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Saturday 20 March 2021

The Nazi-Fighting Women of the Jewish Resistance


They went undercover, smuggled revolvers in teddy bears and were bearers of the truth. Why hadn’t I heard 

Dr. Batalion is the author of the forthcoming “The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler’s Ghettos,” from which this essay is adapted.

In 1943, Niuta Teitelbaum strolled into a Gestapo apartment on Chmielna Street in central Warsaw and faced three Nazis. A 24-year-old Jewish woman who had studied history at Warsaw University, Niuta was likely now dressed in her characteristic guise as a Polish farm girl with a kerchief tied around her braided blond hair.

She blushed, smiled meekly and then pulled out a gun and shot each one. Two were killed, one wounded. Niuta, however, wasn’t satisfied. She found a physician’s coat, entered the hospital where the injured man was being treated, and killed both the Nazi and the police officer who had been guarding him.

“Little Wanda With the Braids,” as she was nicknamed on every Gestapo most-wanted list, was one of many young Jewish women who, with supreme cunning and daring, fought the Nazis in Poland. And yet, as I discovered over several years of research on these resisters, their stories have largely been overlooked in the broader history of Jewish resistance in World War II.

In 2007, when I was living in London and grappling with my Jewish identity, I decided to write about strong Jewish women. Hannah Senesh jumped immediately to mind. As I’d learned in fifth grade, Hannah was a young World War II resistance paratrooper. She had left her native Hungary for Palestine in 1939, but later returned to Europe to fight for the the Allied cause; she was caught and was said to have looked her killers directly in their eyes as they shot her.


I went to the British Library, looked her up in the catalog and ordered the few books listed under her name. One, I noticed, was unusual, bound in worn blue fabric with gold lettering and yellowing edges — “Freuen in di Ghettos,” Yiddish for “Women in the Ghettos.” I opened it and found 180 sheets of tiny script, all in Yiddish, a language I was fluent in. To my surprise, only a few pages mentioned Hannah Senesh; the rest relayed tales of dozens of other young Jewish women who defied the Nazis, many of whom had the chance to leave Nazi-occupied Poland but didn’t; some even voluntarily returned.

All this was a revelation to me. Where I had expected mourning and gloom, I found guns, grenades and espionage. This was a Yiddish thriller, telling the stories of Polish-Jewish “ghetto girls” who paid off Gestapo guards, hid revolvers in teddy bears, flirted with Nazis and then killed them. They distributed underground bulletins, flung Molotov cocktails, bombed train lines, organized soup kitchens, and bore the truth about what was happening to the Jews.

I was stunned. I was raised in a community of Holocaust survivors and had earned a doctorate in women’s history. Why had I never heard these stories?


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Credit...Illustration by Cristiana Couceiro/Photographs by Getty; Alamy

Many women who told their stories in their own communities after the war were met with disbelief; others were accused by relatives of abandoning their families to fight; still others were charged with sleeping their way to safety. Sometimes, family members feared that opening old wounds would tear them apart. And many fighters suffered from survivors’ guilt — they’d “had it easy,” they felt, compared with others — and so in later years they remained mostly silent about their experiences. Several other factors in postwar decades may have contributed to the relative obscurity of this history. In the 1950s, some say, many Jews had trauma fatigue; in the 1960s, the emerging horrors of Auschwitz and other camps became the predominant subject; in the “hippyish” 1970s, stories of violent rebellion were out of fashion; and in the 1980s, a flood of Holocaust books in the United States overshadowed many earlier tyles.

At the center of “Freuen” was a striking testimonial by a woman identified only as Renia K.; it was composed at the end of the war, when she was just 20 years old. Her writing was descriptive, even witty. “For them,” she wrote of the Nazi officers, “killing a person was easier than smoking a cigarette.” I found her file at the Israel State Archives and used the book she published in 1945 and additional testimonies to fill out her story.

Her full name was Renia Kukielka, and she was brought up in Poland in the 1930s in a world of sophisticated Yiddish theater and literature, and some 180 Jewish newspapers. After Hitler invaded Renia’s town, Jedrzejow, and locked her family in a ghetto, Renia escaped and fled through fields. She leapt off a moving train when she was recognized, bargained with the police and pretended to be Catholic. She got a job as a housemaid, nervously genuflecting at weekly church services. “I hadn’t even known that I was such a good actor,” Renia reflected in her memoir, “able to impersonate and imitate.”

Helped by a paid Polish smuggler, she joined her older sister in the town of Bedzin. Before the war, Bedzin had been a largely middle-class Jewish community and a hub for Jewish political parties, which had proliferated in response to the question of modern Jewish identity. A vast network of Jewish youth groups was affiliated with these parties. These groups had trained young Jewish men — and women — to feel pride, live collectively, be physically active and question, critique and plan. They trained them in the skills necessary for “staying.”


Women who were selected for undercover missions were required to look “good,” or passably “Aryan” or Catholic, with light hair, blue or green eyes, good posture and an assured gait. Renia was one of those chosen. Fueled by rage and a deep sense of justice, 18-year-old Renia became an underground operative, “a courier girl.”

