led “groyper” movement on the right.
Jewish conservatives and some of their allies have expressed alarm at explicit antisemitism within the movement. Conservative writer Rod Dreher recently estimating that as many as 40 percent of young GOP staffers in Washington, D.C. are followers of the 27-year-old Fuentes, who complained to Carlson that “organized Jewry” undermines American unity.
Yet neither Trump nor Vice President J.D. Vance has joined the chorus of condemnation for Fuentes’ brand of white supremacy. Vance, who employs Carlson’s son Buckley on his staff, in recent days defended Buckley from a right-wing Jewish activist’s accusations of antisemitism without directly addressing the Fuentes controversy. The vice president was also criticized for responding to a college student’s question about Israel and Jews without acknowledging the question’s antisemitic underpinnings.
The debate over Carlson was stoked when the president of the right-wing Heritage Foundation defended Carlson. A growing number of Heritage Foundation staffers and associates, both Jewish and not, have since distanced themselves from the think tank. Legal fellow Adam Mossoff, who is Jewish, and former board member Robert George, a Princeton University professor and prominent public intellectual, recently left Heritage, citing its handling of Carlson.
And in the cultural sphere, the actress and podcaster Dasha Nekrasova was also dropped by her agent on Friday over a weeks-old interview with Fuentes that she and her co-host conducted on the podcast “Red Scare.” “Nekrasova had a recurring role on HBO’s “Succession,” and “Red Scare” was initially a thought leader on the young left before lurching hard to the right in recent years.
Carlson campaigned with Trump for his 2024 reelection and has significant influence within his administration, while Trump dined with Fuentes and the antisemitic rapper Ye in Mar-a-Lago in 2022, an incident that prompted criticism from staunch Jewish Republican allies. Trump has since claimed he didn’t know who Fuentes was at the time.
Meanwhile, Paul Ingrassia, a Trump administration staffer who attended a Fuentes rally last year and recently withdrew his nomination from a Cabinet-level post over the revelation of texts in which he said he had a “Nazi streak,” remains in the administration. Instead Ingrassia found a new position as deputy general counsel of the General Services Administration.
Carlson, for his part, has doubled down, even as some sponsors have quietly exited his show. Last week he disparaged Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the anti-Nazi pastor who was executed in 1945 for his involvement in the German resistance movement. Carlson also compared the Israel Defense Forces to Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann.
The GOP’s fault lines over Fuentes and antisemitism aren’t breaking as cleanly as those over other issues. Even a newly minted Trump adversary on the right, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, declined to condemn Carlson or Fuentes in a recent CNN interview.
“I defend every single person’s free speech rights. I think that’s incredibly important. So I don’t apologize for that. And I don’t believe in cancelling people. And I think it’s important for people like Tucker Carlson and yourself to interview everyone,” Greene told Dana Bash over the weekend.
On CNN Greene noted that she had spoken at a Fuentes-led conference in 2022, but claimed, “I don’t know Nick Fuentes. He’s someone I’ve never exchanged text messages with or phone calls.”
Asked specifically about Fuentes’s past antisemitic comments, Greene continued, “You should have Nick Fuentes on your show, and you can ask him questions about that. I myself am not antisemitic. I have never criticized the Jewish people or said anything about them in particular. I am critical of the government of Israel.”
The post Trump defends Tucker Carlson, whose interview with antisemite Nick Fuentes split Republicans appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
How Mussolini’s Jewish lover changed Fascist art and design
Not even 70 years after Italy unified, Benito Mussolini’s staged march on Rome so unnerved the government that King Victor Emmanuel III named him prime minister, opening the door to Fascist rule. “And so then began the task of selling Italy: at home, abroad, and as an idea in itself,” according to “The Future Was Then: The Changing Face of Fascist Italy.”
Now on view at Manhattan’s Poster House, the exhibition examines the intersection of propaganda and art in Mussolini’s Italy. Featuring 75 works on loan from the Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli in Bologna and curated by photographic artist and author B.A. Van Sise, the show explores how the regime used bold design, vivid color and modernist imagery to shape the nation’s self-image and fuel the Futurist movement.
But beyond the bombast, the sleek typefaces and arresting compositions lies a deeper, more complicated story. At its heart is Mussolini’s longtime lover and muse, Margherita Sarfatti, a Venetian Jew whose aesthetic sensibilities helped define the visual language of Italian Fascism.
“It’s not a Jewish show, though a person could argue it has a huge Jewish element since everything goes back to Margherita Sarfatti, who’s as Jewish as they come,” Van Sise said. “Fundamentally, Sarfatti’s the core of the show. The entire Italian art establishment changes gears because Mussolini’s girlfriend likes Futurism.”
Born in 1880 into a wealthy Jewish family, Sarfatti became a journalist, art critic and socialite who served as Mussolini’s adviser, biographer and cultural strategist. She funded Il Popolo d’Italia and was, as the exhibition text notes, “the uncrowned queen of Italy.”
