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The JTA conversation: Pogrom? Terrorism? What do we call what happened in Huwara?
(JTA) — On Sunday, after a Palestinian gunman shot and killed two Israeli brothers in the West Bank, Jewish settlers rioted in the nearby Palestinian town of Huwara, burning cars and buildings. A Palestinian was killed and dozens were injured.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the Jewish rioters for “taking the law in their own hands,” but many observers — including the top Israeli general in the West Bank and Abraham Foxman, director emeritus of the the Anti-Defamation League — used stronger language, calling the attacks a “pogrom.”
The use of the word, which most famously refers to a wave of anti-Jewish violence in the Russian empire beginning in the late 19th century, in turn became the subject of debate. Does using “pogrom” co-opt Jewish history unfairly and inaccurately by suggesting Jews are no better than their historical persecutors? Does avoiding the term mean Israel and its supporters are not taking sufficient responsibility for the actions of its Jewish citizens?
The debate is not just about language, but about controlling the narrative. Political speech can minimize or exaggerate events, put them in their proper context or distort them in ways that, per George Orwell, can “corrupt thought.”
We asked historians, linguists and activists to consider the word pogrom, and asked them what politicians, journalists and everyday people should call what happened at Huwara. Their responses are below.
Sidestepping the real issue
Dr. Jeffrey Shandler
Distinguished Professor, Department of Jewish Studies, Rutgers University
The meanings of the word “pogrom” in different languages are key here. In Russian, it means a massacre or raid, as it does in Yiddish; in neither language is it understood as specifically about violence against Jews. The Oxford English Dictionary concurs that pogrom means an “organized massacre… of any body or class,” but notes that, in the English-language press, it was first used mostly to refer to anti-Jewish attacks in Russia, citing examples from 1905-1906.
Therefore, though the association of pogrom with violence targeting Jews is widely familiar, its meaning is broader.
That said, because of English speakers’ widely familiar association of the term with Jews as victims, to use pogrom to describe violence perpetrated by Jews is provocative. As to whether it is appropriate to refer to recent attacks by Jewish settlers on Palestinians, it seems to me that this question sidesteps the more important question of whether the actions being called pogroms are appropriate.
Call it what it is: “settler terrorism”
Sara Yael Hirschhorn
’22-’23 Research Fellow at the Center for Antisemitism Research at the ADL, and author, “City on a Hilltop: American Jews and the Israeli Settler Movement”
Let me say first with a loud and clear conscience: What happened in Huwara was abhorrent, immoral, and unconscionable and certainly was not committed in my name.
But to paraphrase Raymond Carver’s famous formulation: How do we talk about it when we talk about Huwara? What kind of descriptive and analytical framework can adequately and contextually interpret that horrific event?
The shorthand of choice seems to be “pogrom” — but it isn’t clear that all who deploy the term are signifying the same thing. For some, pogrom is a synonym for pillage, rampage, fire, property damage and violence in the streets — a one-word general summary of brutal acts. For others, pogrom refers to vigilante justice, an abbreviated story of the non-state or non-institutional actors and their motivations.
More specifically, however, pogrom is seemingly being mobilized as a metaphor to Jewish history, juxtaposing the Jewish victims of yesterday to the Jewish-Israeli perpetrators of today, an implicit analogy to the prelude to the Shoah, recasting Zionists as organized bands of genocidaires (with or without regime sponsorship) like the Cossacks, the Nationalist Fronts or even the Einsatzgruppen. Some would use the word to incorporate all three meanings (and more).
As a historian, I am troubled by the haphazard and harmful use of terms that are attached to a specific time and place — such as the thousand-year history of Jews in the Rhinelands and Eastern Europe, with many layers of imperial, national, local, economic and religious forces that precipitated these events — in such an ahistorical manner. Nor do I find the parallels between Zionists and Nazis to be historically careful (if deliberately offensive) — the State of Israel is committing crimes in the West Bank, but not a genocide. The equivalence also all too easily and incorrectly grafts tropes of racism and white supremacy drawn from American history into the West Bank’s soil.