I learned that “courier girls” connected the locked ghettos where Jews were imprisoned. Being caught on the Aryan side meant certain death; despite that, these young women dyed their hair blond, took off their Jewish-identifying armbands, put on fake smiles and secretly slipped in and out of ghettos, bringing Jews information and hope, bulletins and false identification papers, and linking youth resistance groups across the country. They smuggled pistols, bullets and grenades, hiding them in marmalade jars, sacks of potatoes and designer handbags.

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Credit...Illustration by Cristiana Couceiro/Photographs by Getty Images; Courtesy of Ghetto Fighters’ House Museum, Photo Archive.

As women, they were well positioned to do this work: Their brothers were circumcised and risked being found out in a “pants drop” test. Before the war, Jewish girls were more likely than Jewish boys to have studied at Polish public schools (many boys attended Jewish schools and yeshivas). They were, over all, more assimilated than Jewish boys and spoke Polish without the Yiddish accent, making them excellent spies.

They also took enormous risks. Bela Hazan got a job working as a translator and receptionist for the Gestapo; she stole their documents and delivered them to Jewish forgers. Vladka Meed smuggled dynamite into the Warsaw ghetto by passing bits of gunpowder through a hole in the wall of a basement that lined the ghetto border. She later supported Jews in hiding, secretly bringing them money, medical help and trusted photographers to take their pictures for fake IDs.

Hela Schupper, a beauty who’d studied commerce, dressed up as an affluent Polish woman attending an afternoon of theater, wearing clothes she’d borrowed from a non-Jewish friend’s mother. In 1942 she met a “Mr. X” from the Polish underground on a Warsaw street corner, followed him onto a train and into a safe house, stuffed her fashionable jute handbag, and brought five guns and clips of cartridges to Krakow’s “Fighting Pioneers,” who then bombed a Christmas week gathering at an upscale cafe frequented by Nazi officers, killing at least seven Germans and wounding more.

These women were so unlike me — they were the fight to my flight — and I was becoming increasingly obsessed with them.

Renia ran missions between Bedzin and Warsaw. She moved grenades, false passports and cash strapped to her body and hidden in her undergarments and shoes. She transported Jews from ghettos to hiding spots. She wore a red flower in her hair to identify her to underground contacts, met up with a black-market arms dealer in a cemetery, and slept in a cellar, wandering the city by day to gather information. She smiled coyly during searches on the train, and befriended one border guard to whom she “confessed” about smuggling food to distract him from the real contraband that was fastened to her torso with belts. “You had to be strong in your comportment, firm,” she wrote in her memoir. “You had to have an iron will.”

In Vilna, Ruzka Korczak found a Finnish pamphlet in a library on how to make bombs — it became the underground’s recipe book. Her comrade Vitka Kempner put a rudimentary explosive under her coat, slipped out of the ghetto, and blew up a German supply train in 1942. The Vilna resistance fled the ghetto to fight in the forests, where both women commanded units. Their comrade Zelda Treger completed 17 trips transporting hundreds of Jews out of ghettos and slave labor camps to the woods. In a different forest, a 19-year-old photographer named Faye Schulman joined the partisans, participated in combat missions and performed surgery — she was once forced to amputate a soldier’s wounded finger with her teeth. “When it was time to hug a boyfriend, I was hugging a rifle,” Faye said of her wartime adolescence in a documentary film.

Renia, through cunning and luck, managed to fend off prying Nazis and Poles who attempted to turn her in for a reward — until one border guard noticed her fabricated passport stamp. Imprisoned in Gestapo lockups that prided themselves on their medieval torture strategies, Renia was brutally beaten alongside Polish political prisoners. She masterminded an escape, helped by other courier girls who plied the guards with cigarettes and whiskey. Renia was able to slip away, change her clothes and run. Using an underground railroad set up by Jews, she crossed the Tatra Mountains by foot, then reached Hungary hidden in the locomotive of a freight train. The engineer expelled an extra puff of smoke to hide her departure from the engine.

Renia finally arrived in Palestine, where she was invited to lecture about her experience, and she published her memoir in Hebrew in 1945 — one of the first full-length accounts of the Holocaust. But in her life after the war, she remained mostly silent about it. For many female survivors, silence was a means of coping. They felt it was their duty to create a new generation of Jews. Women kept their pasts secret in a desperate desire to create a normal life for their children, and, for themselves. Renia’s family home after the war was not filled with stories of the resistance, but with music, art and tango nights; she was known for her fashionable tastes, and for her sharp sense of humor. Like so many refugees, the resisters wanted to start afresh, to blend into their new worlds.

Some 70 years after the war, I went to speak with Vitka Kempner’s son, Michael Kovner, on the outdoor terrace of a Jerusalem cafe. “She was someone who went toward danger,” he told me. “She didn’t care about the rules. She had true chutzpah.”

Researching these women, I’ve learned that my family’s narrative is not the sole option for confronting large and small dangers in the world. Running is sometimes necessary, but at other times I can stop and fight, or, at least, pause and discuss. Renia and her comrades were brave and powerful and paved the way for the generations that followed — not just the Ruth Bader Ginsburgs, but also women like me and my daughters. My children should know that their legacy includes not just fleeing, but also staying, and even running toward danger.

When I left the cafe, I found myself on a quiet side road. I looked up and saw the street sign with a name I would have never recognized a few years before: Haviva Reik Street. With Hannah Senesh, Haviva had joined the British Army as a paratrooper, helping thousands of Slovak Jews and rescuing Allied servicemen. Strong female legacies were all around us; if only we noticed, if only we knew their stories.