“Think Gertrude Stein with better couture,” Van Sise said. “Every single thing in this show exists because of her — the Duce’s girlfriend adored Futurist art, and her taste dictated the direction of Italy’s visual culture. Artists and movements jumped ship to follow her lead, obeying in advance.”
Her influence is evident in pieces such as Marcello Dudovich’s 1936 poster “Esposizione Rhodia Albene alla Rinascente,” which depicts two elegantly dressed women striding in lockstep, evoking Sarfatti’s emphasis on fashion, modernity and movement.
The exhibit unfolds in three sections — “Italy as an Idea,” “Italy at Home,” and “Italy in the World” — each highlighting how Italian identity was constructed through imagery that linked domestic life, political messaging, and global ambition.
“Cioccolato Ali d’Italia,” a poster from 1931, depicts a sleek silver aircraft soaring across the page. Created to commemorate Minister of Aviation Italo Balbo’s transatlantic flights to South America, the image showcases Italy’s growing aviation prowess. A small rendering of Columbus’ ship tucked in the corner underscores the regime’s imperial aspirations.
The 1933 “Ardita Fiat” poster highlights the introduction of the Fiat Ardita, a streamlined, torpedo-shaped car whose name, which means “the daring one,” embodied Fascist vigor. In it a woman sits behind the wheel, her white gloves and black fez hat mirroring those worn by the Arditi, Italy’s elite assault troops.
Van Sise said it was essential to acknowledge the significant, though often overlooked, role Italian Jews played in Fascism’s early years. Among them were Gino Arias, an economist who addressed the National Fascist Party shortly before it seized power in 1922; Elisa Majer Rizzoli, who led the party’s women’s wing; and Guido Jung, an Orthodox Jew who served as finance minister.
“It was really important to include the Jewish history of the Italian Fascist period because it’s partly my own,” Van Sise said. “My family were Tunisian and Libyan Jews who came to Italy, and some branches were old-line Italian families — there for centuries, if not a millennium.”
Eventually Jews were targeted in Italy. By 1938 Mussolini had enacted racial laws, forcing thousands of Jews, including Sarfatti and Van Sise’s grandfather, to flee. Sarfatti spent her exile in Switzerland, Argentina, and Uruguay before returning after the war, only to learn her sister was among the more than seven thousand Italian Jews murdered in the Holocaust.
Van Sise’s grandfather also returned, before the war’s end, and joined the partisans.
He provides the exhibition’s stark coda: a small black-and-white photograph showing the corpses of Mussolini and others hanging by their heels in Milan’s Piazzale Loreto. The photographer was Van Sise’s grandfather.
“It’s a brutal image,” Van Sise said. “But it brings the story full circle — art, politics and identity collapsing into history itself.”
“The Future Was Then: The Changing Face of Fascist Italy” runs through Feb. 22 at the Poster House.
The post How Mussolini’s Jewish lover changed Fascist art and design appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Berlin to Lift Suspension of Israel Weapons Sales, but Says Ceasefire Must Hold
A German and Israeli flag fly, on the day Chancellor Friedrich Merz meets with Israeli President Isaac Herzog for talks, in Berlin, Germany, May 12, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Liesa Johannssen
Germany on Monday moved to resume weapons sales to Israel that had been suspended since August over the war in Gaza, but said the decision is subject to the observance of the ceasefire and the large-scale provision of humanitarian aid.
Germany, the second-largest exporter of arms to Israel after the United States, announced a suspension of some arms exports to Israel in August, amid mounting popular pressure over the war.
The decision affected weapons and systems that could be used in Gaza but not others deemed necessary for Israel to defend itself from external attacks.
Berlin will lift the suspension order on Nov. 24 and return to a case-by-case review of arms exports to Israel, while continuing to monitor the developments on the ground, a German government spokesperson said on Monday.
HUMANITARIAN AID MUST CONTINUE ‘ON A LARGE SCALE’
The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas “is the basis for this decision, and we expect everyone to abide by the agreements that have been made – that includes maintaining the ceasefire,” a second government spokesperson said.
“It also means that humanitarian aid is provided on a large scale and that the process continues in an orderly manner, as agreed,” the spokesperson added.
Germany remains committed to supporting a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians on the basis of a two-state solution and would continue to engage in supporting reconstruction in Gaza, the spokesperson said.
Germany is one of Israel‘s staunchest supporters, in part because of historical guilt for the Nazi Holocaust – a policy known as the “Staatsraison.”
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz came under massive criticism from his own conservatives for the decision to partially suspend the deliveries, which he said was in response to Israel‘s plan at the time to expand operations in Gaza.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Germany provided 30 percent of Israel‘s major arms imports in 2019-2023, primarily naval equipment including Sa’ar 6-class frigates (MEKO A-100 Light Frigates), which were used in the Gaza war.
ISRAEL CALLS ON OTHERS TO FOLLOW
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar on X lauded Germany for its decision to lift the order.
“I call on other governments to adopt similar decisions, following Germany,” he wrote.
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said the decision, in which his ministry was closely involved, was “responsible and correct” and that the ceasefire appeared to be sustainable.