RSS
US officials call for Yad Vashem’s ‘independence’ amid reports that Netanyahu plans to fire Holocaust memorial’s director
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The top U.S. officials charged with combating antisemitism and Holocaust denial called on Israel to sustain the independence of Yad Vashem amid reports that its chair could be fired.
Public statements by Ellen Germain, the State Department’s special envoy on Holocaust issues, and Deborah Lipstadt, the State Department’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, represent an unusual intervention in Israeli governance. They come as the Biden administration has expressed unease about the recent leadership of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israeli media reported last week that Netanyahu’s government is planning on firing Dani Dayan, the incumbent chairman of Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial museum and research institute. Dayan was appointed under the previous government and does not come from Netanyahu’s political party. Yoav Kisch, Netanyahu’s education minister, has acknowledged his unhappiness with Dayan’s performance, but has so far denied plans to fire him.
“The U.S. values the crucial work of @YadVashem & its director’s leadership as we work together on Holocaust education, remembrance, & research,” Germain said on Saturday on X, formerly known as Twitter. Germain’s job, created more than two decades ago to encourage compliance with Holocaust compensation, has transitioned in recent years into combating Holocaust denial. “Maintaining the independence of such institutions around the world is key as we face efforts to distort/deny the facts of the Holocaust.”
Lipstadt, a noted Holocaust historian, quoted German’s tweet on Sunday. “My research and advocacy about the Holocaust dates back to the 1980s; I have long valued the work of institutions like @yadvashem,” she said. “Yad Vashem’s painstaking and invaluable research on the Shoah is in no small part due to its professionalism and independence.”
Also weighing in was Katharina von Schnurbein, the European Union’s coordinator on combating antisemitism.
“The World Holocaust Center @yadvashem is a key partner for the European Union when it comes to #Holocaust research,” she said on X. “Its expertise and #independence of its leadership are essential in times of #Holocaust #distortion and attempts to politicise #Shoah remembrance.”
Dayan has also drawn support from the Holocaust scholarship community. In an open letter reported by Haaretz, more than 120 scholars said “each attempt to seek political control over Yad Vashem is a clear threat to the memory of six million victims of the Shoah, and a challenge to the legitimacy of an institution which enjoys tremendous, and well-deserved prestige, worldwide.”
The politicization of one of the world’s leading, if not the lead, Holocaust research organizations would undercut what has become in recent years a key priority for those combating Holocaust denial: pushing back official efforts by some nations to diminish the role of their populations in carrying out the massacre of the Jews, and to claim the victimization of their people was equal to that of the Jews.
The appointment to lead Yad Vashem is made by the government of the day, but Dayan’s predecessors have lasted in the job for years, working for prime ministers from parties that opposed the one that appointed them. Netanyahu reportedly is unhappy that Dayan is tied to Gideon Saar, a political leader who once was close to Netanyahu and who in recent years turned on him as corruption allegations mounted against the Israeli prime minister.
Dayan, who was appointed in 2021 by the government Netanyahu ousted late last year, said Kisch’s accusations of incompetent leadership are meritless and has welcomed Kisch’s stated plans to more closely scrutinize the institution.
One Israeli media report said that Netanyahu’s wife, Sara, was pushing for Danan to be fired over the appearance at a Yad Vashem ceremony of a singer, Keren Peles, who has criticized the government’s efforts to sap the power of the country’s judiciary. The Netanyahus batted down the allegations on Sunday.
—
The post US officials call for Yad Vashem’s ‘independence’ amid reports that Netanyahu plans to fire Holocaust memorial’s director appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
Treasure Trove: If you own a share like this, Israel could owe you some money
The Jewish Colonial Trust was established on March 20, 1899. The first Zionist bank was the brainchild of Theodor Herzl who understood that funding would be required to make his vision of a Jewish homeland a reality. Each share cost one English pound, the equivalent of $280 today. (Herzl bought the first 1,000 shares which was a […]
The post Treasure Trove: If you own a share like this, Israel could owe you some money first appeared on The Canadian Jewish News.
The post Treasure Trove: If you own a share like this, Israel could owe you some money appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
RSS
Palestinian Detained after West Bank Terror Ramming
Illustrative: Israeli police at the scene of a car-ramming terrorist attack near a market in Jerusalem on Monday, April 24, 2023. Photograph: Ronen Zvulun/Reuters.
JNS.org – A Palestinian rammed his vehicle into a cop car in the West Bank on Saturday in what the military was investigating as a terror attack.
The incident occurred at the Eli gas station, the scene of repeated acts of terrorism against Israelis.
“A Palestinian vehicle accelerated towards a police car and collided with it, there were no casualties,” according to the Israel Defense Forces.
“Troops caught the terrorist and transferred him to security forces for further investigation,” added the statement.
On Sunday, three Israeli police officers were killed in a drive-by shooting near the Tarqumiya checkpoint, some 7.5 miles northwest of Hebron in Judea.
They were named as Chief Inspector Arik Ben Eliyahu, 37, of Kiryat Gat, who is survived by his wife and three children; Command Sgt. Maj. Hadas Branch, 53, of Sde Moshe, who is survived by her husband, three children and granddaughter; and 1st Sgt. Roni Shakuri, 61, of Sderot, who is survived by his wife, daughter and granddaughter.
Shakuri’s other daughter, 1st Sgt. Mor Shakuri, 29, was killed on Oct. 7 while battling an attempt by Hamas terrorists to take control of the police station in Sderot, in southern Israel near the border with Gaza.
The post Palestinian Detained after West Bank Terror Ramming first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Ukraine Concerned at Reports of Iranian Ballistic Missiles to Russia
A missile unveiled by Iran is launched in an unknown location in Iran in this picture received by Reuters on August 20, 2020. WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Ukraine’s foreign ministry said on Saturday it was deeply concerned by reports about a possible impending transfer of Iranian ballistic missiles to Russia.
In a statement emailed to reporters, the ministry said the deepening military cooperation between Tehran and Moscow was a threat to Ukraine, Europe and the Middle East, and called on the international community to increase pressure on Iran and Russia.
CNN and The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Iran had transferred short-range ballistic missiles to Russia, citing unidentified sources.
Reuters reported in August that Russia was expecting the imminent delivery of hundreds of Fath-360 close-range ballistic missiles from Iran and that dozens of Russian military personnel were being trained in Iran on the satellite-guided weapons for eventual use in the war in Ukraine.
On Friday, the United States, a key ally of Ukraine, also voiced concern about the potential transfer of missiles.
“Any transfer of Iranian ballistic missiles to Russia would represent a dramatic escalation in Iran’s support for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine,” White House National Security Council spokesperson Sean Savett said.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York said on Friday that Tehran’s position on the Ukraine conflict was unchanged.
“Iran considers the provision of military assistance to the parties engaged in the conflict – which leads to increased human casualties, destruction of infrastructure, and a distancing from ceasefire negotiations – to be inhumane,” it said.
“Thus, not only does Iran abstain from engaging in such actions itself, but it also calls upon other countries to cease the supply of weapons to the sides involved in the conflict.”
The post Ukraine Concerned at Reports of Iranian Ballistic Missiles to Russia first appeared on Algemeiner.com.