Uncategorized
Bulgaria’s ambassador to Israel condemned for skipping Holocaust history conference
(JTA) — Bulgaria’s ambassador to Israel did not attend a conference on Bulgarian Holocaust history last week, in a move that organizers said displays her government’s attempts to whitewash that history.
An embassy spokesperson told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that Ambassador Rumiana Bachvarova had received “a last-minute invitation to greet the conference” and “decided that it was good for the conversations and discussions to remain at an expert historical level, without any political presence or participation in them.”
The three-day event, titled “Persecution and Collaboration, Rescue and Survival: New Perspectives Regarding Bulgaria and the Holocaust 80 Years Later,” was hosted by Yad Vashem, Bar-Ilan University and the Tel Aviv Cinematheque from May 22-24.
“We believe that in the future the conversations and discussions between Bulgarian and Israeli historians will continue,” the spokesperson wrote, “and will contribute to an objective and comprehensive clarification of historical events.”
This year marks 80 years since protests in Bulgaria famously thwarted the deportation of its Jewish population. But respected historians have argued that King Boris III delivered over 11,000 other Jews to Nazi camps from the Bulgarian-occupied zone, in what is today North Macedonia. It’s a story that Bulgaria doesn’t want to face, critics say.
“The gruesome unvarnished truth that it was the Bulgarian government of King Boris III — not Nazi Germany — that rounded up 11,343 Jews from Macedonia, Thrace and Pirot and knowingly sent them to be murdered at Treblinka is an ‘historical event’ that does not require ‘clarification,’ comprehensive or otherwise,” historian and attorney Menachem Rosensaft, who had delivered a keynote speech at the event, told JTA.
“By refusing to even greet the conference participants, Ambassador Bachvarova, perhaps acting under orders, seems intent on continuing her government’s obfuscation of history by studiously refusing to admit that Bulgaria has the blood of these 11,343 Jews on its conscience,” Rosensaft, also associate executive vice president of the World Jewish Congress, added via a WhatsApp text.
Event organizer and filmmaker Jacky Comforty, author of “The Stolen Narrative of The Bulgarian Jews and The Holocaust” (2021) and director of a film about how Bulgaria foiled Hitler, told JTA that Bachvarova’s approach to the history is “propaganda oriented.” He added that in Bulgarian “neo-Nazi circles” it can often be read that “Jews are not grateful that they were saved.”
Comforty said Bachvarova was previously invited to give audience feedback on a film of his about this history while it was in progress. “She said she would not come because it was an anti-Bulgarian event,” Comforty said.
“Bulgarian officials have tried to use this story” of the rescue of Jews “and they are overdrawing on their humanitarian credit,” he said.
Jacky Vidal, chair of the Jaffa-based Bulgarian Jewry Heritage House, said he had sent the invitation to the ambassador. “I didn’t hear back, and I don’t know the reason,” he said, adding that he understood she was attending a ceremony honoring the memory of Dimitar Peshev, “one of the biggest rescuers of Bulgarian Jews.”
Peshev was a pro-German politician who nevertheless intervened to prevent King Boris from deporting its Jews in 1943.
“Bulgaria does have a very laudable credit with respect to the Holocaust,” Rosensaft said. “It is a fact that 48,000 Jews from Bulgaria were not deported to the death camps and therefore survived. It is also a fact that his process was not led by King Boris.”
The rescue was, he said, initiated by Bulgarian Orthodox church bishops, Metropolitan Stephan of Sofia and Metropolitan Kiril of Plovdiv — both of whom were posthumously recognized together with Peshev by Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust history authority and memorial.
In March, according to the online publication Balkan Insight, Bulgarian journalist Emmy Barouh sent an open letter to Bulgarian President Rumen Radev, saying that she feared the anniversary of the rescue of Bulgarian Jews might be “used for political purposes.”
“The names of all 11,343 people put into sealed wagons and deported to Treblinka by the Bulgarian police and army are known. The manner in which the Bulgarian soldiers and officers treated them on behalf of the state and under the Bulgarian flag is also known. The astonishing cruelty in the last days of their lives is documented. The indifference to the tragedy of those whose last life was spent under the control of the Bulgarian army and police shows a particular moral bankruptcy,” she wrote.
