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The man who changed Jewish bedtime stories is still reinventing himself at 97
(JTA) — Most people spend their later years looking back. Harold Grinspoon has spent his reinventing himself.
The businessman became a philanthropist. The philanthropist discovered Jewish children’s books and created PJ Library. In his late 80s, he became a sculptor after a cherry tree fell in his yard.
Now, as he turns 97, Grinspoon is reflecting on the unexpected pivots that have defined both his life and his approach to Jewish giving.
Known for innovative programs like PJ Library — which engages young Jewish families with monthly deliveries of age-appropriate children’s books and music — Grinspoon and his eponymous foundation have focused on programs that, in the spirit of the real estate business that made his fortune, build Jewish habits, institutions and relationships that he hopes will outlast him.
“I was 10 years old in 1939 when the Holocaust began and the horrific news of what was occurring to the Jews in Europe over the ensuing years made a deep impression on me,” he recalled in a recent email interview. “I have spent my life reflecting on the inhumanity of the Holocaust and what small part I could play in helping to rebuild the Jewish community.”
That help is also coming from JCamp 180, a program that now supports over 175 Jewish day and overnight camps by providing strategic and organizational development, and Life and Legacy, which provides training and incentives for institutions to plan for their futures.
To date, with Life and Legacy’s assistance, $350 million has been placed into organizational endowments, and over $2.2 billion has been committed for the future of Jewish communities.
Visitors to the foundation headquarters in Western Massachusetts find a philanthropy that often runs like a think tank, looking for answers to out-of-the-box questions within the Jewish world and the local community. How can art be used to promote Jewish values? What’s the best way to help local farmers? What do the intimate, lay-led congregations known as havurot need to survive and thrive?
Many of these questions are posed by Grinspoon himself.
“That’s always struck me as the essence of who Harold is: curious, fearless, and determined to understand the things he supports from the inside out. He shows up, asks questions, listens, and follows through,” Jamie Simon, CEO of the Foundation for Jewish Camp, wrote in an email.
Simon first met Grinspoon when she headed up Camp Towanga, the Jewish overnight camp near Yosemite National Park. She remembers how on a visit, he laced up his hiking boots for the steep hike down to the river, eager for an up-close look.
Curiosity and high energy drive Grinspoon, agrees Adrian Dion, COO of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation.
Dion said Grinspoon likes to take his early morning work meetings during his daily 4-mile walk. Once, they encountered a flooded road.
“We took off our socks and shoes and walked through, then jumped in the back of a pickup to get back. That’s Harold. Roll with the punches but keep the work going,” she wrote about the avid outdoorsman.
In his wide-ranging email interview with JTA, Grinspoon reflected on his turning points, philanthropy, his love of Yiddishkeit, world travels and discovering a new life as an artist.
“I always knew that if I made money, that I would give it back to the Jewish people,” Grinspoon wrote.
“If” became “when” in 1991, when he and his wife, Diane Troderman, founded HGF. He had made his money as founder of Aspen Square Management, a property development company in Agawam, Massachusetts, where the couple live.
In his mid-70s, Grinspoon, a cancer survivor and grandfather, was introduced to the world of Jewish children’s books by his daughter-in-law, Winnie Sandler Grindspoon. Like other Jewish philanthropists of his era, he was concerned by research showing that young Jewish families were increasingly opting out of synagogues and other legacy Jewish institutions.
Grinspoon had no idea that there were such beautifully illustrated, high quality Jewish-themed books that his grandkids were eager to read. The challenge — and opportunity — was getting them into the hands of Jewish parents, and creating Jewish moments for unaffiliated and interfaith families with little or no connection to Jewish institutions.
He launched PJ Library in 2005. He was inspired by Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, a national literacy program he supported in his area.
Today, the HGF’s signature program is a global, multi-lingual organization with more than 670,000 subscribers, in 40 countries, across five continents. A sister program in Israel, Sifriyat Pijama, reaches 350,000 children, while Maktabat-al-Fanoos provides books in Arabic to Arab-speaking school children.
Looking back, Grinspoon marvels about the endurance of PJ Library, whose name is a nod to family bedtime reading.
Among his favorite books are “Bagels From Benny,” by Aubrey Davis and “Joseph Had a Little Overcoat,” by Simms Taback, a classic that PJ sends to every new subscriber.
PJ Library has not only helped connect families with Jewish values and stories, according to Naomi Firestone-Teeter, CEO of the Jewish Book Council, but its impact on publishing Jewish children’s books has been remarkable.
