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Spanish far-right activists use Nazi-style salutes in anti-migrant protests
(JTA) — MADRID — Dozens of far-right activists raised their arms in Nazi-style salutes and sang a Spanish fascist anthem in the heart of Madrid on Wednesday, amid protests against the government’s handling of migration.
Between 60 and 70 members of Núcleo Nacional, an ultra-nationalist anti-immigrant group, participated in mass demonstrations of tens of thousands of people across Spain, a spokesperson for the group told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The protests were in response to an influx of migrants from Morocco into Ceuta, a Spanish territory in North Africa.
The broader demonstrations in Madrid were called by Spain’s conservative People’s Party and far-right Vox party, drawing about 50,000 people to the streets, according to government estimates. The protests were planned for Ceuta Day, a holiday marking the Portuguese conquest of Ceuta from the Marinid Sultanate of Morocco in the 15th century, beginning centuries of Portuguese and later Spanish rule.
Núcleo Nacional activists were shown on video making the outstretched-arm gesture associated with neo-Nazi movements and chanting, “Ceuta is not for sale, Ceuta will defend itself.” They also sang the song “Cara al Sol,” a fascist anthem from 1935 that became central to the regime of former Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, who ruled from 1939 to 1975. Núcleo Nacional denied a link between their gesture and Nazi history.
The demonstration ended in clashes between protesters and police, with four people arrested and four police officers injured, according to local authorities. Protesters were also shown on camera grabbing, pushing and cursing at multiple journalists who were covering the rally.
Francisco Martín Aguirre, the delegate of the Spanish government in Madrid, condemned “the violent acts that occurred at the end of the gatherings in Madrid.”
“All respect to those who legitimately and peacefully protest for the cause they deem fit,” he said on X. “Violence is never the way and those who daily incite it are also responsible.”
A spokesperson for Núcleo Nacional told JTA that the group was not performing a Nazi salute, but an “Iberian or Roman salute.”
“It represents our ancestors,” the spokesperson said. They added that the group was protesting to “support the people of Ceuta.”
The outstretched arm salute in Nazi Germany was inspired by a gesture popularized in the 1920s in Italy’s fascist movement, which later allied with the Nazis. The Italians called it a Roman salute, though researchers say there is no evidence linking it to ancient Rome. Franco also instituted the gesture in 1937, then instructed Spaniards to abandon it in 1945 after the Axis powers lost World War II.
More than 72,000 Moroccan migrants crossed into Ceuta between July 30 and July 31, with at least 100 people dying in the attempt. Most have returned to Morocco, but some 5,000 remain in makeshift shelters or on the streets and beaches, inflaming tensions between migrants and local residents and heaping pressure on the left-wing government of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
Núcleo Nacional has about 2,000 members, many from neo-Nazi and Francoist groups that lost their capacity to mobilize, according to the Global Network on Extremism and Technology. The group has grown rapidly and opened four regional branches since its founding in 2024. Earlier this year, it registered a political party as Noviembre Nacional.
The group pledges to defend the white race, Christianity, the Spanish nation and Europe against foreign and domestic enemies, including migrants, internal independence movements and “multicultural globalism.” Spain’s Civil Guard last year opened an investigation into Núcleo Nacional after it posted a video calling for groups to “actively defend” the streets and “jointly fight against the invasion” of immigration.
Núcleo Nacional leaders have also denied the Holocaust and suggested that Israel orchestrates migration to Europe, according to the Observatory of Antisemitism, a Spanish watchdog organization. Núcleo Nacional said in a 2024 statement, “Any Spanish patriot should not forget that it is Israel that is financing the Maghrebi invasion to which all of Europe is being subjected.”
On Núcleo Nacional’s social media channels, it has claimed that it is targeted by “the Jewish-Zionist lobby in Spain” and accused the “international Jewish-American financial elite” of “buying up Spain at bargain prices while ruining us.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Spanish far-right activists use Nazi-style salutes in anti-migrant protests appeared first on The Forward.
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Talarico blames Netanyahu, not the Israeli people, for devastation in Gaza
(JTA) — James Talarico, Texas’ Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, said he holds Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, rather than the Israeli people, responsible for civilian devastation in Gaza.
