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Memorials to Ukrainian Nazi allies in Detroit, Philadelphia enter spotlight after Canadian Parliament scandal
(JTA) – Over the past few weeks, tributes to Ukrainian Nazi collaborators in North America have led to local and international upheaval.
On Tuesday, the speaker of the Canadian House of Commons resigned after saluting a 98-year-old man who had fought for one such unit, commonly referred to as as the Waffen SS or SS Galichina. And in Philadelphia, a controversy surrounding the same unit played out on a smaller scale: Local Jewish groups protested a monument to the SS division in a Catholic cemetery in the suburb of Elkins Park, and local Catholic leaders covered it up.
But in a third instance where the same SS unit is being honored, the local Jewish reaction has been far more muted. After learning about an SS Galichina memorial in a Detroit suburb, that city’s Jewish Community Relations Council told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency it did not intend to make a fuss over it.
“I believe we could use this to positively have a dialogue with our Ukrainian neighbors, but don’t think it would be worth it to make a statement of condemnation or asking for its removal,” Daniel Bucksbaum of the Detroit JCRC/AJC said in an email.
The memorials in Detroit and Philadelphia, and the nonagenarian’s Nazi past, were all first reported by Lev Golinkin, a writer for the Forward. He has cataloged monuments to Nazis and their collaborators around the world, and in the Detroit case, detailed a memorial “dedicated to Ukrainian and Ukrainian-American veterans” on a private bank in the suburb of Warren. Veterans of SS Galichina are named as one of the monument’s sponsors — though they’re referred to by a different name on the structure.
Rabbi Asher Lopatin, who heads the Detroit JCRC/AJC, said he was developing a relationship with the local Ukrainian community and said “discussing history and past antisemitism will definitely be part of this process.” But he said he would be hesitant to press the issue of the SS Galichina memorial at present, in part because of Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine.
“I believe the time is now to support Ukraine, and defending itself against Russia,” Lopatin wrote in an email. He added, “There certainly is a lot to do, but there is a right time for everything and also a wrong time for everything.”
There are existing ties between the local Ukrainian and Jewish communities. Lopatin has attended ceremonies commemorating the Holodomor, the Soviet-imposed famine that caused millions of Ukrainians to starve to death in the 1930s (and which some far-right Ukrainians blame on the Jews). A Ukrainian museum in Hamtramck, a Detroit suburb with significant Ukrainian, Polish and Yemeni populations, has also offered to host an upcoming exhibit of Yemeni Jewish art.
Lopatin also believes the intentions behind the Warren memorial may not be sinister. “There is a difference between honoring a genocidal regiment or saying that their veterans gave [money] for a general memorial for Ukrainian Veterans,” he told JTA.
Golinkin, however, called the Detroit Jewish groups’ silence “shameful.”
“It’s astounding that, during a global surge of white supremacy and Holocaust distortion, Jewish organizations in Detroit are electing to remain silent about a monument to the SS in their city,” the writer told JTA.
The mayor of Warren, James Fouts, told the Forward that “there’s not even a minute chance that we would support anything like this,” but added, “I don’t think we can do much for a monument on private land.”
The varying responses point to the difficulties American Jews have long faced in navigating relationships with their Ukrainian neighbors, both during Ukraine’s current war with Russia and historically. Ukraine’s allies in the West during its current conflict have been reluctant to bring up its Nazi history at the same time that Russian propaganda has tried to paint the present invasion as a war of “denazification.”
Jonathan Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University who was also heavily involved in the movement to free Soviet Jewry, told JTA that many of the same issues were present during that movement’s heyday in the 1970s and 1980s.
“It was awkward,” Sarna said. He recalled that Jewish activists of that era broke bread with Ukrainian nationalists, who were also opposed to the Soviets. The Jewish activists were pushing for the USSR to allow Jews to emigrate, while the Ukrainian activists protested that the Soviet Union had robbed their country of independence.
“There was an effort to explain, but it was difficult,” Sarna said. Ukrainians had tried to get the Jewish community to appear at celebrations honoring General Roman Shukhevych, who fought in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army alongside Nazi forces. “It served as a reminder that, yes, there was a common enemy in those days, the Soviet Union. But on the other hand, there was also a lot of distinctive history that precluded too close a tie.”
Local Jewish leaders’ reactions to the Philadelphia monument were far more vocal. Soon after the Forward identified a three-decade-old monument depicting the insignias of the SS Galichina division in a Catholic cemetery in the suburb of Elkins Park, the local Jewish federation condemned it.
That led other Jewish groups, including the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League, to issue their own condemnations. Ukrainians should “recognize that this cannot remain,” the AJC said. (Lopatin’s group is affiliated with the AJC but in this case is departing from the national organization’s approach.)