—
The post Bulgaria’s ambassador to Israel condemned for skipping Holocaust history conference appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Jewish groups at Penn sound alarm over federal lawsuit seeking information on Jewish employees
(JTA) — The Trump administration is facing sharp criticism from Jewish groups at the University of Pennsylvania over its lawsuit demanding personal information on Jewish staff members.
The complaint, filed last week by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Pennsylvania federal court, claims that the school “refused to comply” with a subpoena from the commission as it investigated allegations of antisemitism on its campus.
The subpoena sought contact information for Jewish employees who had filed a discrimination complaint, belonged to Jewish groups on campus, or were part of the school’s Jewish studies program.
“Identification of those who have witnessed and/or been subjected to the environment is essential for determining whether the work environment was both objectively and subjectively hostile,” the complaint read.
The EEOC first began investigating the university in December 2023, the same month that the school’s then-president, Liz Magill, resigned amid scrutiny over her refusal to say that calls for the genocide of Jews violated the school’s code of conduct.
Penn is not the first school hit by a probe for Jewish contacts. In April, professors at Barnard College received texts from the federal government asking if they were Jewish as part of the EEOC’s review. In September, the University of California, Berkeley said it had provided the names of 160 individuals involved in cases of antisemitism.
While Penn remained largely unscathed by the Trump administration’s sweeping federal funding cuts to elite universities over allegations of antisemitism, the school had $175 million in federal funding suspended in April over an investigation into a transgender athlete on its swim team.
In response to the Trump administration’s lawsuit, a Penn spokesperson told the New York Times that the school had “cooperated extensively” with the EEOC but said the school would not cooperate with the request for contact information for Jewish employees.
“Violating their privacy and trust is antithetical to ensuring Penn’s Jewish community feels protected and safe,” the spokesperson said.
In a joint statement on Friday, the school’s Hillel and MEOR chapters said that while they “recognize and appreciate the EEOC’s concern for civil rights,” they were “deeply concerned that the EEOC is now seeking lists of individuals identified as Jewish.”
Hundreds of Penn affiliates also signed onto an online petition voicing their support for the school’s refusal to turn over employee’s personal information.
“Across history, the compelled cataloging of Jews has been a source of profound danger, and the collection of Jews’ private information carries echoes of the very patterns that made Jewish communities vulnerable for centuries,” said the statement, which was posted on Instagram.
The post Jewish groups at Penn sound alarm over federal lawsuit seeking information on Jewish employees appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Local politician named Adolf Hitler Uunona poised for reelection in Namibia
(JTA) — As voters in a small Namibian constituency head to the polls on Wednesday, they are expected to reelect a local politician with a striking name: Adolf Hitler Uunona.
Uunona, 59, is a member of the South West Africa People’s Organization, the county’s left-leaning ruling party since it achieved independence from South Africa in 1990.
He was first elected as councillor for the Ompundja constituency, which is located in the Oshana Region of Namibia, in 2004, and won reelection bids in 2015 and 2020.
Following his election in 2020, which he won with 85% of the vote, Uunona told local outlet The Namibian distanced himself from his unfortunate namesake, saying he “didn’t have a choice” in his name.
“My father gave me this name Adolf Hitler, but it does not mean I have Adolf Hitler’s character or resemble that of Adolf Hitler of Germany,” Uunona told The Namibian. “Hitler was a controversial person who captured and killed people across the globe. I am not like him.”
Under German colonial rule from 1884 to 1915, Namibia adopted the use of some Germanic first names still used in the country today.
From 1904 to 1908, the German empire committed a genocide against the country’s Ovaherero and Nama people, killing roughly 70,000. Since Germany officially recognized the genocide in 2021, Namibian leaders have pushed for reparations, an effort that remains underway.
German influence was long felt in Namibia after the colonial period ended, with some areas of the country home to Nazis who fled Germany after World War II. A 1976 New York Times article chronicled how some German-Namibians still greeted each other with “Heil Hitler.”
