THIS WEEK’S GLOBAL ANTISEMITISM REPORT
The White House has announced that it would host a summit to combat ‘hate-fueled violence,’ called the United We Stand Summit. Arizona’s state treasurer notified investment rating firm Morningstar that its Environmental and Social Governance (ESG) rating system violates the state’s anti-BDS laws after determining that Morningstar’s ESG subsidiary, Sustainalytics, “uses anti-Israel and antisemitic sources to negatively impact the scores of companies doing business in Israel…”
Three Hasidic Jewish men were assaulted in separate incidents in Brooklyn, NY, and a yarmulke-wearing Jewish boy was chased off a Staten Island bus by three other teens. A Holocaust memorial in Brooklyn was also defaced with a swastika.
As students return to campus, an object was thrown into the entrance of the Hillel at the University of Southern California (USC), shattering its glass. This follows the recent announcement of a federal investigation into antisemitism at USC. The director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Denver claimed the stabbing attack on Salman Rushdie was orchestrated by the Mossad.
The Canadian government cut funding for an anti-racism organization after antisemitic statements published by a senior consultant to the group, Laith Marouf, came to light. In one statement, Marouf said, “You know all those loud mouthed bags of human feces, aka the Jewish White Supremacists; when we liberate Palestine and they have to go back to where they come from, they will return to being low voiced bitches of [their] Christian/Secular White Supremacist Masters.”
He also called Canadian Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combating Antisemitism Irwin Cotler, a CAM Advisory Board member, “the Grand Wizard of Zionism in this Colony [Canada].”
In Argentina, President Alberto Fernandez became the latest leader to trivialize the Holocaust by comparing it to the Covid-19 pandemic, and a Jewish cemetery was also vandalized in the country. The City of Amsterdam banned PSV football fans from an upcoming match against AJAX for repeated antisemitic death chants including “All Jews must die,” and “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas.”
Antisemitism scandals roiled both the right and the left in Italian politics, a Jewish flag was vandalized at an interfaith site in Vienna, and a concentration camp memorial in Bavaria was vandalized with swastikas and the phrase “they were right.”
This week’s global antisemitism report highlights 48 new media reports of antisemitic incidents. The total includes 29 (60.4%) from the far-right, 4 (8.3%) from the far-left, 5 (10.4%) with Islamist motivations, and 10 (20.8%) unidentifiable in nature
TABLE OF CONTENTS
UNITED STATES
POLICE: THREE HASIDIC JEWISH MEN SPRAYED WITH FIRE EXTINGUISHERS IN SEPARATE INCIDENTS
By DAVID LAZAR
Three men were attacked in separate possible hate crimes targeting the Hasidic Jewish community in Williamsburg. According to police, the 27-year-old victim was wearing traditional Jewish clothing and walking down Lynch street when the suspect came over and slapped the victim on the left side of his face before running away. A second incident occurred when a 66-year-old man told officers he was sprayed with powder from a fire extinguisher and then punched. In a video, a perpetrator is seen spraying the victim with a fire extinguisher. Also on Sunday, a 72-year-old man told officers he was approached by a group of unidentified individuals and sprayed with a fire extinguisher. Police believe the two incidents involving fire extinguishers are related.
HATE-FILLED TEENS CHASE JEWISH BOY OFF STATEN ISLAND, NY, BUS SNATCH HIS YARMULKE
By THOMAS TRACY
A trio of hate-filled teens chased a 13-year-old Jewish boy off a Staten Island bus, snatched his yarmulke off his head and ran off with it, police said Tuesday. Cops released surveillance images of the suspect and are asking the public’s help identifying them and tracking them down. The adolescent victim was riding an MTA S79 bus on Hylan Blvd. in New Dorp when two teenage boys and a teen girl began harassing him about 6 p.m. July 21, cops said. When the bus came to a stop near Ebbitts St. the trio chased the teen off the bus, snatched the yarmulke from his head and ran off with it, cops said. Members of the NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force are investigating.
STATE REP. DAN FRANKEL TARGETED BY ANTISEMITIC POSTS ON GAB
By DAVID RULLO
Several users of the social media site Gab have posted antisemitic threats targeting Pennsylvania state Rep. Dan Frankel (D-District 23). The posts appear to be in response to Frankel’s criticism of Gab last month after news reports revealed that Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano was active on the site and had paid Gab a $5000 “consulting fee.” Frankel’s chief of staff, who is not a regular Gab user, discovered the antisemitic posts directed against Frankel when doing a search on the site. In one post, a Gab user posted a photo of Frankel and included the quote: “State. Rep. Dan Frankel, a Democrat representing Allegheny County, said he was there to speak out against the ‘white nationalist vision that unifies Gab users’ before it gains a larger foothold in mainstream politics.” Another user replied: “It’s coming kike. Hold on to your yamulke.”
WORLD NEWS
UNITED KINGDOM
COVENTRY COUNCILLOR APOLOGISES AFTER USING ‘APPALLING’ RACIAL SLUR
By DANNY THOMPSON
A Coventry councillor has apologised after a leaked message allegedly showed she used an offensive racial slur. Christine Thomas, Labour councillor for the Binley and Willenhall ward, sent a message to a local Labour WhatsApp group and was said to have referred to someone as a ‘Jewess’. In years gone by it has commonly be known to mean a Jewish woman, but more recently it has been considered offensive. The exchange was leaked to Jewish News who reported the story over the weekend. The article contained an apology from Mrs Thomas who claimed she was unaware the term was offensive. But she has faced criticism from Coventry Conservatives, with leader Gary Ridley saying said the incident was “unacceptable” and the apology offered was not enough.