Judy Batalion is the author of the forthcoming “The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler’s Ghettos,” from which this essay is adapted.

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Greek Jews Condemn Vandalism of New Mural Honoring Thessaloniki Jewish Holocaust Victims

An exterior view of the Monastir Synagogue. in Thessaloniki, Greece. Photo: NYC2TLV via Wikimedia Commons.

The Jewish Community of Thessaloniki “unequivocally condemned” on Thursday the defacing of a recently-unveiled mural that honors the Greek port city’s Jews and their extermination in Nazi death camps.

“It is unfortunate that a few days after its completion strangers, who seem to be bothered by the willingness of the city to remember even the darkest pages of its history, vandalized a work that received flattering comments both for its aesthetics and for the powerful message that it conveys on the need to preserve the memory and constantly remind the events of the Holocaust,” the community said in a statement.

Inspired by wartime photographs, the mural was painted on a wall that had surrounded the city’s Jewish neighborhood. Unknown vandals reportedly smeared the mural with black paint, and restoration efforts have already begun.

“Racism and anti-Semitism remain a serious problem and an open wound for our society. It is obvious that we must always remain vigilant in order to fight — through the use of historical facts and education — any attempt to revive the ideologies that gave birth to the Holocaust, the nadir of humanity,” the Jewish community group added.

Thessaloniki’s once-thriving Jewish community of over 50,000 — many of whose ancestors had arrived as refugees from the Spanish Inquisition — was all but decimated by the Nazis, with only a few thousand surviving.

“We express our revulsion toward any action that insults the memory of the victims of Nazi atrocities. Once again, we underscore the need to heap scorn on racism, hatred and fanaticism and to defend our moral principles,” said the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs

French Jews Mark Anniversary of 2012 Attack That Killed Rabbi, Three Children at Toulouse Jewish School

A billboard in Toulouse commemorating the victims of Mohammed Merah’s gun attack on the Ozar Hatorah school in March 2012. Photo: File.

French Jews commemorated on Friday victims of the horrific 2012 shooting attack at a Jewish school in Toulouse, France, which took place during a days-long killing spree that claimed the lives of seven people.

On March 19, 2012, Islamist terrorist Mohamed Merah attacked the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school, murdering Rabbi Jonathan Sandler and his two sons, six-year-old Arieh and three-year-old Gabriel, as well as another child, eight-year-old Miriam Monsonégo.

A memorial ceremony was held at the city’s Charles de Gaulle square in Toulouse, where local officials laid a wreath under the magnolia tree planted on the attack’s first anniversary by former French President Francois Hollande.

“Let us pay tribute to them, let us not forget them.” said CRIF, the French Jewish communal organization, on Twitter.

“Nine years ago, an Islamist extremist murdered three students and a teacher at a Jewish school in Toulouse and three soldiers in Montauban,” said the American Jewish Committee (AJC). “May their memories continue to inspire our efforts to combat antisemitism and extremism in France and around the world.”

“See how much we miss them,” tweeted Anne-Sophie Sebban-Bécache, AJC Paris director, of the victims. “Words are tiresome. Names and faces summon, each time, our humanity: inconsolable pain, rage and an injunction: to overcome.”

“On this day, my thoughts are with Myriam Monsonégo, Jonathan, Aryeh and Gabriel Sandler,” said Latifa Ibn Ziaten, whose husband was the first victim of Merah’s killing spree. “I think of them, their families as well as the students and staff of Ozar Hatorah School who went through these painful memories with great courage. We will never forget.”

MPs debate UK voting record on Israel at UN – here’s what they said


MPs debate UK voting record on Israel at UN – here’s what they said

MPs in Westminster debated the UK’s voting record at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to coincide with the notorious “Agenda Item 7” that took place in Geneva this week.

Whilst member states, including some of the worst human rights offenders, slammed Israel during the UNHRC debate, the actual vote on Item 7 will take place next week. The UK’s Foreign Secretary has stated that Britain will vote against all resolutions tabled under Item 7 and will call for it to be abolished altogether. Currently Item 7 is the only item on the council’s agenda that singles out an individual country.

At a special debate on Wednesday in Westminster Hall, MPs discussed the UK’s voting record.

Scott Benton MP (Conservative) led the debate, describing attacks on Israel at the UN as being detrimental to regional peace:

“The landmark peace agreements signed between Israel and her Arab neighbours in recent months are an extremely welcome development after years of stagnation,” said Benton, “but it is an unavoidable reality that the unrelenting attacks on Israel at the United Nations make regional peace harder to achieve.”

“It is no secret that the UN and its associated bodies have a long history of singling out Israel far more than any other nation in the world.”

Benson also highlighted that in the 15 years since its inception, the UNHRC has passed 171 condemnations, of which more than half have targeted Israel. He added, “It is simply unjustifiable that 90 condemnations have been passed against Israel, while a mere 10 have been adopted on the world’s worst human rights abuser, Iran.”

“Astonishingly, no condemnations have been adopted on China, Russia, Pakistan, Venezuela or other serial human rights abusers,” he continued, “Instead, many of those serial violators are Council members, which of course makes a mockery of the UN’s highest human rights body.”