So what to say about Huwara? Israel — for reasons both political and lexiconographical — has failed to consistently adopt a term for such attacks. (Often the euphemism of “errant weeds” who are “taking matters into their own hands” is the choice of Knesset politicians.) To my mind, the best term is “settler terrorism,” which puts Jewish-Israeli acts on par with Palestinian terrorism. It should also mean that these actions merit the same consequences under the occupation like trial, imprisonment, home demolition and other deterrents enforced against all those who choose the path of violence.
Last but not least, a pogrom was historically an unpunished crime against humanity that led only to war and annihilation. Don’t we aspire for more in Israel/Palestine?
Palestinians call it “ethnic cleansing”
Ibrahim Eid Dalalsha
Director, Horizon Center for Political Studies and Media Outreach, Ramallah, and member of Israel Policy Forum’s Critical Neighbors task force
Palestinians generally view and describe what happened during Sunday’s Huwara attacks as “racist hate crimes seeking to destroy and dispossess the Palestinian people of their homes and properties.” While no specific term has been used to describe these attacks, it was likened to the barbaric and savage invasion of Baghdad by Hulagu, the 13th-century Mongol commander.
Palestinian intellectuals tend to use “ethnic cleansing,” savage and barbaric ethnically motivated violence against innocent civilians, as another way of referring to these attacks. When such events include killing, Palestinian politicians and intellectuals tend to use the term massacre, or “majzara,” to underline the irrational and indiscriminate violence against defenseless civilians. I don’t think the term “pogrom” and its historic connotation are widely known to most people here. From a Palestinian perspective, using such terms, including “Holocaust,” is not considered a mistake. In fact, even using “Holocaust“ to describe violence against Palestinian civilians in and around 1948 was not considered a mistake until very recently when it caused such a saga for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Germany.
View of cars burned by Jewish settlers during riots in Huwara, in the West Bank, near Nablus, Feb. 27, 2023. (Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90)
In the name of historical accuracy
Rukhl Schaechter
Yiddish Editor, The Forward
The recent attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians in Huwara are abhorrent. I commend those in Israel calling them peulot teror, “actions of terror,” and I trust that the perpetrators will be brought to justice. But these riots were not pogroms.
The word pogrom refers to one of the many violent riots and subsequent massacres of Jews in Eastern Europe between the 17th and 20th centuries. These attacks were committed by local non-Jewish, often peasant populations. They were instigated by rabble-rousers like Bogdan Chmielnicki, who led a Cossack and peasant uprising against Polish rule in Ukraine in 1648 and ended up destroying hundreds of Jewish communities. According to eyewitnesses, the attackers also committed atrocities on pregnant women.
Note that the massacres of Jews carried out by the Nazis, and the murders of Armenians by the Turkish government at the turn of the 20th century — as horrific as they were — were never called pogroms because in both cases, there was a government behind it. In the name of historic accuracy, let’s continue to use the word pogrom solely for mob attacks on and massacres of Jews.
When the Poles banned “pogrom”
Samuel D. Kassow
Professor of History, Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut
In Poland in the late 1930s, altercations between a Jew and a Pole sometimes ended with either the Jew or the Pole getting badly hurt or even killed. When the victim was a Pole, mobs of Poles rampaged through Jewish neighborhoods smashing windows, looting shops and often beating or even killing Jews. Poles often held Jews collectively responsible for the death of one of their own. This happened in Przytyk, Minsk-Mazowieck, Grodno and other places. Jews called these riots “pogroms,” which they were. But the Polish government banned use of the term in the press. After all, “pogrom” was a Russian word, and “pogroms” happened only in a place characterized by barbarism and ignorance. Since Poland was not Russia, and since Poles were eminently civilized, logically speaking, pogroms simply did not take place in Poland. What happened in these towns were to be called “excesses” (zajscia). But certainly not pogroms!
I take it that since we Jews are so civilized, we too are incapable of pogroms. So should we label what these settlers did “‘excesses”? Or perhaps we should take a deep breath and call them pogroms?
A Jewish, but not exclusive, history
Henry Abramson
Historian
The word “pogrom” is rooted in time and place, although the type of violence it describes is as old as human history. It is a Russian word, but it entered the English language in the late 19th century through the medium of Yiddish-speakers, outraged at the wave of antisemitic disturbances that surged under rule of the last tsar of the Russian Empire, Nicholas II. Russians themselves used a variety of words for the ugly phenomenon, with translations like “riot” or “persecution,” but the term “pogrom” proved the most evocative: the Slavic prefix “po” suggests a directed attack, and the root “grom” is the word for “thunder.” A pogrom, therefore, meant a focused point where a great deal of energy was dissipated in a single dramatic act of violence.