Uunona is expected to win his seat again this year, according to forecasts from the country’s electoral commission.
The post Local politician named Adolf Hitler Uunona poised for reelection in Namibia appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Global Court Decisions Spark Outrage as Antisemitic Crimes, Attacks See Reduced Sentences
Pro-Hamas demonstrators marching in Munich, Germany. Photo: Reuters/Alexander Pohl
Court rulings around the globe are raising alarm bells as judges in Germany, Australia, and France have overturned or reduced sentences for individuals accused of antisemitic crimes, sparking public outrage over the leniency shown in such cases.
For the first time, a local court in Germany has allowed antisemitic slogans calling for Israel’s destruction and denying its right to exist to be chanted at a pro-Palestinian demonstration, despite concerns that such calls incite hatred and violence, according to the German newspaper Bild.
The Higher Administrative Court in Münster, a city in North Rhine-Westphalia in western Germany, issued an expedited ruling overturning a previous ban that had restricted protests to prevent participants from disrupting public order and inciting violence.
The ruling came after local police had imposed restrictions on an anti-Israel demonstration scheduled for Saturday in Düsseldorf, a city that had drawn more than 5,000 registered participants.
Prior to the protest, local law enforcement had prohibited demonstrators from chanting slogans that deny Israel’s right to exist and promote hatred — including “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” “There is only one state: Palestine 48,” and “Yalla, yalla, Intifada!” The first two slogans call for the Jewish state’s complete destruction, to be replaced by “Palestine,” and the third phrase calls for violence against Jews and Israelis.
However, the court ruled that “denying the State of Israel’s right to exist does not in itself constitute a criminal offense.”
Instead, the court emphasized that “a critical examination of the founding of the State of Israel and the call for a peaceful change of the existing conditions” is protected under the right to freedom of expression.
With this ruling, the ban on “There is only one state: Palestine 48” was lifted, even though the slogan calls for the annihilation of Israel, established in 1948.
But “Yalla, yalla, Intifada” and “From the river to the sea” will remain banned, the first for its potential to incite violence and the second as a slogan associated with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
In a separate and controversial ruling thousands of miles away, a man who set fire to a synagogue in Melbourne while worshippers were inside received a lenient sentence after an Australian court ruled that his actions were the result of mental illness rather than antisemitism.
On Monday, an Australian magistrate ruled that 35-year-old Angelo Loras was not driven by antisemitism but by a severe psychotic episode caused by his failure to take schizophrenia medication when he set fire to a local synagogue, with more than 20 worshippers inside sharing a Shabbat meal.
Earlier this year, Loras pleaded guilty to arson and recklessly endangering lives after pouring flammable liquid on the front door of the East Melbourne Synagogue and setting it alight, though no one was injured. This attack was one of three suspected antisemitic incidents across Melbourne over the weekend of July 4–6.
At the time, government officials and Jewish leaders denounced the attack as a clear hate crime.
With this ruling, Loras was given a four-month prison sentence — less than the 138 days he had already spent in custody — and was also ordered to continue schizophrenia treatment for 20 months and perform unpaid work. He will be eligible for release on Monday.
Meanwhile, a local court in France has dramatically reduced the sentence of one of the two teenagers convicted of the brutal gang rape of a 12-year-old Jewish girl, citing his “need to prepare for future reintegration.”
More than a year after the attack, the Versailles Court of Appeal retried one of the convicted boys — the only one to challenge his sentence — behind closed doors, ultimately reducing his term from nine to seven years and imposing an educational measure
The original sentences, handed down in June, gave the two boys — who were 13 years old at the time of the incident — seven and nine years in prison, respectively, after they were convicted on charges of group rape, physical violence, and death threats aggravated by antisemitic hatred.
The third boy involved in the attack, the girl’s ex-boyfriend, was accused of threatening her and orchestrating the attack, also motivated by racist prejudice.
Because the girl’s ex-boyfriend was under 13 at the time of the attack, he did not face prison and was instead sentenced to five years in an educational facility.