“Permanent agenda item 7 is reserved for criticism of Israel, showing how deeply embedded this anti-Israel obsession has become. Motions adopted under item 7 have accused Israel of serious breaches of international law, while ignoring Palestinian rejectionism and terrorism. It is of course legitimate to highlight the plight of the Palestinian people, just as the national claims of other groups should also be given due attention. But when the blame is solely placed on Israel for the plight of the Palestinian people, with not even a superficial recognition of the numerous security challenges Israel faces, the failure of Palestinian leadership to prepare its people for a future peace agreement, and the countless peace deals rejected by the Palestinian leadership, it is clear that something has gone seriously wrong.

“There is no mention of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which terrorise Israeli civilians with rocket fire. Those terror groups use Palestinian civilians as human shields, investing in weaponry rather than welfare.” 

Benson also challenged how such disproportionate singling out of Israel is “one of the clearest examples of contemporary antisemitism, according to the world-leading definition.”

Stephen Crabb MP raised issue of resolutions that have traditionally appeared under Agenda Item 7 “quietly making its way into another agenda item, sometimes with cosmetic changes.”

Scott Benson responded: “If the UK deems resolutions within item 7 to be biased, it is ultimately irrelevant where they end up on the agenda. Biased one-sided motions are biased one-sided motions, irrespective of the agenda item number attached to them. “

 “The Foreign Secretary’s calls earlier this month for the abolition of item 7 should mean not only the end of a permanent agenda item singling out Israel for criticism; it should mean that all one-sided motions are also withdrawn, not simply moved elsewhere. Until then, we must honour our pledge to vote against all anti-Israel resolutions wherever they appear, just as we would have voted against those motions if they targeted our other allies.”

Jim Shannon MP (DUP) called on the Government to take a tougher approach to the false narrative perpetuated by the UN, saying:

“Our Government and our Minister need to take firmer steps to highlight that the Israel-Palestine issue will never be resolved by continuing to peddle the false narrative perpetuated by the UN, by painting an awful picture of the victimisation of innocent Palestinians at the hands of so-called evil Israel.

James Cleverly, Minister of State for the Foreign Office, agreed that Article Item 7 is an example of the bias against Israel, and further alienates Israel. “The UK Government’s position is that we are both happy and proud to stand up when we feel that Israel faces bias and unreasonable criticism from international institutions, or indeed from anywhere else,” said Cleverly.

Item 7 damages the efforts to advance dialogue, increase stability, and build mutual trust and understanding between the Israeli and Palestinian people, and therefore damages the prospect of a sustainable, meaningful and peaceful two-state solution. That is why, at the 40th session of the Human Rights Council in March 2019, the UK adopted a principled approach in which we voted against all resolutions tabled under item 7.

Cleverly also stated that the UK “will continue to push for the abolition of agenda item 7,” whilst reaffirming that the UK will vote against all motions under that item next week. However the Foreign minister didn’t confirm that Britain will do likewise for other resolutions under different Agenda items, saying that “the UK is happy to support the scrutiny of countries, including Israel, if it is done fairly and proportionately. “

It is understood the Palestinian Authority has moved some resolutions from Item 7 to Item 2.

“Our blanket opposition is to resolutions under item 7, rather than more broadly to resolutions on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. We will therefore decide how we vote based purely on the merits of the resolution and on the final text that is put before the council,” said Cleverly.

Challenged by Stephen Crabb over whether it was “morally right” to vote for text that singles out Israel just because it appears outside of Item 7,  Cleverly replied,

“We recognise that moving away from agenda item 7 is a positive step, so our commitment is to engage with the specific text. It may well be the case that the UK Government find the final text unacceptable, but the decision will be based on the specific text rather than our principled opposition to item 7 as a tool of specific and unfair criticism of Israel. Those negotiations are ongoing.”

Resolutions that politicise UN bodies or that risk hardening the position of either side do little to advance peace or mutual understanding,” Cleverly concluded, “We believe that negotiations will succeed only when they are conducted between Israelis and Palestinians and supported by the international community, and we will continue to work with international bodies, regional bodies, European partners and the United States, and of course with Israel and the Palestinian leadership, to advance dialogue, to encourage joint working and to find a permanent peaceful solution to this conflict, which has gone on for too long.”

For a full account of the debate, please click here

 

Thursday 18 March 2021

Israel to Use Electronic Tracking Bracelet to Enforce Quarantine Measures

Israel will use an electronic tracking bracelet to enforce coronavirus quarantine measures for residents returning to the country, according to a new bill passed Wednesday.

"Anyone who enters Israel, or anyone who arrives from certain countries and is obligated to enter quarantine, will be required to isolate at home with an electronic monitoring device, to ensure that the person remains in isolation for the duration of the mandatory quarantine period," Israel's Knesset said in a press release.

When returning residents arrive at Ben Gurion Airport, near Tel Aviv, they will be tested for the virus, the release said. If they receive a negative test, they will have the option to wear the electronic tracking bracelet or quarantine in a state-run hotel.


"The bracelet will monitor the wearers' location via Bluetooth and GPS technology and connect to the users' cell phone," the release added. "The bracelet monitor will notify authorities should they violate the mandatory isolation.

If residents present proof that they have been vaccinated for COVID-19 or that they have already recovered from the virus, they will be released from quarantine after undergoing a serological test.

