Global Antisemitism News Roundup, Summer 2023
A federal jury on August 2 voted to sentence Robert Bowers to death for killing 11 worshipers at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue in 2018, the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history. In June, the jury found Bowers, 50, guilty of dozens of federal hate crimes in a trial held at the U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh in western Pennsylvania. Bowers was convicted of 63 counts, including 11 counts of obstruction of free exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death.
During the trial, prosecutors argued that Bowers deserved the death sentence because he showed no remorse and the attack was premeditated and targeted a place of worship including vulnerable elderly worshipers.
Bowers' defense lawyers did not dispute that he planned and carried out the attack on the synagogue during Sabbath morning services, but argued that Bowers suffered from life-long mental illness and was delusional.
See also: How American Jewish groups are reacting to the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter’s sentence
GERMAN CHURCH REFUSES TO REMOVE ANTISEMITIC JUDENSAU CARVING
A German government official has requested the removal of an antisemitic sculpture from a church, the Jewish Chronicle (JC) reported on August 7.
The sculpture, a Judensau (Jew sow), adorns the facade of the town church in Wittenberg, also known as the Stadtkirche. It has been there for over 700 years, remaining despite multiple attempts to remove it. The Stadtkirche Judensau depicts a pig with its hind leg and tail being held aloft by a rabbi so that other Jews, portrayed as small and hook-nosed, can drink milk from the pig’s teats.
German courts have repeatedly dismissed cases brought up to take the statue down. The body responsible for the church, the Evangelical Academy of Saxony-Anhalt in Wittenberg, has fought hard against any such attempt.
The Stadtkirche lies at the very heart of Protestantism itself and served as a location of the first Protestant services where Martin Luther would preach. Like the church, Luther has a history stained by antisemitism. The church reformer wrote a text entitled “The Jews and their Lies” and repeatedly espoused ideas such as that the Jews are “the devil,” “deceivers,” and “blasphemers,” among others.
NEO-NAZI GROUP TARGETS GEORGIA SYNAGOGUES WITH HATE DEMONSTRATIONS
Two neo-Nazi demonstrations in Georgia over the weekend of June 24-25 sparked shock and outrage among local residents and drew widespread condemnation from state political leaders and Jewish organizations. The incidents occurred in front of synagogues in the central Georgia city of Macon, as well as East Cobb, a suburban community north of Atlanta. Antisemitic flyers were also found in the city of Warner Robins, south of Macon.
The demonstrators, who chanted antisemitic slogans and displayed Nazi swastika flags, were affiliated with the neo-Nazi and white supremacist Goyim Defense League (GDL). The GDL has been responsible for series of similar provocations nationwide, including a large-scale antisemitic flyering campaign promoting conspiracy theories about Jews, over the past two years. Such flyers were distributed in the Atlanta suburbs of Sandy Springs and Dunwoody in February.
GDL leader Jon Minadeo II was arrested outside Temple Beth Israel in Macon on Friday night for shouting obscenities through a bullhorn, according to the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office. He was charged with disorderly conduct and public disturbance. Minadeo was subsequently released and he participated the following day at a similar demonstration at Chabad of Cobb.
See also: Neo-Nazis Wave Swastika Flags Outside Disney World
STATE DEPT. DENOUNCES ROGER WATERS’ CONCERTS AS “DEEPLY OFFENSIVE TO THE JEWISH PEOPLE”
The State Department denounced former Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters’ recent concert imagery as being “deeply offensive to the Jewish people” and said that Waters has a lengthy history of antisemitism.
The Associated Press (AP) reported that at a June 6 press briefing, the department was asked if they agreed with a tweet from Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt tweet condemning Waters’ “despicable Holocaust distortion.” The department replied that Lipstadt’s tweet “speaks for itself.” “The concert in question, which took place in Berlin, contained imagery that is deeply offensive to Jewish people and minimized the Holocaust,” they said. “The artist in question has a long track record of using antisemitic tropes to denigrate Jewish people.”
