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Swiss Museum Compensates Jewish Heirs of Nazi Looted Painting for Pissarro Artwork

A partial view of Camille Pissarro’s “La Maison Rondest, l’Hermitage, Pontoise” (1875). Photo: Provided by the Kunstmuseum Basel

A museum in Basel, Switzerland, said on Thursday it will compensate the heirs of the late German-Jewish textile entrepreneur Richard Semmel for a Camille Pissarro painting he was forced to sell due to Nazi persecution.

Kunstmuseum Basel said that, together with Semmel’s heirs, they decided upon the compensation payment as a “just and fair solution” regarding Pissarro’s “La Maison Rondest, l’Hermitage, Pontoise” (1875). The painting will remain a part of the museum’s permanent collection in its main building and will be displayed alongside a sign that explains the origins and history of the artwork. The exact amount of the compensation payment was not revealed.

“The Kunstmuseum is delighted to be able to retain the work in its collection and the heirs are satisfied with the solution,” the museum stated in a press release.

The Pissarro artwork was donated to the museum in early 2021. It was part of the collection of the late Dr. Klaus von Berlepsch and was set to appear as a loan in an exhibition at the museum about the famed artist. However, even before the exhibition opened, von Berlepsch decided to donate the work to the Kunstmuseum Basel. The museum and von Berlepsch were both unaware of the painting’s provenance at the time of the donation. The Swiss institution researched the painting’s provenance only after it joined the museum’s collection and “prior ownership by the Jewish entrepreneur Richard Semmel was quickly revealed,” the museum said.

Semmel owned a Berlin-based linens manufacturing company called Arthur Samulon, which he led as sole shareholder starting in 1919. In June 1933, Semmel he and his wife emigrated to the Netherlands, which was not yet under Nazi occupation. The couple had no children. Semmel himself said that he left Germany not only due to “racial” persecution by the Nazis, but also because he was accused of having ties to the Social Democratic party.

He managed to transport a large portion of his art collection of more than 100 works to the Netherlands and the Pissarro painting was sold at auction in Amsterdam in June 1933. In October of that same year, it was displayed at a gallery in Basel, where it was quickly sold to the collector Walther Hanhart. Around 1974, Hanhart passed the painting on to his daughter, who was married to von Berlepsch.

Proceeds from the sale of his art were used by Semmel to mitigate financial difficulties his linens company faced in Berlin and was also spent on salaries, debt repayments, and taxes. The Kunstmuseum Basel explained that the National Socialist Factory Cell Organization, which was a worker’s union controlled by the Nazi Party, ordered that despite a decrease in orders from Semmel’s company, no employees could be dismissed, so Semmel was forced to continue paying them and keeping the business afloat from abroad.

“From the point of view of Semmel’s heirs, the sales [of his art] were a direct consequence of Richard Semmel’s persecution, regardless of where they took place, and thus represent a loss of assets due to Nazi persecution,” according to the Kunstmuseum Basel. “Richard Semmel could not remain in Germany or could do so only at great risk to his life. He used the proceeds from the sale of his paintings to try to keep the linens business in Berlin operational. The art sale proceeds therefore flowed into the German Reich.”

“Semmel thus fought for economic control of his companies in Germany while on the run and outside the Nazis’ immediate sphere of influence, albeit in vain and most likely with no chance of success to begin with. For this reason, the Kunstmuseum and the Kunstkommission [Art Commission] agree that the heirs’ claim to the work is justified.”

In June 1939, Semmel and his wife fled again but this time to New York via Chile. They lived in the US in poverty and with poor health. After his wife’s death in 1945, Semmel was taken care of by an acquaintance from Berlin, Grete Gross née Eisenstaedt (1887-1958). As thanks, he appointed her as his sole heir. When she died in 1958, her daughter Ilse Kauffmann became Semmel’s heir. Kauffmann is now deceased and her two daughters will receive the compensation payment from the Kunstmuseum Basel.

The Swiss institution said several museums  have also determined that Semmel was forced to sell his art collection due to Nazi persecution. Some have restituted arworks to Semmel’s heirs — such as The National Gallery of Victoria, in Melbourne, Australia — and others have paid his heirs compensation for the artwork, including a Dutch museum in 2021. Kunstmuseum said that privately, there have been “numerous” out-of-court settlements with Semmel’s heirs about artwork that he formerly owned.