The focused point, in the context of that dark history, was the civilian Jewish population in the tiny shtetls that dotted the Pale of Settlement. In this regard the word could be used to encompass attacks on Jewish populations from as long ago as the year 38 in Alexandria, Egypt. It does not, however, have any specific designation to indicate that Jews are the victims.
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Jewish cuisine in Warsaw, 1938
ס׳איז לעצטנס אַרויס אַ העברעיִשע איבערזעצונג פֿון בני מערס בוך וועגן דעם פֿאַר־מלמהדיקן ייִדישן כאַראַקטער פֿון סמאָטשע־גאַס אין וואַרשע. דאָס נײַע בוך, „מורה דרך: ורשה היהודית 1938“, דינט ווי אַ מין וועגווײַזער פֿאַר ישׂראלדיקע לייענער פֿון יענעם באַרימטן ייִדישן קוואַרטאַל, באַטאָנענדיק זײַנע באַזונדערע מנהגים, מאכלים, לשון, ליטעראַטור, קולטור און רעליגיע. קיין שום פּרט אין בוך איז נישט אויסגעטראַכט – אַ חוץ דעם וואָס דער וועגווײַזער אַליין איז געשריבן געוואָרן הײַנט, און נישט אין 1938. אָט איז אַ טייל פֿון דעם קאַפּיטל וועגן דער ייִדישער קיך אין וואַרשע.
אינעם ייִדישן קוואַרטאַל פֿון וואַרשע געפֿינען זיך נישט קיין באַזונדערע מאכלים. די ייִדן וואָס זײַנען אַהין געקומען האָבן מיטגעבראַכט זייערע אייגענע שפּײַזן, און דערפֿאַר קאָן מען דאָ עסן אַלץ, הכּל-בכּל. נישט אומזיסט האָבן מיר אַ שם פֿון „וואַרשעווער פֿרעסערס“, און אויך איר, טײַערע געסט, וועט נישט אַרויס חלילה הונגעריקע.
טרינקען טרינקט מען דאָ קודם-כּל די בײַערישע ביר „האָבערבוש און שילע“ (וואָס ווערט פּראָדוצירט נישט ווײַט פֿון דער „גמינע“ — דאָס קהילה-הויז — אויף גזשיבאָווסקע גאַס), און דערצו טרינקט מען פֿאַרשיידענע וואָדקעס און ספּירט. לשם מצוות-אכילה עסט מען דערבײַ הערינג מיט ציבעלע, האַרטע אייער, אייער-קיכלעך (זיסע אָדער געזאַלצענע), וואַסער-פּלעצלעך, געפֿעפֿערטע אַרבעס (געלע) און אַ שטיקל פּינטאָשוו קעז. אין די קאָנדיטערײַען און קאַפֿעען גיט מען קרעם-, שאָקאָלאַדע- און עפּל-טשאַסטקעס (קוכנס), ווי אויך לעקעך.
אונדזער קיך האָט אַ שם געמאַכט מיט אירע שבתדיקע און יום-טובֿדיקע דעליקאַטעסן. אויפֿן וואַרשעווער שבתדיקן טיש וועט איר געפֿינען יויך, גענדז אָדער בעפֿשטיק, געפֿילטע פֿיש (כאָטש מיר האָבן ליב אויך ליטוואַקעס, דאָ זײַנען זיי צימעס זיס). שבת אין דער פֿרי עסט מען טשאָלנט (ד״ה טשונט, אויף אונדזער לשון), קישקע און פֿאַרשיידענע קוגלען און קאָמפּאָטן.
יעדן יום-טובֿ האָט זײַנע אייגענע מאכלים. פּורים, למשל, עסט מען יויך מיט קרעפּלעך, געפֿילטע פֿיש, אייער-חלה, קיכלעך פֿון האָניק און צימרינג, מאַנדלען-קיכלעך, המן־טאַשן, אונגערישן ווײַן און מעד. פּסח עסט מען זיסע מצה-מעל-קיכלעך געטונקען אין ווײַן.