“PJ Library has helped create a strong, reliable audience for Jewish children’s books,” she wrote. “We’ve seen that influence reflected in the revival of out-of-print titles and the introduction of new voices and books that speak to the diversity and richness of Jewish life.”
The year before PJ Library began, HGF established JCamp 180. The foundation committed up to $10 million to a matching fund to help the overnight camps weather the pandemic crisis, when they had to cancel an entire summer session.
The foundation, with assets reported at just over $1 billion as of 2024, along with its philanthropic partners, has invested more than $700 million in Jewish programming and communities in Israel, the US, and around the world.
In 2012, the foundation launched Life and Legacy, a partnership program aimed at strengthening management at Jewish institutions across the country.
Sandler Grinspoon is the current president of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation but will soon retire from the role and remain as a board chair, according to a spokesperson.
Through a second foundation, the Harold Grinspoon Charitable Foundation, her father also supports numerous non-Jewish civic causes, including awards programs for local farmers and educators.
Grinspoon’s wealth and optimism belie his early years.
Born in 1929, Grinspoon was raised in a poor family in Newton, a suburb of Boston. One of five kids, he attended elementary school in Auburndale, one of the city’s neighborhoods with few Jewish residents.
Dyslexic and bullied because he was Jewish, Grinspoon in Newton’s vocational high school, where he was one of the few Jewish students.
To earn money when he attended Marlboro College in Vermont, Grinspoon sold ice cream in the summer, so successfully that he left school to manage a fleet of ice cream trucks.
After serving in the U.S. Navy, Grinspoon bought a two-family home in West Springfield, Massachusetts. He renovated homes in need of repair and rented them as affordable housing. Over the decades, his real estate enterprise expanded across the country.
A decade after launching PJ Library, the ever-ebullient Grinspoon, then approaching 90, had another “aha” moment that once again transformed his life.
When a large cherry tree fell in the yard of his home, Grinspoon didn’t feel right having it carted away. Instead, he set to work creating a large sculpture from the distressed wood.
A creative spark was kindled -— leading him in a left-turn journey into the life of a sculptor. Working with an artistic partner for the past seven years, he’s created more than 140 large-scale, modern, abstract sculptures, many on display in the Berkshire Mountains of Western Massachusetts, where he supports a number of Jewish and local institutions.
“Somewhere inside me, I discovered a bend towards art. When I stepped back from my active role in my business and the foundation, I found the time to play with some concepts,” he wrote.
He works with distressed wood and recently, with modern media, including found objects. Among his works is “Cosmic Dreidel” and “Floating,” a newer work, a towering piece of 550 12-inch glass and stainless steel balls.
“Make sure to show a picture of that one,” he wrote.
Grinspoon and Troderman follow the news, Grinspoon said, acknowledging the distressing rise in antisemitism.
“My mind flashes back to when I was a young kid and antisemitism was rampant. This is the second time it has happened in my lifetime,” he wrote.
Post Oct. 7, 2023, his foundation continues its investment in programs that connect Jews around the world with Israel, Dion told JTA. Support for PJ Library is stronger than ever, she said.
“This is a moment in time to double down on our flagship programs — PJ Library, Life and Legacy and JCamp 180,” she wrote. “We will continue to grow and evolve as we have for the last 30 years,” and continue to look for new partners.
For Grinspoon, that’s the only way he knows how to respond to a challenge.
“I believe in helping others. Being generous. Being grateful. We try to be good citizens,” he wrote. In celebration of his 95th birthday, Springfield Mayor Domenic J. Sarno presented Grinspoon with the key to the city, the largest in Western Massachusetts.
Nearly a century after growing up amid American antisemitism, living through the Holocaust, watching Israel’s triumphs and challenges, and witnessing the American Jewish community’s prosperity and vulnerability, Grinspoon says one of his greatest sources of optimism is Maktabat al-Fanoos, the Arabic-language children’s literacy program his foundation supports in Israel.
Like many of the programs he funds, it builds on family connections in service of creating civic and communal connections.
“It gives me hope,” he wrote. “I hope all Israeli citizens can be great neighbors.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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AfD is predicted to win 40% in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. Should Jews be worried?
(JTA) — BERLIN – Why are so many Germans wringing their hands over Sunday’s election in Saxony-Anhalt?
After all, what impact could 1.7 million registered voters in this former East German state have on a nation with 16 Laender (federal states) and some 60 million voters?
Here’s why Sunday’s election matters:
As it turns out, German voters in Saxony-Anhalt could give the right-wing extremist political party — the Alternative for Germany, or AfD — its most significant achievement since its founding in 2013.