Soon, the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia, which operates the cemetery, covered up the memorial, announcing on Facebook that it would pursue community discussions “in order to prevent vandalism and with the goal of conducting an objective dialogue with sensitivity to all concerned.”
Yet when it comes to the Philadelphia memorial, not all Jews are aligned in opposition. A controversial Ukrainian Jewish communal organization has voiced support for the monument.
“Indication that the monument must be dismantled ‘as soon as possible’ is inconsistent with a format for discussions on historical subjects in the twenty-first century,” Vaad of Ukraine said in a statement, alleging that some of “the published articles” about the monument “resemble KGB falsifications.”
Leaders of the group, which partners with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, an aid group, and claims to represent the interests of more than 250 Ukrainian Jewish groups, say they have not seen evidence that “the soldiers in whose memory this monument was raised thirty years ago” were involved in war crimes.
Vaad of Ukraine has come under fire in the past for defending Ukrainian Nazi collaborators, and for claiming in 2018 that Russia was manipulating U.S. efforts to condemn Ukraine for honoring those same Nazi-affiliated figures. Dozens of other Ukrainian Jewish organizations have stated that the group and its leaders “do not represent all Ukrainian Jews.”
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‘Little Gaza’: US Sen. Tom Cotton Introduces Legislation to Combat Campus Radicalism
US Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) speaks during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, March 11, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Julia Nikhinson
US Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) has proposed two new bills which would impose legal sanctions on purveyors of seditious, pro-terror ideologies on university campuses and the higher education institutions that harbor them, advancing the Republican Party’s offensive against the pro-Hamas student movement.
Shared first with Breitbart News, a news outlet that was instrumental in launching US President Donald Trump’s populist movement, the “No Student Loans for Campus Criminals Act” and “Woke Endowment Security Tax (WEST)” come amid a series of riotous demonstrations promoting antisemitic ideas, as well as the goals of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, and a widespread perception that elite universities have not done enough to combat them.
“First, any pro-Hamas protester convicted of a crime should be ineligible for federal student loans, and federal student loan relief. The American people should not be on the hook for the tuition of Little Gaza inhabitants,” Cotton said in a social media post on Tuesday announcing his introduction of the bills. “Second, our elite universities need to know the cost of pushing anti-American and pro-terrorist agendas.”
He continued, “The WEST Act would tax the largest university endowments to help pay down national debt and secure our southern border.”
As Cotton mentioned in his social media posts, the No Student Loans for Campus Criminals Act would prevent any campus protestor convicted of a crime from receiving federal student loans or student loan relief. Meanwhile, the WEST Act would institute a 6 percent excise tax on the endowments of 11 American universities, using the proceeds to pay down the national debt and secure the southern border shared with Mexico. According to Cotton’s office, the bill would generate $16.6 billion in revenue.
Republican lawmakers have called for holding higher education accountable since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel set off an explosion of antisemitic sentiment on college campuses, causing a succession of conflagrations which still are still burning hot at schools such as Columbia University.
In December, the Republican-led US House Committee on Education and the Workforce issued a report, which said that nothing short of a revolution of the current habits and ideas which constitute the current higher education regime can prevent similar episodes of unrest from occurring in the future. Colleges, it continued, need equal enforcement of civil rights laws to protect Jewish students from discrimination and “viewpoint diversity” to prevent the establishment of ideological echo chambers. It also said that “academic rigor,” undermined by years of dissolving educational standards for political purposes, would guard against the reduction of complex social issues into the sloganeering of “scholar activism,” in which faculty turn the classroom into a soapbox and reward students who mimic them.
The new Trump administration has taken steps to convert this vision into policy since assuming power in January.
On Friday, it canceled $400 million in funding to Columbia University as punishment for the school’s alleged harboring of antisemitic faculty, students, and staff and shielding them from disciplinary sanctions. Prior to that, US President Donald Trump issued a highly anticipated executive order which calls for “using all appropriate legal tools to prosecute, remove, or otherwise … hold to account perpetrators of unlawful antisemitic harassment and violence.”
A major provision of the order authorizes the deportation of extremist “alien” student activists, whose support for terrorist organizations, intellectual and material, such as Hamas contributed to fostering antisemitism, violence, and property destruction on college campuses. That policy is currently being challenged in the courts, as a federal judge in Manhattan has halted its application to the case of a male alumnus of Columbia University who was arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after being identified as an architect of the Hamilton Hall building takeover, which took place during the closing weeks of the 2023-2024 academic year.