In 2022, a landscape painting by Claude Monet was auctioned by Christie’s for $25.5 million and portions of the sale were divided between Semmel’s heirs and a French family who are the painting’s current owners.

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Kosher Restaurant in Madrid Targeted in Arson Attempt

People demonstrate in the city of Santander, Spain, under the motto ‘Let’s stop the genocide in Gaza,’ on Jan. 20, 2024. Photo: Joaquin Gomez Sastre/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect

A kosher restaurant in central Madrid was targeted in an attempted arson attack, prompting a police investigation, as Spain continues to face a rise in antisemitic incidents since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in 2023.

On Tuesday night, an unknown individual entered the Rimmon Kosher restaurant in the Spanish capital and “sprayed a liquid with a strong gasoline smell on the entrance, intending to set fire and burn down the premises,” according to a joint statement from the Jewish Community of Madrid (CJM) and the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain (FCJE).

Before the police arrived, the attacker fled the scene. However, the restaurant staff’s quick response prevented the fire from being lit.

In a press release on Wednesday, CJM and FCJE condemned the foiled attack as “an antisemitic act aimed at causing harm, targeting public spaces frequented by the Jewish community, and terrorizing its members.”

“This is an act driven by hatred, with a vile and brutal intent, that threatens coexistence, freedom, and tolerance — values that have always defined the citizens of Madrid,” the statement continued.

As of now, a police investigation is underway, with authorities focused on tracking down the perpetrator and determining the motive behind their actions.

“We hope the perpetrator’s identity will be determined soon and that this person will be arrested quickly,” CJM and FCJE addedt. “In the meantime, we are ready to cooperate with the authorities and the restaurant owners in any way needed.”

The Israeli Embassy in Spain also condemned Tuesday’s attack on the kosher restaurant, near the main synagogue, and expressed full support for the staff, owners, and customers of the establishment, as well as solidarity with the Jewish community of Madrid.

“We are facing yet another case that shows how hate-inciting rhetoric leads to violence,” the embassy posted on X/Twitter. “We fully trust that the authorities will act decisively to prevent violent and antisemitic incidents from recurring in Spain.”

Since Hamas started the Gaza war with its invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Spain has been a fierce critic of the Jewish state.

In the aftermath of the Oct. 7 atrocities, Spain halted arms shipments from its own defense companies to Israel and launched a diplomatic campaign to curb the country’s military response. At the same time, several Spanish ministers in the country’s left-wing coalition government issued pro-Hamas statements and called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, with some falsely accusing Israel of “genocide.”

More recently, Spanish officials said they would not allow ships carrying arms for Israel to stop at its ports. In response, the US Federal Maritime Commission opened an investigation into whether Spain, a NATO ally, has been denying port entry to cargo vessels reportedly transporting US weapons to Jerusalem.

Additionally, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez urged other members of the European Union to suspend the bloc’s free trade agreement with Israel over its military campaigns against Hamas in Gaza and the terrorist organization Hezbollah in Lebanon.

In May, Spain officially recognized a Palestinian state, claiming the move was accelerated by the Israel-Hamas war and would help foster a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israeli officials described the decision as a “reward for terrorism.”

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‘Failure’: Larry Summers Slams Harvard University’s Response to Campus Antisemitism

Demonstrators take part in an “Emergency Rally: Stand With Palestinians Under Siege in Gaza,” amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, Oct. 14, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder

Former Harvard University president Larry Summers said on Monday that the administration’s response to campus antisemitism remains unsatisfactory, echoing the concerns of Jewish civil rights activists who continue to demand progress from the Ivy League institution.

“Harvard continues its failure to effectively address antisemitism,” Summers posted on the X/Twitter social media platform. “Despite [current Harvard president Alan Garber’s] clear and strong personal moral commitment, he has lacked the will and/or leverage to effect the necessary large-scale change, and the Corporation has been ineffectual.”

The Harvard Corporation is the university’s highest governing body.