Although the AfD is predicted to win only 40 percent of the vote, that would be enough to affect upcoming general local elections in Lower Saxony on Sept. 13, and elections in the state of Mecklenburg-Pomerania and the city-state of Berlin on Sept. 20.
There is also an outside chance it could open the door to an AfD-led government in Saxony-Anhalt, a first for the far right since the end of World War II. Although that is considered unlikely, the party’s state website proclaims: “Everything is possible.”
Voters in this economically depressed state are, pundits say, drawn to the AfD’s anti-immigrant and anti-European Union rhetoric; its promise to expel non-citizens; its focus on German national pride rather than on the dark side of its past; and its ambition to repair relations with Putin’s Russia. Their drumbeat resonates particularly in former east German states, which have suffered since unification with the closing of factories and flight of younger workers to western states.
The AfD has also done well in elections in other former east German states, and increasingly in western ones. Last March, for example, it earned 19% of the popular vote in elections in Baden-Wuerttemburg, nearly doubling its previous tally there. In the 2025 federal election, it leapt to second place next to the conservative Christian Democratic Union led by German Chancellor Angela Merkel from 2005-2021. Opinion polls show the AfD is the leading party, if there were to be federal elections today.
While some observers note that the party’s agenda on national issues could not be implemented, they are troubled by the party’s goals on the state level.
Stephan Kramer, president of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency in the state of Thuringia, and former general secretary of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, told the JTA that the main concern is with the power the party could wield “over the interior ministry, police, the state intelligence service, education, appointments and the handling of sensitive information.”
“For the first time, the party could use the machinery of a state government and thereby gain substantially greater political and institutional influence at the federal level,” he said.
Banning the AfD would be a painstaking process, thanks to post-war protections of free speech. Former West Germany banned only two political parties: a neo-Nazi one in 1952, and a far-left Communist party in 1956. Later attempts to ban neo-Nazi parties stumbled on legal hurdles, and many politicians fear to try again, lest the AfD make hay of a failure.
Support for the AfD fits right in with trends on the European and UK level: According to the latest survey of European far-left, far-right and populist parties published by the PopuList research group, nearly a quarter of European and UK voters back far-right parties today, up from 5% in 1995. According to the Guardian newspaper, the biggest surge in support came in national elections in France and the UK in 2024, and Germany in 2025.
Here’s why AfD votes might not matter, yet:
A key difference from U.S. state elections is that “voters do not directly elect the equivalent of a governor,” Paulina Fröhlich, senior expert for democracy at the Gütersloh-based Bertelsmann Foundation, told the JTA. “Instead, the state parliament elects a state premier after the parties have built a coalition or secured enough support. So, the party that wins the most votes does not necessarily lead the government.”
In 1980, the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), won 44.5% of the vote, but the Social Democratic Party (SPD) with 42.9% and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) with 10.6% support built a coalition government.
Two years ago in the state of Thuringia, the AfD became the first far-right party to get the most votes in a state election since World War II, but was blocked from forming a coalition.
Similarly, the likely outcome of Sunday’s Saxony-Anhalt election will be a coalition of minority parties that together exceed 50% of the vote; the AfD, despite a significant electoral achievement, will not be able to pull together the needed majority to take power.
It can take days, weeks, even months before a state or federal government is formed, including appointment of the minister-president or chancellor, and ministers dealing with education, policing and culture (and foreign policy, on the federal level). After the CDU and CSU won Germany’s federal election in February 2025 with only 28.5 percent of the vote, it took until early April for them to form a government with the SPD, as they argued over policy differences. But neither party would work with the AfD, which actually came in second
Most Germans still reject the AfD’s message. Several states have classified the party as right-wing extremist, a designation that its leaders have opposed in court. And there are calls to ban the party, including by prominent Jews such as Charlotte Knobloch, 93-year-old former chairwoman of the Central Council of Jews in Germany and head of the Jewish community of Munich and Upper Bavaria.
There has been much media buzz over an interview that Knobloch, who survived the Holocaust in hiding with a German Christian family, gave to Stern magazine. “Even the Nazi Party started small and tried out what was possible,” and now AfD politicians “are testing the limits of what is acceptable,” said Knobloch, arguing for a ban: “Everything that could help should be tried.”
Unlike in the United States, German elections include many political parties – from the large, mainstream ones to those on the fringes, which usually fail to meet the 5% vote threshold required to have seats in the parliament.
Even if the AfD receives a plurality this time, it is highly unlikely that it will rule the state. That’s because virtually no one else will work with them. Mainstream democratic parties have set up a “firewall” to that end. So the probable outcome will be a government built through a coalition of the remaining parties.