Talarico, a Texas state representative, is running neck and neck against Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, in a race whose results could affect which party controls the Senate this November. Israel has been one of many sources of disagreement among the candidates, who have sparred on issues ranging from affordability to immigration to reproductive rights.
“I believe that Israel, like any nation, has a right to defend its people,” the candidate said while fielding questions on Wednesday at a CNN town hall. “But I don’t believe that Benjamin Netanyahu has a right to wage war against civilians or use collective punishment or restrict aid to civilians.”
A Texas Politics Project poll, issued by the University of Texas this week, showed Paxton trailing Talarico by 3 percentage points, with 47% to the Democrat’s 50% and a margin of error of 3.34 percentage points.
Talarico said in August that he supported stopping arms sales to the Netanyahu government and conditioning military aid “on ending the death and the destruction in Gaza and the West Bank.” He declined to call the crisis “genocide,” noting that the term is being litigated in the International Court of Justice. But he said he’d “use every bit of our nation’s diplomatic and financial leverage to protect the lives of Palestinians.”
When he was pressed further by Rabbi Holly Levin Cohn of Congregation Beth El Binah in Dallas during the town hall, Talarico stressed the importance of directing his criticisms “toward Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and not the Israeli people.”
Addressing Israelis’ trauma, Talarico acknowledged that the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel “was the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust.”
Cohn pushed back on his comments regarding aid restrictions, noting Israeli support of humanitarian efforts and arguing that there’s much more going on in the country than the media may be projecting.
Talarico told the rabbi he recognized that his “words carry weight” and gave her his word that he’s “going to continue to listen to all sides of this conflict.” He also expressed hope that “we can all come together to fight for a two-state solution where we have security for Israel and we have freedom and self-determination for Palestinians.”
Talarico also gave a “shoutout” to a local rabbi, Neil Blumofe at Congregation Agudas Achim in Austin. “I spent my first year of my seminary studies learning the Hebrew scriptures from a local rabbi,” he said. “Shout out Rabbi Neil Blumofe!” Cohn grinned.
The post Talarico blames Netanyahu, not the Israeli people, for devastation in Gaza appeared first on The Forward.
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Irish Jewish leader ‘shocked’ after hotel cancels over 70 rooms for antisemitism conference
(JTA) — DUBLIN — An Irish Jewish leader said a Dublin hotel canceled rooms reserved for European delegates after learning that they were visiting for an antisemitism conference.
Maurice Cohen, the president of the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland, said he booked over 70 rooms at the Herbert Park Hotel for people attending a meeting of the Special Envoys and Coordinators Combating Antisemitism (SECCA).
The envoys, who included Jewish community leaders, diplomats and government ministers from across Europe, were invited to the conference this week organized by the World Jewish Congress and the European Commission. The event was tied to Ireland’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union, which rotates between EU member states, and included delegates meeting with Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin. Most of the government-appointed special envoys are not themselves Jewish.
Cohen said he met with Herbert Park Hotel’s general manager in May to inspect its conference rooms and explained the purpose of the event. According to Cohen, the manager responded by asking, “Will the IDF be involved?”
That question “shocked” Cohen, he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“I said, this is about antisemitism. It’s not about Israelis, it’s not about Israel, it’s not about the IDF,” he said.
Cohen said the manager told him she had to consult with the hotel owners to determine if his booking could be accepted. The next day, he learned that the rooms were canceled without explanation. The Herbert Park Hotel did not respond to JTA requests for comment.
Cohen booked rooms for the delegates and the conference at different hotels. He described the cancellation in a speech at the SECCA meeting on Tuesday, calling it an example of “contemporary antisemitism.”
“How quickly does the word ‘Jewish’ change a conversation?” he said to the attendees. “How easily does a gathering about antisemitism become associated with the Israeli army? And how quickly can people who were welcome when they were simply 70 hotel guests become something rather different once they are known to be attending a Jewish conference?”
Yoni Wieder, Ireland’s chief rabbi, suggested that the hotel could have based its decision on fears of controversy.