The bill states that the tracking bracelets are monitored by a private company, SuperCom, that will inform authorities if a person violates the country's quarantine measures, according to The Jerusalem Post.


Israel Coronavirus
An Israeli man arriving on a flight from Germany displays an electronic bracelet at Israel's Ben-Gurion Airport on March 1.JACK GUEZ/GETTY

The bill's passage comes shortly after Israel conducted a pilot program with the electronic tracking bracelets. Earlier this month, the program involved 100 participants arriving at Ben Gurion Airport who got the bracelets, according to The Times of Israel. The pilot program was implemented as an option instead of isolating travelers for two weeks at a state run hotel.

Israel will use an electronic tracking bracelet to enforce coronavirus quarantine measures for residents returning to the country, according to a new bill passed Wednesday.


"Anyone who enters Israel, or anyone who arrives from certain countries and is obligated to enter quarantine, will be required to isolate at home with an electronic monitoring device, to ensure that the person remains in isolation for the duration of the mandatory quarantine period," Israel's Knesset said in a press release.

When returning residents arrive at Ben Gurion Airport, near Tel Aviv, they will be tested for the virus, the release said. If they receive a negative test, they will have the option to wear the electronic tracking bracelet or quarantine in a state-run hotel.


"The bracelet will monitor the wearers' location via Bluetooth and GPS technology and connect to the users' cell phone," the release added. "The bracelet monitor will notify authorities should they violate the mandatory isolation period."


If residents present proof that they have been vaccinated for COVID-19 or that they have already recovered from the virus, they will be released from quarantine after undergoing a serological test.

The bill states that the tracking bracelets are monitored by a private company, SuperCom, that will inform authorities if a person violates the country's quarantine measures, according to The Jerusalem Post.


Israel Coronavirus
An Israeli man arriving on a flight from Germany displays an electronic bracelet at Israel's Ben-Gurion Airport on March 1.JACK GUEZ/GETTY

The bill's passage comes shortly after Israel conducted a pilot program with the electronic tracking bracelets. Earlier this month, the program involved 100 participants arriving at Ben Gurion Airport who got the bracelets, according to The Times of Israel. The pilot program was implemented as an option instead of isolating travelers for two weeks at a state-run hotel.

On March 5, SuperCom said the program had been successful. "We are very pleased with this pilot, utilizing our proprietary technology with persons under home quarantine in Israel, and we are proud to help Israel validate an important strategy to help mitigate the spread of the coronavirus," Ordan Trabelsi, president and CEO of SuperCom, said in a press release.

Residents returning to Israel that participated in the pilot program expressed "very positive and comfortable experiences with a high rate of satisfaction for choosing the program," the release said.

Newsweek reached out to a Knesset spokesperson for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.

Tuesday 16 March 2021

Tunisian Jews Are in Immediate Danger


avatarby Edy Cohen

Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed. Sept. 14, 2019. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

During his election campaign, Tunisian president Kais Saied accused Israel of being at war with the Muslim world, a message that struck a chord in the hearts of many Tunisians. He also said that any Muslim leader who normalizes relations with the Zionists should be prosecuted for treason. In other words, he deems anyone who maintains relations with Israel a traitor to the Arab umma (nation) and the Palestinian people.

Following his election to the presidency, Saied’s campaign of hate toward Israel expanded to include Tunisian Jews, whom he has called thieves. (He apologized afterward, claiming his words had been taken out of context.)

Thanks to Saied’s influence, Tunisia has changed from an unusually tolerant Muslim country into a typically intolerant Muslim country that does not respect its minorities. A few weeks ago, a Tunisian church was set on fire, and the danger to the country’s Jews is escalating.

Jews lived in Tunisia for thousands of years in relative peace. Only 1,500 Jews remain in the country, most of them on the island of Djerba. They represent one of the last remaining Jewish communities in the Middle East outside of Israel. “They would accept Zionism only when they found themselves up against an 'iron wall.’" -- Ze’ev Jabotinsky An early founder of...

The president’s attitude has opened the door to antisemitism among the Tunisian population, which is growing increasingly commonplace. A pre-existing hostility toward faraway Israel has turned into open hatred and acts of provocation against local Jews. In other words, anti-Zionism has revealed itself as antisemitism.

Lassaad Hajjem, the Muslim mayor of the Midoun Islands off Djerba, has altered the names of the area’s Jewish neighborhoods by adding Muslim names. “Al-Riad” has been added to the name of the smaller Jewish neighborhood and “Al-Suani” to the name of the larger. Both are Islamic sites in Saudi Arabia. The changes were made following an order from the mayor and have already been integrated into official state documents and Wikipedia entries.

Lest the Tunisian Jews miss the point, Hajjem also placed a large sign near the entrance to the Jewish neighborhoods that reads as follows: “Al-Quds [Jerusalem] is the capital of Palestine.” The sign states the distance to “Al-Quds” as 3,090 kilometers and displays the Palestinian flag.

Mayor Hajjem is a member of the Ennahda faction of the radical Muslim Brotherhood. He has been in office since August 2018, but waited until the end of the administration of former Tunisian president Beji Caid Essebsi to act against the Jews of the Midoun Islands. The Essebsi government included René Trabelsi, a Jewish cabinet member who served as Minister of Tourism. During Essebsi’s term, the treatment of Tunisian Jews was much better than it is today.

