Global Antisemitism News Roundup, October-November 2022
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell appeared to take aim at former President Donald Trump on November 29 over his decision to host Ye (Kanye West) and white supremacist Nick Fuentes for dinner last week at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
Flanked by other top Republicans, the GOP's Senate leader opened his weekly news conference by saying: "First, let me just say that there is no room in the Republican Party for antisemitism or white supremacy. And anyone meeting with people advocating that point of view, in my judgment, are highly unlikely to ever be elected president of the United States."
See also: Republican leaders denounce Trump's dinner with white nationalist Nick Fuentes
Trump hosted Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes alongside Ye a week after announcing 2024 run
BLACK HEBREW ISRAELITES SUPPORT KYRIE IRVING AHEAD OF NETS GAME
Photo: www.blackenterprise.com
NBA player Kyrie Irving returned to the court with the Brooklyn Nets on Sunday, November 20, after an eight-game suspension, as Black Hebrew Israelites gathered in large numbers outside the arena, according to Sports Illustrated, to show their support for the team’s star guard. CBS Sports reported that several group members distributed Radical Hebrew Israelite propaganda flyers. The Black Hebrew Israelites movement, which has its share of antisemitic beliefs, is classified as an extremist group by the ADL.
See also: Who Are the Black Hebrew Israelites?
WORLD CUP: QATAR WON'T ALLOW COOKED KOSHER FOOD, PUBLIC JEWISH PRAYER
Jewish organizations have said that even though they were promised otherwise, Qatar won’t allow any cooked kosher food to be sold or offered to visitors of the FIFA World Cup.
Sources in Jewish organizations told The Jerusalem Post that Qatar broke another promise to allow Jewish prayer services in Doha during the games, claiming it couldn’t secure this type of activity and then banned it completely. “We were promised to be allowed to create prayer spaces in order for religious Jews who came to see the games to have a place of worship,” a representative of a Jewish organization said. “We were recently told that they banned places of worship for Jews because they cannot secure them.”
BULLET HOLES DISCOVERED AT RABBI’S HOME NEXT TO SYNAGOGUE IN GERMANY
The Old Synagogue in Essen, Germany. Photo: Martin Meissner / AP.
Four bullet holes were discovered at the rabbi’s residence next to the Old Synagogue in Essen, Germany, on Friday, November 18, prompting a large-scale police response and investigation. No one was injured in the incident. German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann said he was “shocked by this latest attack on Jewish life in Germany. Antisemitism must have no place. It is our duty to protect Jewish life.” The number of antisemitic incidents recorded in Germany in 2021 totaled 2,738, up nearly 40% from the 1,957 of the previous year, mirroring a global rise in Jew-hatred, according to an annual data report published by the country’s Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAS).
GROWING CALLS TO COMBAT ANTISEMITISM ON TWITTER
In a Nov. 16 open letter to Twitter CEO Elon Musk and Twitter management, 180 non-profit and civil rights organizations called on the company to update its anti-hate policies and adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism. A peer-reviewed study by the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism (ISCA) found that between January and August 2020, some 11% of conversations about Jews and 13% of conversations about Israel on Twitter were antisemitic in nature. In May 2021, during Israel’s Operation Guardian of the Walls military campaign against Hamas, the Twitter hashtag #HitlerWasRight was tweeted approximately 17,000 times in one week.
FBI DIRECTOR SAYS US JEWS UNDER THREAT “FROM ALL SIDES”
The American Jewish community is “getting hit from all sides” amid a nationwide rise in antisemitic attacks, FBI Director Christopher Wray said at a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on November 17.
“Antisemitism and violence that comes out of it is a persistent and present fact,” Wray said in response to a question about the FBI’s handling of threats facing U.S. Jews. “The numbers that we’ve seen, about 63 percent of religious hate crimes, overall, are motivated by antisemitism, and that’s targeting a group that just makes up about 2.4% of the American population,” he pointed out. “So it’s a community that deserves, and desperately needs, our support.”
UN ADVISOR REJECTS POPULAR DEFINITION OF ANTISEMITISM
A United Nations advisor hired to analyze the rise in antisemitism globally called for member states to stop adopting a definition of the term favored by leading American Jewish organizations.
E. Tendayi Achiume, the special rapporteur on contemporary racism, said the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism was both ineffective and had “an impact on the human rights of minorities and vulnerable groups, including Jews.” Versions of the IHRA definition have been used by the United States for more than a decade, and it has more recently been adopted by 37 other countries and many state governments.
ADIDAS, GAP TERMINATE KANYE WEST RELATIONSHIPS OVER ANTISEMITIC REMARKS
On October 25 shoemaker Adidas ended its partnership with Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, after the musician made a series of offensive and antisemitic comments. Hours later, Gap and then Foot Locker said they would immediately remove Ye’s Yeezy branded products from its stores.
Gap and Foot Locker released statements that echoed the statement from Adidas: “Adidas does not tolerate antisemitism and any other sort of hate speech. Ye’s recent comments and actions have been unacceptable, hateful and dangerous, and they violate the company’s values of diversity and inclusion, mutual respect and fairness.”
See also: 'Kanye is right about the Jews,' antisemitic group says on Los Angeles highway banner
Irving, Stewart, Chappelle and the double standard for Jew-hatred