פֿײַנשמעקערס וועלן דאָ אויך געפֿינען די פֿראַנצויזישע קיך מיט אַ ייִדישן טעם. אין אונדזער רעפּרעזענטאַטיווסטן קרוין־רעסטאָראַן, „פּיקאַדילי“, וואָס געפֿינט זיך אויף ביעלאַנסקע 5 (טעל׳ 23-116), לעבן טעאַטער נאָוואָשטשי, דערלאַנגט מען אַ גענדזענעם לעבער, געפֿילטע פּאָמידאָרן, געגליווערטן קאַרפּ, שוואַרצן און רויטן קאַוויאַר (פֿון דרײַ זלאָטעס אַ מיטאָג). אין די מער פּאָפּולערע רעסטאָראַנען (ווי די פֿון י’ עלקענבוים אויף סמאָטשע 27, טעל׳ 77-162) באַקומט איר פֿיש מיט קליסקעלעך, וועמפּלעך מיט קישקע, קרופּניק מיט פֿלייש, קאָטלעטן, זופּן, קלאָפּסקאַלעך מיט פֿערפֿל — און אַלץ פֿאַר איין זלאָטע, מער אָדער ווייניקער. אויך די רעסטאָראַנען „יאַגאָדע“ (טווואַרדע 26, טעל׳ 34-205), „A la minute“, אויף דער שוויינטאָקזשיסקע־גאַס 43 43-341), יעקבֿ אַרבעס, נאַלעווקעס 9 – וועט אײַך גאָרנישט שאַטן.
שפּאָרעוודיקע טוריסטן וועלן הנאה האָבן פֿון פֿאַרשיידענע מיטאָגן וואָס ווערן פֿאַרקויפֿט אין פּריוואַטע דירות. געוויינטלעך וועט איר נישט זען קיין שום שילד; די אינפֿאָרמאַציע געפֿינט זיך אין דער צײַטונג „אונזער עקספּרעס“ אָדער אין די מעלדונגען וואָס ווערן געטיילט צו די פֿאַרבײַגייערס. למשל: אַ מיטאָג פֿון פֿיר שפּײַזן מיט קאָמפּאָט קאָסט דאָ נאָר זיבעציק גראָשן (זאַמענהאָף 26, וו. 11).
די וואַרשעווער אָרעמעלייט עסן נעבעך הערינג, אָדער אַפֿילו שילאַווקעס — פּיצלדיקע גערויכערטע פֿיש. שילאַווקעס קאָסטן אַ פּאָר גראָשן, און מע פֿאַרקויפט זיי אין די הויפֿן (זומערצײַט פֿאַרקויפֿט מען אין די הויפֿן אויך פֿרוכטן און גרינס — בפֿרט אַרבוז און אוגערקעס). אויב איר בלײַבט נאָך הונגעריק מחמת חסרון-כּיס, קאָנט איר עסן „שיריים“ אין איינער פֿון די 400 וואַרשעווער שולן און בתּי-מדרשים.
אויך וועגעטאַריער האָבן דאָ וואָס צו עסן. אין „יענע גאַסן“, די גויִשע וואַרשע, זײַנען פֿאַראַן צוויי וועגעטאַרישע רעסטאָראַנען, אָבער אין דער אמתן זײַנען מיר גיכער מקנא די ייִדישע וועגעטאַרישע רעסטאָראַנען אין לאָדזש און ווילנע („וועגאַ“ און פֿאַני לעוואַנדאָס רעסטאָראַן).
ווי עס איז, וועט איר זען און הערן די בייגעלעך־הענדלערס: ייִנגלעך און מיידלעך, און אַמאָל אויך זייערע מאַמעס און טאַטעס וואָס האָבן נישט קיין אַנדערע ברירה ווי אַרויסצוגיין טאָג און נאַכט אין די גאַסן און פֿאַרקויפֿן צוויי ביז פֿינף בייגעלעך פֿאַר צען גראָשן. זײַט אַזוי גוט און קויפֿט-זשע בייגעלעך, איידער די פּאָליציי וועט קאָנפֿיסקירן זייערע סחורה. אין די קריזיס-יאָרן האָבן אַ סך סוחרים באַנקראָטירט, און זייערע קראָמען זײַנען פֿאַרוואַנדלט געוואָרן אין געשעפֿטן פֿון סאָדע-וואַסער אָדער לאָדעס — קויפֿט זשע אויך פֿון זיי.