After the election of Kais Saied, who is known for his nationalism and antisemitism, Lassaad Hajjem took advantage of the newly fertile ground to remind Tunisian Jews that they live on borrowed time in a Muslim country.

The Jewish community in Newcastle, England, is shrinking. But it’s getting some unexpected help.

“We forgive, but we do not forget”: Commemorating the 78th anniversary of the Day of Deportation of Macedonian Jews

Online commemorations for the victims and survivors of the Holocaust

The main commemorative online ceremony was organized jointly by the Jewish Community in North Macedonia and the Embassy of Italy in Skopje with addresses by the President of the Republic of North Macedonia Stevo Pendarovski, the President of the Jewish Community Berta Romano – Nikolik and the Italian Ambassador Andrea Silvestri.

President Pendarovski underlined that “The Holocaust is a logical consequence of the moral vacuum in which everything was allowed, including the devaluation of human life and its inherent dignity. This absolute evil must be condemned absolutely. We must not allow the truth about the Holocaust to be relativized and forgotten. It is our duty to remember so that it never happens again.”

The event included conversation with E. Merlo, director of the Italian documentary film “70072: la bambina che non sapeva odiara” and the main film protagonist Lidia Maksymowitz, a Holocaust survivor from Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Planting seedlings in commemoration

President Pendarovski, prior to this event, planted a Macedonian oak tree and inaugurated a memorial plaque with the message “We forgive, but we do not forget” in the Presidential Office garden. At the same time, on his behalf, and in cooperation with the Embassy of Israel, a tree was planted in Jerusalem, in the Peace Forest Amandav. 

President Pendarovski emphasized that the seedlings are an expression of respect for the small but extremely important Jewish community in North Macedonia that for centuries has been a fruitful tree on Macedonian soil.

Joining in commemoration – both online and offline

Prime Minister of the Republic of North Macedonia Zoran Zaev posted via his Facebook account that the Holocaust was the largest crime in contemporary history and that remembrance would remain our eternal duty. He noted it served as a warning and a lesson that calls upon us to prevent all forms of evil and danger that may be a threat to our common future and to the building of an equal society for all.

Government delegations led by the Minister of Justice Bojan Maricic and the Minister of Culture Irena Stefoska, representatives of the Assembly, of the Cabinet of the President of the Republic and the local authorities laid flowers and wreaths in front of the Monument of the deported Macedonian Jews in the former “Monopol” tobacco factory, at the Skopje and Shtip Jewish Cemeteries.

In memory of the Bitola Holocaust Jews victims, city Mayor Natasha Petrovska addressed the commemorative event held in front of the Holocaust memorial where a tree was planted and flowers placed. Israeli Ambassador to North Macedonia Dan Oryan joined the event with an online address. The NGO ARHAN also planted trees in nine kindergartens as part of the international action “Plant a tree for each of our citizens who perished in the Holocaust fires.”

The commemorative events also included the promotion of two books: the trilingual (Macedonian, Albanian and English) “The Basic Antisemitic Legislation of the Kingdom of Bulgaria” in Skopje and “The last album, guardian of the memories of the Bitola Jewish religious municipality,” as well as the opening of the exhibition “Testimonies of Bitola Jews in the photography work of the Brothers Manaki” in Bitola

Greece Marks Departure of First Death Train for Thessaloniki

 Greece Marks Departure of First Death Train for Thessaloniki Jews
Thessaloniki Jews
Thessaloniki Jews being publicly humiliated by the Nazis. Credit: Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-168-0895-03A, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, Wikipedia Commons

On March 15, Greece marks the anniversary of the departure in 1943 of the first train from Thessaloniki taking members of the city’s thriving Jewish community to the Auschwitz death camp.

Thessaloniki had a population of more than 50,000 Jews before World War II — some 46,000 of whom were deported and killed at German Nazi death camps.

“Thessaloniki remembers this day. It is a day that no one has forgotten”, says the mayor of Thessaloniki, Konstantinos Zervas.

“On this day in 1943, a train with 2,400 Thessaloniki’s Jews started from here bound for faraway Poland. A death train with passengers who did not know where they were being led, who did not know that they had no return”, Zervas stated in his remarks.

“Today, 78 years later, it is our moral duty to keep this memory alive,” he added.

Thessaloniki, the “Jerusalem of the Balkans”

Before the deportations started, the Jewish community in the city, which mainly comprised Sephardic Jews chased out of Spain in 1492, had flourished to the point where it had earned the nickname “The Jerusalem of the Balkans.”

But then came the horrors of 1943, when virtually all of the town’s Jews were deported — just four percent of them surviving the Nazi death camps to which they had been sent.

To carry out this operation, the Nazi authorities dispatched two specialists in the field, Alois Brunner and Dieter Wisliceny, who arrived on February 6, 1943.

They immediately applied the Nuremberg laws in all their rigor, imposing the display of the yellow badge and drastically restricting the Jews’ freedom of movement.

Thessaloniki Jews
Registration of the Jews of Thessaloniki by the Nazis, July 1942. Credit: Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-168-0894-21A /CC BY-SA 3.0 de/ Wikipedia Commons

Death trains for Jews waiting

Toward the end of February 1943, they were rounded up in three ghettos (Kalamaria, Singrou and Vardar/Agia Paraskevi) and then transferred to a transit camp, called the Baron Hirsch ghetto or camp, which was adjacent to a train station.