The former Pink Floyd frontman came under fire for donning a Nazi-like uniform and comparing Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed during an Israel Defense Force raid in Jenin last year, to Anne Frank during his May 17 and 18 shows in Berlin and is being investigated by Berlin police over the matter. Waters responded with a May 26 statement denouncing the “bad faith attacks from those who want to smear me and silence me because they disagree with my political views and moral principles.”
See also: Roger Waters resumes Nazi act in London he dropped following Germany uproar
WHITE HOUSE RELEASES FIRST NATIONAL STRATEGY TO FIGHT ANTISEMITISM
On May 25, the Biden administration released the country's first national strategy for combating antisemitism, outlining over 100 steps that federal agencies have committed to completing within a year, and more than 100 specific calls to action aimed at Congress, civil society, state and local governments, academic institutions, businesses and religious communities. The 60 page strategy is available online at U.S.-National-Strategy-to-Counter-Antisemitism.pdf (whitehouse.gov).
The strategy was well received by Jewish groups, but with some criticism for embracing the widely accepted International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, but also affirming other definitions that allow the sort of criticism of Israel that the IHRA definition condemns. The inclusion of the Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) as a supporting organization on an attached fact sheet also drew criticism.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) tracked 3,697 incidents of harassment, vandalism and assault in 2022, according to a report released in March—a 36% jump from the previous year, and the third time in five years that the tally has been the highest number ever recorded. American Jews account for 2.4% of the U.S. population but are the victims of 63% of reported religiously motivated hate crimes, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
See also: Jewish groups question CAIR’s inclusion in WH antisemitism fact sheet (jewishinsider.com)
CUNY CONDEMNS COMMENCEMENT SPEECH THAT DEMONIZED ISRAEL
The City University of New York (CUNY), facing widespread criticism from Jewish groups and lawmakers over a May 12 law school commencement speech in which student Fatima Mohammed demonized Israel, issued a statement on May 30 condemning the speech as was “particularly unacceptable at a ceremony celebrating the achievements of a wide diversity of graduates.”
“The remarks by a student-selected speaker at the CUNY Law School Graduation, unfortunately, fall into the category of hate speech as they were a public expression of hate toward people and communities based on their religion, race, or political affiliation,” CUNY Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez, as well as William Thompson and Sandra Wilkin, the president and vice president of the CUNY Board of Trustees, said on Tuesday.
In her speech Mohammed alleged that financial interests manipulate school policy towards Israel and said “our morality will not be purchased by investors.” She also accused Israel of “settler colonialism,” charging that it “continues to indiscriminately rain bullets and bombs on worshipers, murdering the old the young, attacking the funerals and graveyards as it encourages lynch mobs.” She called on her peers to oppose “Zionism around the world…by any means necessary,” setting off applause from students in the audience and law school deans sitting behind the podium.
INDIA’S BNEI MENASHE COMMUNITY IN CRISIS AFTER ATTACKS OF ETHNIC VIOLENCE
On May 3 longstanding tensions between the ethnic majority Meiteis and the tribal minority Kukis in Northeast India resulted in rioting. The Kuki tribe includes members of B’nai Menashe, a “lost tribe” Jewish community with about 10,000 members. According to Shavei Israel, an NGO that helps “lost tribe” Jewish communities immigrate to Israel, over 1,000 members of the community, or 20% of their total, have been displaced. One community member was killed, and another was shot in the chest and is hospitalized. Two synagogues and mikvahs, or ritual baths, were burned down.
The Bnei Menashe identify as descendants of a “lost tribe” group, tracing their origins to the Israelite tribe of Menasseh. In 2005, a chief rabbi of Israel affirmed their identity as a “lost tribe” group with historic Jewish ties, but researchers have not found sufficient evidence to back the claim. Bnei Menashe Jews began immigrating to Israel in the 1990s, and because of their “lost tribe” status, they all undergo formal Orthodox conversions upon arrival. Around 5,000 remain in the states of Manipur and Mizoram today, and about 5,000 have already immigrated to Israel.
For other global updates see also: Australia ‘decades behind’ on Nazi symbols ban; Record number of violent antisemitic attacks recorded in Austria in 2022; International antisemitism envoys honored in Israel; Over 100 monthly antisemitic incidents reported in the UK