On Monday, US Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced that dozens of colleges and universities will be investigated for civil rights violations stemming from their alleged failure to address campus antisemitism. McMahon named 55 institutions, public and private, in total that were not included in the administration’s February announcement of five investigations of antisemitism at Columbia University, Northwestern University, Portland State University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
The new schools include: Harvard University, Swarthmore College, Drexel University, and Princeton University — all of which have struggled with antisemitic anti-Israel activity and pro-Hamas agitation, as The Algemeiner has previously reported.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Disney Curtails ‘Snow White’ Premiere Events Amid Scandals With ‘Free Palestine’ Supporter Rachel Zegler
Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot present the award for Best Visual Effects during the Oscars show at the 97th Academy Awards in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, US, March 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Disney has not invited media outlets to attend the Hollywood premiere of “Snow White” on Saturday and canceled the film’s premiere in the United Kingdom in a reported effort to manage controversies involving the movie’s lead actress Rachel Zegler, an outspoken pro-Palestinian activist.
Disney will host a pre-party and screening at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles on Saturday for the live-action remake of the beloved 1937 animated film, and guests will include the “Snow White” title star as well as Israeli actress Gal Gadot, who plays the Evil Queen. A number of media outlets are typically invited to premieres to interview talent on the red carpet. However, Disney is not allowing red carpet press at the LA premiere except for photographers and a house crew in order to avoid having Zegler and Gadot answer questions on the spot, Variety reported. Disney said they will instead have “a more celebratory, family-friendly afternoon event to match the tone and target audience for the film,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The film, directed by Marc Webb, will be released in theaters March 21.
Plans for a star-studded premiere in the UK have also been nixed, and Disney will instead host a “handful” of tightly controlled press events, a source told the Daily Mail. “Disney are already anticipating an anti-woke backlash against ‘Snow White’ and have reduced the media schedule to just a handful of tightly controlled press events,” the insider said. “That is why they have taken the highly unusual step not to host a London premiere for the film and are minimizing the amount of press questions that Rachel Zegler gets.”
Zegler, 23, has made a number of controversial remarks about her role in the film but also triggered a political media storm when she posted on social media in support of a “Free Palestine.” In August last year, three days after the trailer for the new “Snow White” film was released, the Golden Globe-winning actress took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to thank fans for their support of the film. Zegler wrote in part, “I love you all so much! thank you for the love.” In a separate post on X, she added: “And always remember, free palestine [sic].” Zegler was heavily criticized for the comment by many pro-Israel supporters, especially in light of the fact that Gadot, her lead co-star in “Snow White,” was born and raised in Israel, and is a former soldier in the Israel Defense Forces.
Gadot, who is the eighth generation in her family to be born in Israel, is an avid supporter of her home country, and has several times condemned on social media the Hamas terrorist attack that took place in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Earlier this month, the “Wonder Woman” star addressed hundreds at the Anti-Defamation League’s 2025 Never is Now Summit on Antisemitism and Hate, expressing pride in being Israeli and Jewish. She told the crowd: “My name is Gal … I am a mother, a wife, a sister, a daughter, an actress, I am an Israeli – and I am Jewish. Isn’t it crazy that just saying that, just expressing such a simple fact about who I am feels like a controversial statement? But sadly, this is where we’re at today.” She also declared on stage “Am Yisrael Chai (Long Live Israel).”
When Ziegler’s casting was first announced in 2021, some Disney fans took offense to the fact that the character of Snow White will being played by an actress of Colombian descent even though the character is meant to famously have skin “as white as snow.” Some also questioned the studio’s decision to have Snow White be played by Zegler after the “West Side Story” star called the 1937 original film “weird” and “dated,” and said the prince “literally stalks Snow White” in various interviews two years ago. Supporters of US President Donald Trump also criticized Zegler for her negative comments about his reelection. “May Trump supporters and Trump voters and Trump himself never know peace. There is a deep deep sickness in this country,” she wrote on Instagram at the time. She later apologized for her remarks.
Others took offense to the fact that the film’s title makes no mention of “seven dwarfs,” even though they are critical characters in the movie, while the original film was titled “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”
Famed actor Peter Dinklage accused Disney of promoting negative stereotypes with the film’s portrayal of little people. “Literally no offense to anything, but I was sort of taken aback,” the “Game of Thrones” star said in January 2024. “They were very proud to cast a Latino actress as Snow White, but you’re still telling the story of ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.’ Take a step back and look at what you’re doing there.”
Not long afterward, Disney clarified how it will handle Dinklage’s concerns in the new film. “To avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film, we are taking a different approach with these seven characters and have been consulting with members of the dwarfism community,” the studio said in a statement to “Good Morning America.” They will appear as CGI characters in the new film.