“It’s possible that whoever took the decision had no objection to the conference itself,” Wieder told JTA. “They may simply have wanted to avoid the possibility of protests outside the hotel or some other backlash.”
Ireland’s government has been sharply critical of Israel. The country has recognized Palestinian statehood, barred Israeli far-right ministers from entering its borders and in July passed a law that banned imports from Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories. Martin has said that Israel committed genocide in Gaza, a charge Israel vigorously rejects. He has also condemned rising antisemitism in Ireland, which is home to about 2,200 Jews.
Herbert Park Hotel is “actually quite familiar with Jewish guests,” according to Wieder, who said that he has overseen kosher catering at the hotel.
Cohen, who has lived in Dublin all his life, said he had fond memories of the hotel. For years it was his favored site for meetings, New Year’s Eve celebrations and his mother’s birthdays through her 93rd.
“Over time the hotel became associated in my mind with friendship, celebration and my mother,” he said in his speech. “So it was strange that, many years later, the same hotel would acquire a very different place in my memory.”
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Whatever you think of Ilhan Omar, these threats are unconscionable
The Trump administration is reportedly planning to build a case to strip Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN) of her citizenship and eventually deport her.
It is my hope that American Jews — even those who do not like Omar and can recite every questionable comment she has made over the past 15 years to illustrate why — will understand this as offensive and outrageous not only because they are Americans, but because they are Jews.
The Trump administration may claim that it is building a case against Omar due to paperwork (reports suggest that they are interested in whether her father listed her age as 17 on her citizenship application when she was really 18). It is similarly filing dozens of lawsuits attempting to denaturalize citizens by trying to prove they lied in the process of gaining citizenship. However, that this is happening now, ahead of the midterm elections against a sitting member of Congress, a high-profile progressive whom the president has said should “go back” to her country of origin, suggests that it is, to put it mildly, politically motivated.
Evidently, the Trump administration sees citizenship not as a right or a responsibility but as a reward, one that can be taken away if that is seen as useful to the president and his adherents. That use could be silencing political opposition or something as simple (and callous) as an opportunity to brag about the sheer number of attempted denaturalizations.
Jews, too, have found themselves on the wrong end of political denaturalization. I do not mean to compare the Trump administration to the Nazis, but the stubborn fact is that Jews were indeed stripped of their citizenship as part of a political project in Germany and elsewhere in Europe in the 1930s and 40s. And in the early 20th century in the United States, it was Jews who politicians claimed were incapable of assimilating, of ever really being a part of the United States. These arguments culminated in legislation that kept out Jews who could have found refuge here. The threat of denaturalization and the experience of perpetual otherness is a grievous part of modern Jewish history; we should be offended by its presence in our political present.
Jewish tradition as well as history encourages us to stand up to authority when that authority is wrong. Mordecai refuses to bow to Haman; Nathan yells at King David for sleeping with Bathsheba and having her husband killed; Moses famously urges Pharoah to change his oppressive ways. Even God is on the receiving end of pushback when Abraham pleads and negotiates to spare Sodom.
I do not think one needs to be Jewish to be outraged by the attempt to denaturalize Ilhan Omar. I think it is also bone-chilling as an American who believes we, including our elected officials, have the right to openly oppose our president, and I am worried as a person who thinks it would be good to continue to live in a democratic republic. And I am sure that there are Jews who will say that Omar deserves to lose her citizenship because she has said things about Israel they do not like.
But the Jewish lens through which I see this is that it is right to challenge power when it is abused, and it is wrong for the powerful to make a show of trying to cast their opponents out of the country.
The point is not whether Trump can make good on the threat to strip Omar of her citizenship and deport her, but that it is obscene to use denaturalization as punishment for being a high-profile political opponent in the first place. If he is trying to make it more dangerous to speak out while being from the “wrong” country, then the rest of us need to say that this is a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to be an American citizen.
We should do this because we are Americans and we should do this because we are Jews. We should do this because of the ways in which our American and Jewish identities bleed into one another. And, we should do this because we may not know exactly whether it is as Americans or as Jews that we know we have to protect the right to speak truth to power, but we know we need to do it all the same.
The post Whatever you think of Ilhan Omar, these threats are unconscionable appeared first on The Forward.