Summers went on to list several outrages to which Harvard has subjected its Jewish and pro-Israel students and faculty during this academic year — including the Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES) holding a panel on Israel’s military actions against terrorist groups in Lebanon in which antisemitic tropes were promoted, Dean Marla Frederick’s denouncing Israel’s founding as the nakba, and the university’s antisemitism task force keeping a professor who has downplayed the severity of Jew-hatred on campus as one of its members.

Summers noted as well that Harvard’s antisemitism task force, which a US federal lawmaker accused of being a farce contrived to manipulate the public’s opinion of the university, has not yet issued a final report containing its findings or recommendations for new policies for dealing with the issue despite having convened over a year ago.

“It is by the way shocking, and I think outrageous, that months after Harvard’s abject failures after Oct. 7, the task force hasn’t even reached a conclusion,” Summers continued. “Nor is there yet a basis for confidence that disruptions will be met with disciplinary consequences, especially in a number of professional schools that are redoubts of the far left.”

Summers’ statements come amid a challenging moment in the history of Harvard University, America’s oldest and arguably most prestigous institution of higher education. Since Hamas’s invasion of Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Harvard has seen its law school student government issue a resolution which falsely accused Israel of genocide; its students quote terrorists during an “Apartheid Week” event held in April; and dozens of its students and faculty participated in an illegal pro-Hamas encampment attended by members of a group that had shared an antisemitic cartoon. Additionally, many Harvard students openly cheered Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities, which included sexual assault and child abduction, and a mob led by the president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review followed, surrounded, and intimidated a Jewish student, screaming “Shame! Shame! Shame!” into his ears.

After these incidents and more, Harvard fought tooth and nail to discredit lawsuits which alleged that its response to campus antisemitism amounted to the enabling of discriminatory behavior which violates federal civil rights law. Harvard eventually settled multiple complaints out of court, but at least one plaintiff, Harvard alumnus Shabbos Kestenbaum, refused to be a party to the agreements, arguing that they allowed the university to evade accountability for its alleged inaction.

Summers and Kestenbaum aren’t Harvard’s only critics in the Jewish community. On Monday, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) issued a “Campus Report Card” in which Harvard’s antisemitism policies were given a “C” grade. ADL chief executive officer Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement accompanying the report that every school assessed by the organization should have received an “A.”

“I said it last year, and I’ll say it again: every single campus should get an ‘A.’ This isn’t a high bar — this should be standard,” Greenblatt explained. “While many campuses have improved in ways that are encouraging and commendable, Jewish students still do not feel safe or included on too many campuses. The progress we’ve seen is evidence that change is possible — all university leaders should focus on addressing these very real challenges with real action.”

US President Donald Trump’s administration has vowed to crack down on campus antisemitism and pro-Hamas activity across the US.

In January, he issued a highly anticipated executive order aimed at combating campus antisemitism and holding pro-terror extremists accountable for the harassment of Jewish students, fulfilling a promise he made while campaigning for a second term in office.

Continuing work started during his first administration — when Trump issued Executive Order 13899 to ensure that civil rights law apply equally Jews — the “Additional Measures to Combat Antisemitism” calls for “using all appropriate legal tools to prosecute, remove, or otherwise … hold to account perpetrators of unlawful antisemitic harassment and violence.” The order also requires each government agency to write a report explaining how it can be of help in carrying out its enforcement.

Additionally, it initiates a full review of the explosion of campus antisemitism on US colleges across the country after Oct. 7, 2023, a convulsive moment in American history to which the previous presidential administration struggled to respond during the final year and a half of its tenure.

On Tuesday, Trump vowed to suspend federal funding to any educational institution that refuses to quell riotous demonstrations, a punitive measure which would fulfill his administration’s pledge to crack down on campus antisemitism and the pro-Hamas activists fostering it.

“All federal funding will stop for any college, school, or university that allows illegal protests,” Trump said in a statement posted on Truth Social, the social media platform he founded in 2022. “Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime, arrested.”