די וואַרשעווער ייִדן האָבן ליב צו טרינקן טיי – בפֿרט מיט קאַנדל-צוקער און ציטרין, און אַ טיי פֿון אַ גרויסן סאַמאָוואַר איז ממש אַן עונג-שבת. נישט ווייניקער האָבן מיר ליב צו טרינקען קאַווע און זיצן אין קאַפֿעען. „לעצטנס האָט זיך דער מנהג צו גיין אין קאַוויאַרניעס איבערהויפּט פֿאַרשפּרייט אויך בײַ פּוילישע ייִדן,“ שרײַבט ד״ר א. גליקסמאַן, „און פֿיל אַזעלכע ייִדן, וואָס פֿלעגן אין אַמאָליקע צײַטן גיין בטלען אין בית-מדרש — בטלען איצט אין קאַוויאַרניע אויף אַ ציוויליזירטן אופֿן.“(„היינטיגע נייעס“, 13.1.1936).
די קאַוויאַרניעס פֿון דער גוייִשער וואַרשע זײַנען שיין און עלעגאַנט ווי אין אַנדערע גרויסע שטעט אין אייראָפּע. זיי זײַנען קלאַסישע אָדער מאָדערנע, און אויך די קליענטן זײַנען שיינע און עלעגאַנטע. איין חסרון נאָר: זיי האָבן נישט אַזוי ליב אַז מע רעדט ייִדיש, און בפֿרט אויף אַ קול. איז וואָס? איר האָט דאָך צענדליקער ייִדישע קאַפֿעען, ווי למשל די דרײַ קאַפֿע-קאָנדיטאָרײַען פֿון די ברידער סטודניאַ; די קאָנדיטערײַ בומאָוויטש (רינקאָווע 11, טעל׳ 66-405), אָדער פֿלידערבוים (טוואַרדע 26). זיי זײַנען אפֿשר נישט אַזוי פּרעכטיק ווי „אַדריִאַ“ אָדער „בריסטאָל“, אָבער איר וועט זיך דאָרטן פֿילן אין דער היים. ווי זאָגט מען: „וואָס דאַרפֿסטו ריידן גויִיש, מע זאָל זען אַז דו ביסט אַ ייִד?“ אין אונדזערע קאַפֿעען דערלאַנגט מען נישט נאָר פֿריש געבעקס, נאָר אויך לײַכטע מאכלים, ווי למשל הערינג אין אַ זעמעלע פּוטער.
דאָס ייִדישע וואַרשע בענקט אַ ביסל נאָך די אַמאָליקע ליטעראַרישע קאַפֿעען, ווי למשל יחזקאל קאָטיקס קאַוויאַרניע אויף די נאַלעווקעס, וואָס שלום עליכם האָט פֿאַראייביקט אין זײַן „מנחם-מענדל“. אָבער אויך הײַנט צו טאָג האָבן מיר אַ ליטעראַרישן אָלימפּוס: דאָס איז דער בופֿעט בײַ דעם ליטעראַרישן פֿאַראיין, אויף טלאָמאַצקע 13. און וואָס איז שלעכט מיט טרינקען סתּם אַ קאַווע אין רובענטשיק-קאַפֿע, וואָס געפֿינט זיך אין מיטן דער ייִדישער גאָרטן, ד״ה קראַשינסקיס פּאַרק?
****
לאָמיר פֿאַרענדיקן מיט אַ תּפֿילה פֿון אַ וואַרשעווער ייִדענע, אַז דאָס קוגל זאָל איר געראָטן (אויף איר אייגן לשון):
קיגל קיגל יאַך מאַך דיך געטרײַ,
געטרײַ וועל יאַך דיך מאַכן,
מע זאָל אויס מיר נישט לאַכן.
אין אויוון זאָלסטע שטײַן,
אין מויל זאָלסטע צעגײַן,
גיט זאָלסט זײַן ווי יעקבֿ
און רויט ווי עשׂו.