There, the death trains were waiting. To accomplish their mission, the SS relied on a Jewish police force created for the occasion, led by Vital Hasson, which was the source of numerous abuses against the rest of the Jews.

The first convoy departed on March 15, 1943. Each train carried from 1,000–4,000 Jews across the whole of central Europe, mainly to the Auschwitz camp.

A convoy also left for Treblinka, and it is possible that a deportation to Sobibor took place, since Salonican Jews were liberated from that camp.

The Jewish population of Salonika was so large that the deportation took several months until it was completed, which occurred on August 7

Malmö's Jewish students are no longer safe


Below is a translation of a joint op-ed by Petra Kahn Nord of the World Jewish Congress, Aron Verständig of the Jewish Central Council of Sweden and Nina Tojzner of the Jewish Youth Union in Sweden in the Swedish newspaper Expressen

“Stingy Jew! I'll gas you!” This is what Jewish students at Malmö's schools hear from their fellow students. Other students "heil" at them without anyone—neither teachers nor students — interceding. 

A new report from the City of Malmö entitled, "Schoolyard racism, conspiracy theories and exclusion, a report on antisemitism and the Jewish minority in Malmö's preschools, schools, high schools and adult education (2020)," describes an unsafe environment for Jewish students in Malmö's schools. 

Connection to the Middle East 

The author of the study, Mirjam Katzin, Malmö City's coordinator against antisemitism, relates that all the Jewish students interviewed experienced verbal or physical attacks of some kind. The report linked the Middle East conflict to clear expressions of antisemitism. 

Antisemitism in Swedish society is metastasizing and masquerading in politics, criticism of religion, or conspiracy myths. It poses a danger to Jews but also to society at large because alongside antisemitism comes other prejudices, intolerances, and undemocratic ideologies. 

The emphasis on antisemitism in connection with the Middle East conflict demonstrates the importance of the Swedish government’s adoption of the IHRA working definition of antisemitism and its eleven working examples in identifying and counteracting all forms of antisemitism. The definition is a particularly useful resource in distinguishing between legitimate criticism of the Israeli government and antisemitism directed at Jews. 

Jewish students encounter antisemitic conspiracy myths in school, in their free time and on social media. All the Jewish students interviewed say that Jews stay away from certain Malmö schools due to safety concerns. 

The Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention’s (Brottsförebyggande rådet or Brå for short) study identifies antisemitic hate crimes in many different types of environments and contexts. The study states that "antisemitism occurs in broad strata of the population and cuts through different religions, secular groups, political persuasions and ideologies." Several interviewees point to an inability or unwillingness among teachers and administrators to "handle" expressions of antisemitism. Those staff members have chosen not to confront students who expose others to antisemitism and bullying, and instead urge the vulnerable students to "tone down” their Jewish identity.

Teachers find the question uncomfortable 

In the report, teachers stated that they lacked the knowledge and tools with which to counter antisemitism and conspiracy myths, as well as a desire to properly address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and conceded that antisemitism is sometimes ignored because it is too inconvenient to address. 

Examine all schools in Sweden 

Sweden is hosting the Malmö International Forum on Holocaust Remembrance and Combating Antisemitism 13–14 October 2021 and we believe that Sweden should pledge to: 

  • Conduct a similar audit of schools across all of Sweden’s municipalities in order to properly understand the prevalence of antisemitism and its various expressions. The IHRA's definition should be the basis for identifying antisemitism.  
  • Based on the the report’s conclusions, authorities should create an action plan to identify and counter antisemitism  
  • Teachers and school staff should be trained and given tools to identify and counter antisemitism. The Swedish Committee against Antisemitism (SKMA) and the Forum for Living History should be involved in the design of the programs to support educators. 
  • The Central Jewish Council and the Jewish Museum should be consulted regarding curriculum discussing antisemitism. Antisemitism is problem that affects society as a whole, and, according to Katzin's report, combating antisemitism in schools needs "to be conducted in an integrated and long-term manner, not in the form of, for example, theme days." The IHRA working definition of antisemitism with its eleven examples should form the basis of this work. 

UAE crown prince volunteered to invest $12M in Israel: Netanyahu

UAE crown prince volunteered to invest $12M in Israel: Netanyahu
Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan speaks with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (not pictured) during a meeting at Al-Shati Palace in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates on Jan. 12, 2019. (Reuters File Photo)

Emirati Crown Prince M. bin Zayed Al Nahyan has "volunteered" to invest over $12 million in Israel, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday.

In an interview with the Israeli army radio, Netanyahu said Abu Dhabi's crown prince told him that he "wants to be a partner in projects which could enhance Israel's economy after the coronavirus [pandemic]."

So far, there has been no comment from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Netanyahu's statement.

On Thursday, Netanyahu postponed his official visit to the UAE due to difficulties that surfaced in coordinating the passage of his flight through Jordanian airspace.

Following the cancellation of the trip, UAE said it agreed to launch an investment fund worth of $10 billion in Israel, according to the official WAM news agency.

Trade volume between Dubai and the UAE has reached $300 million since the normalization.

Several bilateral agreements were signed in different fields following an Israel-UAE normalization deal last year.

