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Uruguay’s president scuttles plan to turn giant Nazi eagle into a peace dove after criticism
(JTA) — Uruguay’s president has withdrawn a proposal to transform a swastika-emblazoned 800-pound bronze eagle from a sunken Nazi ship into an artistic display of peace, following criticism that the plan devalued history.
The question of what to do with the eagle, which sits in a naval warehouse, has vexed Uruguay since private explorers recovered it from the wreckage of the Admiral Graf Spee in 2006. The country briefly displayed it as a historical artifact but retracted the display after facing charges that it was glorifying Nazism.
In 2019, a Uruguayan court ruled that the government must auction the crest and give the proceeds to the investors who paid for the recovery mission. It was pulled off the auction block amid protests by Jewish groups and the German government; last year, a Jewish businessman offered to buy it and destroy it.
President Luis Lacalle Pou offered another idea on Friday: let the Uruguayan sculpture artist Pablo Atchugarry melt down the relic, refashioning the Nazi eagle into a dove of peace.
Local Jewish leaders initially applauded the presidential announcement. But soon voices emerged to criticize the plan.
Turning a Nazi artifact into a peace dove would be like if “Mexico turned its Aztec sacrificial stones into camping tables,” Uruguayan historian and humorist Diego Delgrossi argued. A former parliamentarian, Anibal Gloodtdofsky, likened it to “transforming Auschwitz into a nude camp.”
And the Uruguayan writer Mercedes Vigil tweeted in response to the government’s announcement, “If the cultural heritage of humanity followed these criteria, jewels like the Roman Circus, Cappadocia, the Wailing Wall and more, today would be scorched earth.”
On Sunday Uruguay’s president announced that he withdrew his decision. “If one wants to generate peace, the first thing to generate is unity. And that is what is not happening,” Lacalle Pou said in a press conference. “I still think it’s a good idea, but a president has to listen.”
The debate extended across the Rio de la Plata, the river separating Uruguay and Argentina, where there is a significant Jewish population and the region’s only Holocaust museum, which recently reopened after a three-year renovation.
“All ideas and artistic representations that raise awareness about the horror of Nazism are very valuable,” the Buenos Aires Holocaust Museum’s executive director, Jonathan Karzembaum, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Monday. “However, it is not necessary to take an object or historical document for this, especially one as unique as the eagle on the Graf Spee, which links the history of the Third Reich with the Rio de la Plata river.”
Another Argentine proposed a different plan for the Nazi eagle.
“The eagle on the Graf Spee must not be adulterated or destroyed,” tweeted Carlos Maslaton, an attorney and political liberal with a large social media following. “On the contrary, it should be taken to Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, which is the country of the Jews, and exhibited in a special monument with the phrase: ´Failed Nazis, the operation went wrong. Zionism has won. Blow yourself up.’”
Uruguay is home to about 15,000 Jews, according to the Latin American Jewish Congress, out of a total population of 3.4 million. It was the first South American country to officially recognize the state of Israel and was home to the first Israeli embassy in Latin America, established in 1948.
Uruguay is far from alone in struggling with how to handle Nazi relics. Most auction houses eschew the items, in part out of fear that they may be purchased by Nazi sympathizers, though a few have made a business in the trade.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center issued a statement in 2021 urging Uruguay to display the crest in a museum instead of selling it to an open market. German officials have changed their initial anti-display posture, saying that they would allow the eagle’s display in an educational museum context. Lacalle Pou did not offer another plan after withdrawing the peace dove proposal.
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UK adopts sweeping measures against antisemitism in schools
(JTA) — The U.K. has adopted sweeping measures to combat antisemitism in English schools, prompting pushback from the country’s largest teachers’ union.
The move came after a new government-commissioned review found that three in five Jewish students reported experiencing antisemitism in English schools. The most common incidents were jokes, stereotypes and comments about Jewish people. About half of respondents who witnessed or experienced antisemitism said the incidents were not reported, most often because they did not think they would be taken seriously.
The government on Wednesday accepted 27 recommendations from the report, including dedicated antisemitism training for leaders and staff, improved recording of antisemitic incidents and moves to build a better understanding of Jewish life, identity and contemporary antisemitism.
The government commissioned the report following a spate of high-profile attacks on Jews in Britain, including an attack on a synagogue in Manchester last year that left two men dead.
The report’s author, Sir David Bell, the vice chancellor of the University of Sunderland and former chief inspector of schools in England, recommended addressing antisemitism distinctly from other forms of racism. He argued that antisemitism was a “uniquely complex” problem because of intertwined racial and religious dimensions, since Jewish identity can encompass both an ethnicity and a religion, along with expressions of prejudice that hold all Jews responsible for the actions of Israel.