The post Jewish cuisine in Warsaw, 1938 appeared first on The Forward.
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JD Vance continues to minimize right-wing antisemitism as fringe influencers gain ground
(JTA) — Vice President JD Vance again downplayed the idea that conservatives should safeguard their ranks against antisemitism, a week after his ally Tucker Carlson hosted yet another antisemitic conspiracy theorist on his web show.
Vance’s latest brief comments, made Tuesday during an interview with conservative radio host and CNN pundit Scott Jennings, came in response to Jennings asking, “Does the conservative movement need to warehouse anybody out there espousing antisemitism in any way?”
“No it doesn’t, Scott,” the vice president replied, toward the end of their interview.
Vance continued by asserting that conservatives, drawing on Christian influences, were welcoming of all backgrounds.
“I think we need to reject all forms of ethnic hatred, whether it’s antisemitism, anti-Black hatred, anti-white hatred,” he said. “And I think that’s one of the great things about the conservative coalition, is that we are, I think, fundamentally rooted in the Christian principles that founded the United States of America.”
He added, “And one of those very important principles is that we judge people as individuals. Every person is made in the image of God. You judge them by what they do, not by what ethnic group they belong to.”
Vance’s comments follow a series of similar remarks by the vice president over the past month as major right-wing groups such as Turning Point USA and the Heritage Foundation grapple with the growing influence of Nick Fuentes and other openly antisemitic forces. Vance has also indicated his own skepticism in the U.S.-Israel relationship and stated that stopping immigration is the best approach to fighting antisemitism.
One Jewish conservative analyst still employed with Heritage — after a slew of employees left for a competing group — criticized Vance’s latest comments.
“Need a better answer from @JDVance on why the conservative movement should not tolerate antisemitism than what is effectively the equivalent of @TheDemocrats’ ‘…and Islamophobia’ response,” Daniel Flesch, a Heritage policy analyst for the Middle East and North Africa, posted on the social network X.
Flesch referenced his contention that Democratic leaders’ stock answer to addressing antisemitism is that it must be paired with addressing Islamophobia, rather than treated as its own unique problem.
Among Jewish conservatives’ biggest areas of consternation within the party right now: Carlson, the media figure who has platformed Fuentes and other conspiracy theorists while also maintaining close ties with Turning Point, Heritage and Vance himself. This week in Israel’s Knesset, a lawmaker in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party denounced Carlson and fellow podcaster Candace Owens by name in an English-language speech.
Last week Carlson continued to fan the flames by hosting Ian Carroll, a conspiracy theorist who has proclaimed “Israel did 9/11”; that “Israel did their best to embellish and enflame the history books” on the Holocaust; and that sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was “working on behalf of Israel.”
Carroll has made inroads in the conservative media sphere for a while. He appeared on Joe Rogan’s mega-popular podcast last year and, in 2024, moderated a campaign event for then-presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., today President Donald Trump’s secretary of health and human services. Carroll’s appearance on Carlson’s show came after both Trump and Vance refused to denounce Carlson for his friendly interview with Fuentes last year.
In their Jan. 2 interview, Carroll and Carlson primarily discussed the 2017 mass shooting at a music festival in Las Vegas. Carroll shared numerous conspiracy theories about the events of that evening, during which the shooter also fired rounds at a jet fuel tank stored at a nearby airport.
“And then there’s things happening at the airport that are strange, that there’s some shooting happening at the airport. So it’s like, is this a gang war between the Italian mob and the Jewish mob? Is this a CIA operation that went wrong?” Carroll muses at one point. “Is this, like, a Mossad operation? Any of those things would need to fit the facts.”
Carroll continued, “In lieu of enough facts, you can try to fit a perpetrator to the facts and invent explanations that will work.”
Later in the interview, Carlson muses about Carroll directly to him, “I’ve never seen anybody come to prominence faster, ever, in our world. And that’s led to a lot of speculation that you’re, like, a CIA officer in disguise.”
Carroll then offers, “Or I’m like, Mossad.”
To which Carlson concludes, “My personal explanation is you’re just an amazing explainer and a diligent researcher, and you’re really interested in what’s true. And those are the three qualities that make a successful person in our world.”