Israeli air carrier requests to fly to Sharm el-Sheikh

In another sign of warming relations, Israel's Israir Airlines Ltd. wants to operate flights from Tel Aviv and Haifa to the Sinai Sharm el-Sheikh resort town.

al-monitor
MOHAMED EL-SHAHED/AFP via Getty Images.

BY RINA BASSIST

Mar 15, 2021

Flights from Tel Aviv to Sharm el-Sheikh should take an hour and 10 minutes. The company has not yet decided how much it will charge for the flight, but it did indicate it would also like to operate flights from Haifa.

The issue of vacationing in the Sinai Peninsula came up at the March 9 visit of Intelligence Minister Eli Cohen to Sharm el-Sheikh. Cohen arrived accompanied by a group of businesspeople, including seniors from the Israeli tourism industry. At their different meetings, the Egyptian counterparts exposed the measures taken by the government in the past few months to guarantee the security and health of tourists once the Peninsula reopens. In fact, last February, Egyptian authorities said they have constructed a 36-kilometer (22-mile) concrete barrier around Sharm el-Sheikh resort to protect tourists against any possible terror attack.

For the moment, because of coronavirus, Israeli skies are closed and so is the territorial Taba crossing point. On March 11, Israel’s Interior Ministry opened the Taba crossing for a few hours to enable Israelis to return home. Still, many in Israel hope that by the time the Passover holiday starts, both Taba and Ben Gurion airport would fully open (several international flight routes are expected to resume tomorrow already). They miss Sinai with its beaches and coral reefs, and with Sharm el-Sheikh’s luxurious hotels and the silence of the desert.

Israelis hope lockdown is over — permanently

High vaccination rates help loosen pandemic curbs, but there are fears that some are here to stay

Diners frequent a restaurant in Jerusalem. For more than a week now, restaurants have been jammed and nightclubs and bars are spilling over with joyous revellers
Diners frequent a restaurant in Jerusalem. For more than a week now, restaurants have been jammed and nightclubs and bars are spilling over with joyous revellers © Abir Sultan/EPA/Shutterstock
   

With nearly no restrictions, and close to no enforcement of those that remain, Israel has raced out of the pandemic. Parties have spilled out on to the streets, children giggle in school playgrounds and beaches heave with families.

With the vast majority of its elderly population already inoculated, and millions more already under the protection of their first jab, the country has made an educated bet to trust in the vaccine. New infections are down to 3 per cent of those tested, hospitals are emptying and epidemiologists are cautiously optimistic. If new vaccine-defying variants can be kept at bay, Israel may be the first nation to tame the pandemic and open up its economy for good.

A month after my second jab, I embraced this new normal and invited 30 of my vaccinated friends to a joyful, mask-less party at my house. For more than a week now, restaurants have been jammed, nightclubs and bars are spilling over with joyous revellers and masks, still mandated by law indoors, are quickly vanishing.

“It’s like a thunderstorm after a drought,” said Daniel Lipshitz, 27, chugging beers on a Saturday afternoon in a crowded Jaffa bar. “No, it’s like sex after being stuck on a desert island,” giggled his friend, Noa, who asked that her last name be printed as “Party Animal”. “Even my grandmother is throwing a party.”

The initial giddiness aside, Israel has become the test case for what life after the pandemic could look like. For now, some restrictions remain — no more than 20 people are allowed indoors, for instance, although the rule is largely being ignored. There is also an acrimonious debate on how to manage the return of Israelis stranded abroad for months.

But health officials warn that the country is not yet free of Covid-19. The R number, the holy grail of epidemiologists for the past year, still hovers just below 1, for instance, as a long tail of lingering infections bedevils communities that have been hesitant to get vaccinated. They include the Arab-Israeli community and the ultra-orthodox Jewish minority — both of which were hit hard by the pandemic — but also a hardcore of secular, city-dwelling vaccine deniers. “Put your vaccine up your ass,” screamed one at a protest that took place by the old Ottoman clock tower in Jaffa.

Others are less strident, open to being slowly wooed by the enticements on offer from the government. These include a “green passport” scheme, which generates a barcode on your phone to be checked by staff at leisure establishments. If fully rolled out, it will leave those without a vaccination certificate finding life after the pandemic as limited as it was during the crisis.

“Maybe, if I can’t DJ at a nightclub without the green passport, I will get the vaccine,” says one sceptic, declining to give his name because he is already being hassled by his friends and parents.

Without overtly declaring it, the government’s policy has largely been to keep an eye on hospital admissions instead of overall new infections — if the young catch coronavirus because they didn’t take the vaccine, but stay out of hospitals, it’s an outcome the state can live with.

The most tempting carrot being dangled by the government is the promise of travel without quarantine. Even Israeli citizens have found it nearly impossible to return home in recent months. Starting this week, up to 3,000 people a day will be allowed in — up from just 200 a week — if they are approved by the health ministry.

Plans being debated would replicate the success of Australia and some south-east Asian nations in keeping foreign infections at bay with forced quarantine at a hotel or at home while fitted with an electronic tracking bracelet.

The government plans to eventually let those vaccinated in Israel travel freely — perhaps even without quarantine upon returning home. It’s a risk, according to Nachman Ash, the country’s coronavirus tsar, who believes that without careful monitoring, such as with electronic bracelets, Israel could soon fall prey to new variants.

But for now, there’s not much reason to leave the country. The party is happening here.

mehul.srivastava@ft.com