Global Antisemitism News Roundup, First Quarter 2023

AMBASSADOR LIPSTADT CITES HAGGADAH TO EXPLAIN FIGHT AGAINST ANTISEMITISM

In an April 5 interview with The Times of Israel, Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt, US Special Envoy to Combat and Monitor Antisemitism, was asked why increased engagement with antisemitism won’t necessarily lead to a decrease in attacks. She responded with lines from the Passover Haggadah.

“The authors of the Passover Haggadah, one of our oldest texts, recognized hundreds of years ago that ‘in every generation there are those who rise up to destroy us,’ which is why historians talk about antisemitism as the oldest hatred,” Lipstadt said. “But there’s a second part to that line from the Haggadah, and it cuts to resiliency: ‘And God saves us from their hands.’ For believers, they say there’s a divine hand of rescue. Others, including believers, say it’s been because of people that we’ve managed to withstand and address [threats against Jews].’”

ATTACK ON MONTREAL SYNAGOGUE TOPS LIST OF 10 MOST SHOCKING ANTISEMITIC INCIDENTS

The website combatantisemitism.org topped its list of the 10 most shocking incidents of antisemitism in March, 2023 with an attack on the Bagg Street Shul, a historic Orthodox synagogue in Montreal. Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante issued a statement condemning the March 28 vandalism attack, saying that the spray-painting of swastikas on the windows and front of the synagogue “have no place in our society,” and that she stood “wholeheartedly with the Jewish community.” Other incidents in March included Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib posting a fake video of abuse by Israeli police on Twitter; a thwarted attack against Jewish sites in Athens sponsored by Iran; representatives of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) addressing students at University of Cape Town (UCT) via video message during an “Israeli Apartheid Week 2023” event; and continued physical attacks against Jews in New York City.

HOUSTON MESSIANIC CONGREGATION AIDS ARREST OF SYNAGOGUE ATTACKER

A Houston woman, Ezra Law, broke into Congregation Emanu El in the early hours of January 14, causing damage to both the building and a sacred Torah scroll. After spending six hours in the building — including drinking wine and spilling it on one of the Torahs — Law was discovered by security personnel who detained her until Houston Police officers arrived to arrest her. As a condition of her release on bond, she was forbidden from being within 1,500 feet of the congregation. The following Friday, however, she returned to Emanu El on Friday to disrupt a preschool class, harassing young children before fleeing. Law, who was identified by media as holding “Messianic” beliefs, later visited Messianic congregation Beth Messiah, where the security team engaged with her and notified police, who arrested her a second time.

PLANNED 'DAY OF HATE' AGAINST JEWS PASSES WITH PACKED SYNAGOGUES AND NO VIOLENCE

A “National Day of Hate” against Jews planned by white supremacists that triggered sweeping warnings from law enforcement and Jewish security officials came and went without significant incident on Saturday.

Synagogues and Jewish institutions across the United States had spent the preceding days shoring up their security procedures, reassuring their congregants and requesting extra patrols from local police.

But the Anti-Defamation League, which monitors hate, wrote on Twitter that a meaningful escalation of antisemitic activity did not come to pass, despite some white supremacist actions and propaganda drops around the country. “Despite concerns over increased antisemitic activity, 2/25 has so far been a pretty typical Saturday in America,” the organization tweeted.

2023 BEGINS WITH OVER 1,000 ENTITIES USING THE IHRA DEFINITION OF ANTISEMITISM

As of January 2023, a total of 1,116 global entities have adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s Working Definition of Antisemitism. According to the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), this includes 30 U.S. states, American cities such as Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., El Paso and Wichita, and seven out of the 10 Canadian provinces. The IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism was adopted in 2016 and has since become the most widely-recognized barometer in the collective effort against Jew-hatred, serving as an essential tool to identify and delineate contemporary manifestations of this age-old bigotry. A diverse array of international organizations, national and local governments and corporations are now using it.