He continued, “No masks! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

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Second Australian Nurse Charged Over Viral Video Threatening to Kill Israeli Patients

Members of the Jewish community and supporters gather for a protest rally against rising antisemitism at Martin Place in Sydney, Jan. 21, 2025. Photo: AAP Image/Steven Saphore via Reuters Connect

An Australian nurse working in a Sydney hospital has been arrested and charged after a viral video captured him making threats, stating he would refuse to treat Israeli patients and instead kill them.

This latest legal step comes as law enforcement works to combat a surge in antisemitic incidents across Australia, which the country’s spy chief has called his agency’s top priority.

After the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, several Jewish sites in Australia have been relentlessly targeted with vandalism and even arson, especially in the past few months. In response, a New South Wales (NSW) police task force, Strike Force Pearl, was established to address the wave of hate crimes and rising antisemitism.

On Tuesday night, 27-year-old Ahmed Rashid Nadir was arrested and charged with federal offenses, including using a carriage service to menace, harass, or cause offense, as well as possession of a prohibited drug, NSW Police said in a statement.

The arrest follows an incident at Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital in Sydney, in which Nadir and his fellow nurse, Sarah Abu Lebdeh, were seen in an online video posing as doctors and making inflammatory statements during a night-shift discussion with Israeli influencer Max Veifer.

The footage, which circulated widely, showed Lebdeh stating she would refuse to treat an Israeli patient and instead kill them, while Nadir used a throat-slitting gesture and claimed to have already killed many.

“It’s Palestine’s country, not your country, you piece of s—t,” Lebdeh told Veifer.

“One day your time will come, and you will die the most disgusting death,” she added in a sentence riddled with obscenities.

Last week, 26-year-old Lebdeh was arrested and charged with similar federal offenses, including threatening violence against a group and using a carriage service to threaten, menace, and harass, with a conviction potentially leading to up to 22 years in prison.

After reviewing patient records, the hospital found no evidence that Lebdeh or Nadir had harmed patients.

NSW’s Health Minister Ryan Park confirmed that both nurses had been suspended and would be permanently barred from employment within the state’s health system.

According to the NSW Police statement, both Lebdeh and Nadir were released on bail and are set to appear in court on March 19. Lebdeh has been prohibited from leaving Australia and using social media while her case proceeds.

The incident is one of the latest in a surge of antisemitic acts across Australia since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza in October 2023, with Jewish institutions targeted in arson attacks and businesses defaced.

Law enforcement in Sydney and Melbourne, home to the majority of Australia’s Jewish population, is actively investigating hate crimes, including the recent discovery of a trailer containing explosives and a list of potential Jewish targets.

Since the formation of Strike Force Pearl, the task force to combat antisemitism, in December, NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb reported that 15 people have been arrested, and 78 charges have been filed.

“I must commend the work Strike Force Pearl detectives are doing to investigate, charge, and put these individuals before the courts,” Webb said in a statement. “There is a tremendous amount of dedication and hard work going into all these investigations.”

Last month, dozens of Australia’s leading Muslim groups and individuals defended the two nurses, accusing their critics of “hypocrisy” and “double standards and moral manipulation” in an open letter.

“This statement is not about defending inappropriate remarks. It is about pushing back against the double standards and moral manipulation at play while the mass killing of our brothers and sisters in Gaza is met with silence, dismissal, or complicity,” the letter said.

In response to the ongoing spike in antisemitism, Australia passed a new slate of hate crime laws last month which would, among other measures, imprison those who make terror threats or perform Nazi salutes.

In a Senate committee hearing last week, Mike Burgess, the director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO), the country’s domestic intelligence agency, said that antisemitism is now the agency’s top priority.

“In terms of threats to life, [antisemitism is] my agency’s number one priority because of the weight of incidents we’re seeing play out in this country,” Burgess told the Senate. “Antisemitism and significant antisemitism acts are prominent in our investigation caseload at this point in time.”

In a recent 2025 threat assessment declassified by ASIO, Burgess warned that the surge in antisemitic attacks across Australia could escalate, as extremists are increasingly self-radicalizing and “choose their own adventure” toward potential terrorist activity.

“Threats transitioned from harassment and intimidation to specific targeting of Jewish communities, places of worship, and prominent figures,” he said. “I am concerned these attacks have not yet plateaued.”

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