But this year, even some of the previous top parties are teetering on the edge of the 5% threshold, polls say.
Should the past winners – the CDU, and possibly the center-left Social Democratic Party, the center-right Free Democratic Party, and the progressive Green Party – make it past the threshold, they are expected to build that minority coalition, even holding their noses to do so: The CDU is even expected to seek informal support from the communist Left Party.
Thus the procedure in Saxony-Anhalt is likely to echo what happened in the neighboring state of Thuringia two years ago. While the AfD got the biggest piece of the electoral pie, it did not gain a majority of seats in the parliament. So the mainstream democratic parties were able to form a coalition government.
What do the AfD stand for? Why are they so popular?
Its appeal “comes from a mixture of protest, distrust of established parties, concerns about migration and social change, and a sense among some voters that [AfD] articulates grievances others avoid,” said Kramer of Thuringia’s domestic intelligence agency.
“The AfD officially presents itself as supportive of Jewish life and Israel,” he added. But the platform “explicitly demands a complete ban on ritual slaughter without exception, which would directly affect Jewish religious practice. AfD leaders also use world conspiracy arguments and antisemitic language, we should not forget.”
It’s illegal in Germany to celebrate the crimes of National Socialism, to repeat Nazi slogans and other propaganda. But AfD leaders “do not always stay on the safe side of the law,” Kramer added. For example, Björn Höcke, who heads the party’s parliamentary faction in the neighboring state of Thuringia, “was convicted for repeating the banned Nazi stormtrooper slogan ‘Alles für Deutschland’ [everything for Germany], and the Federal Court of Justice rejected his appeal in August 2025, making that conviction final.”
Höcke “is a certified history teacher, so he knows what he is doing,” Kramer added. “I would not describe the AfD simply as a party that carefully stays legal. Rather, parts of it repeatedly test those boundaries, and in some cases demonstrably cross them, [moving the] boundaries of what is acceptable to say in public and what is not.”
In Saxony-Anhalt, the party is “classified as definitely right-wing extremist” and is under observation by the domestic intelligence service, Maik Reichel, director of Saxony-Anhalt’s State Agency for Civic Education, told JTA. “And I think we also have the most extreme AfD state branch.”
The party wants to “restrict state-sponsored [school] trips to memorial sites, which they say turn young people into ‘memorial zombies,’ ” Reichel added.
“Our mission is to provide pluralistic civic education” and the AfD is against diversity, Reichel said. The AfD also takes a nationalist perspective, “which means we leave out important dictatorial, anti-democratic periods that were truly terrible in Germany,” he explained.
The main architect of the AfD’s platform in Saxony-Anhalt, Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, is known for wanting “more Bismarck, less Hitler.” Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898), who served as Germany’s first chancellor from 1871-1890, is seen as a hero by some German nationalists.
Despite such concerns, the AfD gained in the polls. At the EU parliament level, the AfD has 15 members, the largest contingent in the far-right Europe of Sovereign Nations group.
Should the AfD win an absolute majority on Sunday, they would most certainly appoint their state party leader Ulrich Siegmund, age 35, as minister president. He is described as personable, even affable.
But his messages are not so friendly, critics say. Siegmund says his “100-day immediate action plan” includes a promise to “deport from minute one” many foreign nationals, including professional specialists; to cut funding to pro-democracy NGOs; to crack down on diversity programs in the state; and to cut taxes that support such programs.
Whatever the final tally, the lead-up to tomorrow’s election has made it clear: A ballot cast for the AfD is no longer dismissible as a “protest vote.” Other mainstream parties are taking a plunge, while the AfD’s star continues to rise.
Ultimately, the other parties have to regain the people’s trust, said Reichel. In Saxony-Anhalt that means “solving the problems that concern people in a way that they actually notice a difference.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Hollywood’s Jews take sides in Mark Ruffalo-Paramount antisemitism row
(JTA) — Some 170 notable Jewish personalities have released an open letter defending actor and producer Mark Ruffalo, who has been accused of antisemitism for his comments on Paramount Skydance’s pending acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.
Entertainers, rabbis and a physician who is featured in a new documentary about doctors treating Palestinians in Gaza signed the letter released Wednesday, which called the attacks against Ruffalo a “false and dangerous weaponization of charges of antisemitism.” George Clooney also defended Ruffalo on Thursday.
Signatories of the pro-Ruffalo petition include “Broad City” creators Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer; celebrated filmmakers Joel Coen, Jonathan Glazer and Todd Haynes; Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner; and actors including Hannah Einbinder, Joaquin Phoenix and Debra Winger.