FEDERAL CHARGES FILED AGAINST SUSPECT IN SHOOTINGS OF 2 JEWISH MEN IN LA

Jamie Tran, 28, suspected of shooting two Jewish men after they left synagogues in the Pico-Robertson district less than 24 hours apart, was charged in February with two federal hate crime counts: interference with federally protected activities and use of a firearm in a felony, according to a criminal complaint.

He was "motived by antisemitism,'' according to U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada, who continued, "Over the past two days, our community experienced two horrific acts we believe were motivated by antisemitic ideology that caused him to target the Jewish community. It is important, especially in one of the most diverse areas in the world, that we celebrate our differences, and stand together to oppose acts of hate." If convicted of both charges, Tran would face up to life in federal prison, Estrada said.

FEDS ARREST MICHIGAN MAN WHO PLOTTED TO KILL JEWISH ELECTED OFFICIALS

The FBI coordinated with local authorities in mid-February to arrest a heavily armed man who had threatened to kill all Jewish elected officials in Michigan on social media, according to a recently unsealed criminal case. Jack Eugene Carpenter III, of Tipton, Michigan, had tweeted on Feb. 17 that he was “heading back to Michigan now threatening to carry out the punishment of death to anyone that is jewish in the Michigan govt if they don’t leave, or confess,” according to the FBI’s affidavit. Carpenter he claimed to be a former employee of the University of Michigan who “was fired for refusing to take experimental medication.” The University of Michigan has more than 6,500 Jewish students, according to Hillel International.

BDS SHARES CONCENTRATION CAMP PHOTO, CLAIMS IT'S A PALESTINIAN MASSACRE

In a February 15 Twitter post, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) claimed they were displaying a photo of the so-called “Tantura Massacre” in 1948, but a Holocaust expert proved it was actually a Nazi concentration camp in Germany. The tweet called on EMBO [European Molecular Biology Organization] to “relocate workshops from ‘apartheid Israel,’ including the one at the site of the Tantura massacre. EMBO has a moral obligation to end its complicity in whitewashing Israel’s crimes.”

Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Minister Amichai Chikli responded, “the racist BDS movement breaks a Guinness record, uses a picture from the German concentration camp of Nordhausen to lie about a fictional massacre during Israel’s War of Independence. Holocaust distortion, appropriation and denial, further victimizing Jewish people. Pure evil.”

BULGARIA BANS NEO-NAZI EVENT AFTER PUBLIC OUTCRY

Authorities in Bulgaria on February 25 banned an annual torch-lit march in downtown Sofia in honor of a late general who led the pro-Nazi Union of Bulgarian National Legions during World War II. The event has been condemned by human rights groups, political parties, and foreign embassies, which criticized the march organizers for promoting racism, xenophobia, and antisemitism. Held annually since 2003, the march over the years has attracted nationalist admirers of Gen. Hristo Lukov, who supported Germany during World War II and was killed by an anti-fascist resistance movement. Police also blocked the streets around the site where Lukov had lived in Sofia to prevent the nationalists from holding a ceremony in memory of Lukov, which in past years was the high point of the event. Bulgaria, the poorest member of the European Union, has a growing presence of right-wing nationalists, and the Lukov March has been their most important public event.

OHIO HOMESCHOOLING NETWORK REPORTEDLY TEACHING NEO-NAZI IDEAS

The Ohio Department of Education is investigating an online homeschool network that aims to indoctrinate children as Nazis — but insiders say the state has little power to change the white supremacist curriculum, according to a February 2 CNN report. The Dissident Homeschool community was founded in October 2021 by Katja and Logan Lawrence, a married couple with four children based in Upper Sandusky, according to a report published in February by the anti-fascist research group Anonymous Comrades Collective.

In a conversation last year on the neo-Nazi podcast “Achtung! Amerikaner,” Katja — who goes by “Mrs. Saxon” on the channel — told host Gordon Kahl that she started Dissident Homeschool because she “was having a rough time finding Nazi-approved school material for [her elementary-age] homeschool children.”

Russ ResnikApril 6, 2023