The government will also encourage English schools to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism. The definition is supported by many mainstream Jewish organizations and has been adopted by 47 countries, including the U.K., but critics say that it conflates some forms of antisemitism with criticism of Israel.
British Education Secretary Lucy Powell called Bell’s review a “generational moment” and said that “implementation is now my priority.”
However, the National Education Union, the largest union representing teachers, lecturers, teaching assistants and support staff in the United Kingdom and Europe, raised concerns on Wednesday about recommending the IHRA definition for schools. NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede said in a statement that the definition “risks deepening the problem rather than tackling it, and actively undermining efforts to confront antisemitism.”
“The IHRA’s contested framing risks blurring the line between antisemitism and legitimate criticism of the Israeli government and the genocide in Gaza, leaving teachers with uncertainty when they need clarity,” said Kebede. He cited a risk that “children who cannot critically explore issues through classroom discussion will instead seek their answers in online and unsafe groups.”
Kebede also encouraged Britain’s Department for Education to strengthen guidance on all forms of racism, not only antisemitism, saying that 65% of teachers report they have not received any antiracism training in the past year.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews, an umbrella organization for British Jewish communities, celebrated the antisemitism report and the government’s adoption of its proposed measures. The group specifically praised the report’s “clear recommendations that schools and local authorities follow government guidelines by adopting the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism as a tool to deepen understanding of contemporary antisemitism.”
“We remain concerned about undue external influence on schools driven by narrow political agendas, and tendentious materials seeping into schools and increasing disharmony, and we will continue to press for vigilance against this,” said the Board of Deputies.
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Orthodox Jewish man stabbed in midtown Manhattan
(New York Jewish Week) — An Orthodox Jewish man is in stable condition after being stabbed on Wednesday evening in the Diamond District of midtown Manhattan. Police are investigating the attack as a possible hate crime.
Police told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating the incident as a possible antisemitic attack, and Manhattan Shomrim — the Jewish community watch group — has asked people to share footage as police search for the suspect. No arrests have been made.
The victim was identified by police as a 26-year-old man, and Orthodox Jewish outlet COLLive identified him as a resident of Crown Heights, the neighborhood that is home to the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement’s headquarters.
He was taken to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition. Police said they were called at about 5:50 p.m. on Wednesday after the man was stabbed in the back with “an unknown sharp object” on 47th Street near Fifth Avenue. ABC7 reported that the victim told investigators he believed he was stabbed with a needle or syringe.
According to the Chabad website, which published an interview with the victim, he is a recently ordained Hasidic rabbi named Joseph, who commutes to Midtown each day to wrap tefillin with Jewish merchants. The attacker, Joseph told the website, was a woman who seemed to be following him prior to the stabbing.
The attack comes as Jewish New Yorkers have been targeted in more than half of the hate crimes committed in New York City this year, despite making up about 12% of the city’s population.
In July, an assailant stabbed two men on the Upper West Side, including one who was leaving a synagogue, while yelling “Allahu akbar,” and was charged with committing hate crimes.
Louis Keene contributed reporting.
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VIDEO: A Hasid gives us a tour of Morocco in Yiddish
דער ירושלימער יוטוב־שטערן וועלוול קירשנבוים האָט לעצטנס אַרויסגעשטעלט אַ ווידעאָ אויף ייִדיש פֿון אַ פּרעכטיקן וויזיט, וואָס ער האָט געמאַכט אין מאַראָקאָ. עס באַגלייט אים זײַן חבֿר אַבֿרהם פּרץ.
אינעם ווידעאָ זעט מען ווי קירשנבוים דאַוונט שחרית מיט די אָרטיקע ייִדן און באַזוכט אַ גוט אָפּגעהיטענעם בית־עולם, וווּ עס ליגן באַערדיקט גרויסע צדיקים ווי למשל הרבֿ חיים בן עתר (1696–1743), באַקאַנט ווי דער „אור החיים“. „מענטשן מיינען, אַז נאָר אין אייראָפּע זענען דאָ קבֿרים פֿון צדיקים!“ זאָגט קירשנבוים.
מיר זעען אַ גרויסע, שיינע שיל מיט אַ פֿײַנער אַרכיטעקטור אין קאַזאַבלאַנקאַ; דעם גרויסן אַראַבישן שוק, וווּ קירשנבוים קויפֿט זיך אײַן מלבושים פּונקט ווי די מאַראָקאַנער גייען אָנגעטאָן. ער באַוווּנדערט אויך די שיינע טיי־גלעזער און טשײַניקן, וואָס מע פֿאַרקויפֿט דאָרט, און באַקענט זיך מיט אַ ייִדישן סוחר וואָס האַנדלט מיט זילבער און גאָלד, פּונקט אַזוי ווי זײַן טאַטע און זיידע האָבן געטאָן פֿאַר דור־דורות.
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