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In Northern Ireland, a Jewish Community Exists — But Struggles to Stay Afloat
Northern Ireland is where Israeli president Isaac Herzog’s father, Chaim Herzog, came from. Despite a deep-rooted Jewish history, however, the community struggles to get a minyan on Shabbat. Community member Neville Finch told me that they have struggled to keep a community alive for the last few decades.
Most visitors going to Belfast want to see Giant’s Causeway, the Titanic museum, or a series of Game of Thrones sites. The Titanic had a kosher kitchen on board, and Gustav Willhem Wolfe, one of the partners in the company that built the ship, had Jewish ancestry.
I was told there are 66 registered Jews at the Orthodox congregation — although one census counts 400 Jews, both down from the thousands that lived there in the mid 20th century. When I visited during a Shabbat service, the community was not able to get a minyan.
Another challenge that the Northern Ireland Jewish community cites is that after Brexit, they have had a hard time receiving kosher food due to red tape and difficulty importing it. Northern Ireland is part of the UK, and separate from the Republic of Ireland.
The Northern Ireland Jewish community moved into their current synagogue building in 1964 as they downsized, and the current rabbi is David Kale. The previous synagogue location — at Annesley Street, off Carlisle Circus — is now in ruin, with graffiti sprawled all over.
Even in the Republic of Ireland to the south, Jewish life has dwindled in recent years, mostly due to emigration to Israel or the UK. Even though there were reportedly Jews in Ireland for at least 1,000 years, the first verified migrations were from Sephardim from Spain and Portugal in the 1500s, and a huge Ashkenazi wave in the 1800s from Germany and later the former Russian Empire. In Dublin, the community has more Lithuanian origins, but in the north, it is more diverse.
Across the north, traces of a Jewish presence can be found. The synagogue in the city of Derry, which had the second largest community, collapsed in 2013 after much disuse. The community had left decades ago. A plaque about the congregation can be found in the Belfast synagogue.
Other visible traces of Jewish presence are the Jaffe Fountain, a tribute to the former Jewish mayor, Otto Jaffe (1899-1900). And not far from Belfast, there is a tribute to the Jewish Holocaust refugee children who came via the Kindertransport program to the Millisle refugee farm.
In Tyrone, I was told that there are two Jews buried in the Catholic cemetery; one, a stillborn female, has a Star of David engraved. Someone had laid flowers on the grave, rather than stones. In the Jewish tradition, people generally leave stones, showing that the dead have not been forgotten.
The town of Lurgan once had a synagogue more than 100 years ago. The building is now a laundry service. The current owners told me that they found a Jewish prayer book while doing renovations a few years ago.
There are other Jewish groups and Israeli students, some of whom may only show up for the holidays. In addition, last October, the community had the first wedding of two Belfast natives in almost 40 years, when Ben Magrill and Rachel Leopold returned from Manchester to conduct their wedding there.
Finch described the Orthodox community as being “small and tightly knit, and doing its best to keep Jewish life alive.” He added, “Northern Ireland will always have a Jewish presence.”
Avi Kumar is a Holocaust historian/journalist from Sri Lanka. He has lived in many countries and speaks 11 languages. He has written about a variety of topics in publications worldwide.
The post In Northern Ireland, a Jewish Community Exists — But Struggles to Stay Afloat 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
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
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.”
L’acte de vandalisme commis sur le monument en hommage aux morts de Montluc victimes de la barbarie nazie à Bron est abject.
La @PoliceNat69 a procédé aux constatations et ouvert une enquête sous la direction de l’autorité judiciaire. https://t.co/22v34nU14f
— Préfète de région Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes et du Rhône (@prefetrhone) November 10, 2024
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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