In late August, Ruffalo, the award-winning actor and progressive activist, went on social media to link Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison, the chief driver of the looming Paramount-Warner Bros. merger, to tech giant Oracle, which Ruffalo claimed is responsible for “an apartheid system of oppression” in Gaza.
Oracle is owned by Ellison’s father, Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest men; both Ellisons are Jewish and prominent Israel supporters. Oracle also owns a stake in the social media network TikTok’s U.S. operations, and has long been a target of progressives who point to the company’s links to, and public support for, Israel.
“Larry Ellison will own most of ‘Para Bros,’” Ruffalo wrote in the post, which is no longer available, according to a screenshot reproduced by the Hollywood Reporter. The “Spotlight” and Marvel star also called Larry Ellison a “classic oligarch” who is “crushing workers and consolidating the wealth of the world for their own power and concentrated dominance.”
The $110 billion merger is under adjudication in federal court in California following an antitrust lawsuit filed by 12 state attorneys general and the Writers Guild of America. As backlash to the merger has steadily grown across Hollywood and in political and media spaces, Paramount at least since June has been pushing the idea that opposition to the merger has had an antisemitic element.
The company seized on Ruffalo’s comments, immediately releasing a lengthy statement to media after his controversial social media post that accused the actor of invoking “antisemitic tropes,” adding, “This simply exposes the true motivation of some who have advocated opposition to this transaction.”
Several leading Jewish groups have also said his post stepped beyond legitimate criticism of the merger and into classic antisemitic rhetoric about Jewish wealth and power.
In an August statement, the head of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles said the actor’s comments “combined Jewish wealth, media control, secret technology and sinister global power,” drawing on “recognizable antisemitic tropes with a long and dangerous history.” Other LA-based Jewish activist groups, including Creative Community For Peace and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, have also condemned his comments.
Speaking amid the unfolding controversy about Ruffalo and his use of the word genocide to describe Israel’s campaign in Gaza, “Fauda” co-creator Avi Isaacharoff called him “a rare combination” of “ignorant” and “stupid.”
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency has reached out to Shani Rosenzweig, Ruffalo’s agent and a prominent Jewish entertainment figure in her own right, for comment and a Ruffalo interview request. Rosenzweig did not respond to either request.
Ruffalo has found support from several progressive Jewish figures beyond the entertainment industry, including IfNotNow co-founder Simone Zimmerman, Israeli Holocaust historian Raz Segal and Jewish Currents editor Peter Beinart.
In their open letter defending Ruffalo, the progressive Jewish cohort argued the actor was right to draw links between Israel’s behavior and the merger.
“Pointing out the crucial connections between what is happening in Gaza and what is happening in Hollywood is the exact opposite of antisemitism,” the letter reads. “It is, for us, the very essence of Jewish ethical duty.” The letter points to specific statements from Larry Ellison, and Oracle executives, describing their surveillance and artificial-intelligence technological ventures and their positive relationship with Israel.
Other entertainment figures have tried to thread a more careful needle. Oscar-winning filmmaker Kenneth Lonergan, who has directed Ruffalo in two movies and was at one point developing an American remake of the hit Israeli TV series “Shtisel,” defended the actor from antisemitism charges this week while also noting, “I disagree profoundly with many of his positions on the Middle East, Israel, Gaza, and Iran’s constellation of fanatical Islamist fundamentalist proxies.”
“But Mark and I have been friends for over 30 years,” Lonergan continued in his letter to the Hollywood Reporter. “The notion that he is antisemitic is overtly preposterous, and the accusation itself a cynical and disgusting lie.”
Ruffalo is soon scheduled to attend the Toronto International Film Festival for the Sept. 10 premiere of the biopic “Being Heumann,” about Jewish-American disability rights activist Judy Heumann, in which he co-stars.
Opposition to David Ellison’s bid to combine two historic media giants, each having recently weathered smaller mergers of their own, has grown considerably in recent months. Those objections have come both from Hollywood rank-and-file concerned about further industry consolidation, as well as from political and media figures voicing objections to Ellison’s close ties to President Donald Trump and his intentions with Warner’s flagship news property, CNN.
The merger was initially thought to be on track to be finalized this fall with Trump’s blessing. The president has publicly championed the merger, and his Justice Department approved the deal in June. But talks have ground to a halt following the antitrust lawsuit. The fate of the merger is now in question, with Paramount having agreed to a trial in March 2027 and on the hook for a $7-million-per-day “ticking fee” it had previously agreed to pay out to shareholders if the deal failed to close by this October.
Prior to Ruffalo’s post, Ellison himself published a New York Times op-ed defending his merger plans.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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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.
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