The post Disney Curtails ‘Snow White’ Premiere Events Amid Scandals With ‘Free Palestine’ Supporter Rachel Zegler first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Seeking to Normalize Ties With Lebanon in New Border Talks: Reports
Smoke billows after an Israeli Air Force air strike in southern Lebanon village, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, as seen from northern Israel, Oct. 3, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Jim Urquhar
Israel is seeking to normalize ties with Lebanon in upcoming talks that could potentially bring an end to decades of tensions and conflict, according to Israeli media reports.
Upcoming discussions between Beirut and Jerusalem to demarcate their countries’ shared border are part of “a broad and comprehensive plan,” with Israel aiming to establish formal diplomatic relations with Lebanon, unnamed sources told multiple Israeli news publications on Wednesday,
“The prime minister’s policy has already changed the Middle East, and we want to continue the momentum and reach normalization with Lebanon,” a political source told the Israeli news outlet Ynet. “We and the Americans think that this is possible after the changes that have occurred in Beirut.”
“Just as Lebanon has claims regarding borders, we also have claims and we will discuss these matters,” the source continued.
Israel’s Channel 12 reported similar quotes, as did the Times of Israel, the latter of which cited an unnamed official as saying that “the goal is to reach normalization.”
On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced that Israel and Lebanon will begin negotiations to resolve border disputes.
“During the meeting, it was agreed to establish three joint working groups aimed at stabilizing the region which will focus on the following issues: the five points over which Israel controls southern Lebanon, discussions on the Blue Line and points that remain in dispute, and the issue of Lebanese detainees held by Israel,” the statement read.
Following US and French mediation, Israel and Lebanon agreed to establish “working groups” to discuss the demarcation line between the two countries and keep the process on track. The groups would also address Israel’s ongoing presence at five strategic points in southern Lebanon, which borders northern Israel.
“Everyone involved remains committed to maintaining the ceasefire agreement and to fully implement all its terms,” US Deputy Presidential Special Envoy Morgan Ortagus said in a statement. “We look forward to quickly convening these diplomat-led working groups to resolve outstanding issues, along with our international partners.”
Despite a brief peace agreement in 1983 and past military and economic ties with Christian factions in Lebanon, Israel’s relations with Beirut have remained tense, with no formal diplomatic ties, an unstable border, and ongoing concerns about a major conflict.
A key reason for conflict has been the role of Hezbollah, an Iran-backed terrorist group that for years has wielded significant political and military influence in Lebanon, especially the country’s south. Hezbollah leaders have long stated their goal is to destroy Israel.
Since 2020, as part of the Abraham Accords — a series of historic US-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab countries — Jerusalem has expanded defense and economic cooperation with the United Arab Emirates, Sudan, Bahrain, and Morocco. Israel also has long-standing peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan.
On Wednesday, the editor of the Hezbollah-affiliated news outlet Al-Akhbar said that Israel is trying to disarm Hezbollah by force, arguing that this”“will lead to civil war” and “devastating results.”
“Opening the door to negotiations under these conditions means that there are those in Lebanon who do not read history and who do not know the risks inherent in such a step,” editor-in-chief Ibrahim al-Amin said. “Those responsible must understand that they bear responsibility for everything that results from this process of normalizing relations, and there will be devastating results.”
He also accused Israel of kidnapping Lebanese prisoners from their villages and forcibly occupying Lebanese territory.
“There are no security or military considerations that justify their continued occupation, other than to exert pressure on the residents of the border villages to prevent their return to their villages and to prevent the rehabilitation process,” Amin said.
According to local media reports, a total of 11 Lebanese nationals are currently being held by Israel. In a post on X, the Lebanese president’s office announced that Beirut had already received four Lebanese “hostages” from Israel, with a fifth to be handed over on Wednesday.
In November, Lebanon and Israel reached a US-brokered ceasefire agreement that ended a year of fighting between the Jewish state and Hezbollah. Under the agreement, Israel was given 60 days to withdraw from Beirut’s southern border, allowing the Lebanese army and UN forces to take over security as Hezbollah disarms and moves away from Israel’s northern border.
However, Israel announced last month that it would keep troops in five locations in southern Lebanon past a Feb. 18 ceasefire deadline for their withdrawal, as Israeli leaders sought to reassure northern residents that they can return home safely.
Tens of thousands of residents in northern Israel were forced to evacuate their homes last year and in late 2023 amid unrelenting barrages of rockets, missiles, and drones from Hezbollah, which expressed solidarity with Hamas amid the Gaza war.
Last fall, Israel decimated much of Hezbollah’s leadership and military capabilities with an air and ground offensive, which ended with the ceasefire.
The post Israel Seeking to Normalize Ties With Lebanon in New Border Talks: Reports first appeared on Algemeiner.com.