The post JD Vance continues to minimize right-wing antisemitism as fringe influencers gain ground appeared first on The Forward.
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EU-Funded NGO Backed Online Platform Targeting Jewish Businesses in Catalonia
Supporters of Hamas demonstrate outside the Israeli Embassy in Madrid, Oct. 18. Photo: Reuters/Guillermo Yllanes Gonzalez
The controversial online platform mapping Jewish-owned businesses, schools, and Israeli-linked companies in Catalonia, a region in northeastern Spain, was promoted by an EU-funded non-governmental organization.
On Tuesday, NGO Monitor — an independent Jerusalem-based research institute that tracks anti-Israel bias among nongovernmental organizations — released new information showing that Engineers Without Borders – Catalonia (ESF-C) and Universities with Palestine (UAP) jointly promoted the BarcelonaZ project on social media, identifying themselves as its primary backers.
First reported by the local Jewish outlet Enfoque Judío, the interactive map was launched by an unidentified group claiming to be “journalists, professors, and students” on the French-hosted mapping platform GoGoCarto.
As a publicly accessible and collaboratively created online platform, the map marked over 150 schools, Jewish-owned businesses — including kosher food shops — and Israeli-linked as well as Spanish and international companies operating in Israel, labeling them as “Zionist.”
“Our goal is to understand how Zionism operates and the forms it takes, with the intention of making visible and denouncing the impact of its investments in our territory,” the project’s website stated.
According to NGO Monitor’s newly released report, ESF-C is a European Union–funded NGO running a Youth Internship Program subsidized by the Public Employment Service of Catalonia, with 40 percent co-financing from the European Social Fund Plus — the EU’s primary program for funding employment, education, and social initiatives.
The EU Financial Transparency System shows that ESF‑C partnered on two EU grants worth about $2.8 million from 2019 to 2023 and received at least $164,000 in funding.
Jewish leaders in Spain have strongly denounced the BarcelonaZ initiative, warning that it fosters further discrimination and hatred against the community amid an increasingly hostile environment in which Jews and Israelis continue to be targeted.
“The mapping and boycotting of Jewish businesses in Catalonia is an echo of some of the darkest chapters in history, including the prelude to the Holocaust in Nazi Germany,” the Combat Antisemitism Movement’s Director of European Affairs, Shannon Seban, said in a statement.
“The organizers of this initiative put a target on the backs of Spanish Jews, at a time when Jews are being hunted across the globe, as seen so horrifically in Australia just three weeks ago,” she said, referring to the deadly attack on a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, which killed 15 people and wounded at least 40 others.
“Clear incitement to violence of this nature must not be platformed or tolerated by internet companies or government authorities,” Seban continued.
On its website, ESF-C describes its mission as promoting “a fair international society, which does not exclude anyone,” and highlights its commitment to “non-denominationalism and non-partisanship.” Yet, the NGO’s 2024 annual report also asserts that it “cannot ignore the Palestinian resistance, a clear expression of the struggle for freedom of all oppressed peoples.”
In a social media post, the NGO also accused Israel of “genocide” during its defensive campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, describing its platform as “a resource designed to inform, raise awareness, and mobilize the educational and student community in Catalonia.”
“The attacks that began on Oct. 7 have involved water and electricity cuts, the boycott of essential water infrastructure, and the contamination of Palestinian water sources,” ESF-C wrote in an Instagram post, without mentioning the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which triggered the war in Gaza.
“The violation of these basic rights is a key weapon used by the State of Israel to perpetuate genocide,” the statement read.
NGO Monitor also revealed that UAP is a network of Catalan faculty- and student-led anti-Israel organizations that co-sponsored the BarcelonaZ project.
Last year, UAP organized a “People’s Court” at Complutense University of Madrid on what it called the “Palestinian genocide,” with attendance from several terror-linked NGOs and individuals, including Samidoun, Masar Badil, Al-Haq, and Raji Sourani, NGO Monitor reported.
Several community organizations have filed complaints with GoGoCarto, demanding the site’s removal and arguing that it violates French laws against hate speech and discrimination.
Earlier this week, GoGoCarto announced it had removed the BarcelonaZ project from its website after local groups denounced the initiative as blatantly antisemitic and dangerous.