FLYERS ASSERTING THAT “CHALLENGING JEWISH PRIVILEGE” IS “SOCIAL JUSTICE” DISTRIBUTED TO HOMES IN BRIGHTON AND HOVE
GERMANY
GERMAN POLICE OPEN INVESTIGATION INTO ABBAS OVER HOLOCAUST REMARKS
By TOVAH LAZAROFF AND MAYA ZANGER-NADIS
Berlin police opened a criminal investigation against Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday to evaluate whether his statement that Israel had committed “50 Holocausts” against the Palestinians met the standard for Holocaust denial. The German Embassy in Israel explained that this was a preliminary probe. “The police have not yet asked the federal prosecutor to investigate: This is necessary for a legal proceeding to be opened,” the embassy stated. At issue are statements Abbas made in which he compared the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the Holocaust during a joint press conference Tuesday with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin.
BURSTING WITH HATRED FOR ISRAEL:’ ANTISEMITIC VIDEO EXHIBITED AT SCANDAL-PLAGUED DOCUMENTA ART FESTIVAL
CANADA
CANADIAN GOVERNMENT CUTS FUNDING FOR ANTI-RACISM GROUP OVER CONSULTANT’S ANTISEMITIC SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS
By CAM
The Canadian government has cut funding for an anti-racism organization and suspended a program it was running after past antisemitic social media posts published by a senior consultant to the group, Laith Marouf, came to light, the CBC reported on Monday. “Antisemitism has no place in this country,” Canadian Housing and Diversity and Inclusion Minister Ahmed Hussen stated. “The antisemitic comments made by Laith Marouf are reprehensible and vile. We have provided notice to the Community Media Advocacy Centre (CMAC) that their funding has been cut and their project has been suspended.” In one of his problematic social media posts that were uncovered, Marouf tweeted, “You know all those loud mouthed bags of human feces, aka the Jewish White Supremacists; when we liberate Palestine and they have to go back to where they come from, they will return to being low voiced bitches of [their] Christian/Secular White Supremacist Masters.” He also called Canadian Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combating Antisemitism Irwin Cotler, a Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) Advisory Board member, “the Grand Wizard of Zionism in this Colony [Canada],” and spoke of what he described as “Holocaust porn” in Israel.
RACIST GRAFFITI ON WESTERN QUEBEC BRIDGE SPARKS ANGER, OUTRAGE
FRANCE
ALGERIAN ISLAMISTS SLAM MACRON OVER PRESENCE OF FRENCH CHIEF RABBI IN OFFICIAL DELEGATION
By ALGEMEINER STAFF
Islamists in Algeria have bitterly protested the presence of France’s chief rabbi in the delegation accompanying French President Emmanuel Macron as he embarks on a three-day visit to the North African nation on Thursday. Several posts on the internet voiced anger at the arrival of Chief Rabbi Haim Korsia alongside Macron. Korsia’s parents were Algerian Jews; his father was born in Oran while his mother hails from Tlemcen. The chorus against Korsia was led by Abderrazak Makri, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Social Movement for Peace (MSP), who also took aim at the Algerian soccer players of French side OGC Nice, who competed recently in a UEFA Europa League contest against Maccabi Tel Aviv in Israel.
OTHER WORLD NEWS
‘ENOUGH IS ENOUGH’: AMSTERDAM BANS PSV FANS FROM AJAX MATCH OVER ANTISEMITIC CHANTS
By CAM
Fans of the PSV Eindhoven soccer club will not be permitted by municipal authorities in Amsterdam to enter the Johan Cruijff Arena when their team travels there to play rival Ajax on Nov. 6, due to antisemitic chants heard at a previous PSV-Ajax match in the Dutch capital last month, the NL Times reported. In a letter to PSV General Manager Marcel Brands, Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema noted that at the July 30th game, a 5-3 PSV victory, a large group of PSV supporters sang “hurtful songs and very unsavory curses,” and directed “serious insults” at several Ajax players.
ARGENTINA’S PRESIDENT BLASTED FOR COMPARING COVID-19 PANDEMIC TO HOLOCAUST
By JNS
Argentinian President Alberto Fernandez came under fire for drawing similarities between the coronavirus pandemic and the Holocaust. He compared COVID-19 to “one or two Holocausts” while speaking at a seminar for the 33 members of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). The event concluded on Aug. 18 in the capital of Buenos Aires. The Delegación de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas (DAIA)—the umbrella organization of Argentina’s Jewish community—said “the systematic slaughter of 6 million Jews practiced by Nazism cannot and should not be equated with another situation.”
RIGHT-WING ITALIAN COUNCILLOR SUSPENDED OVER HOLOCAUST JOKE
MIDDLE EAST
THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY – ISLAMIC SCHOLAR: OUR GOAL IS TO SPREAD ISLAM THROUGHOUT THE GLOBE; WE WILL LIBERATE PALESTINE BY THE SWORD, KILL ALL THE JEWS IN IT
By MEMRI
Jewish communities in two countries were reeling this weekend after a shooting just outside the Old City of Jerusalem left eight wounded. An Arab resident of East Jerusalem turned himself in to police after a manhunt that focused on the Silwan neighborhood there, according to Israeli media.The shooting took place early Sunday morning as people boarded a bus. Among those shot, according to various reports, were multiple members of a family from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a center of the Satmar Hasidic Orthodox sect; a teenager from a different Brooklyn family; a pair of Israeli brothers; and a pregnant woman who remains hospitalized along with her child, whom doctors delivered after she suffered an abdominal injury.
IRANIAN OFFICIAL: JEWS, ZIONISTS CONTROL THE ‘ENEMY’S MEDIA’; THE PORN AND SEX INDUSTRIES ARE THE MOST PROFITABLE IN THE WEST
ON CAMPUS
US DEPARTMENT OF ED BACKS ARIZONA STUDENT WHO BRAVED MONTHS OF ANTI-SEMITIC SLURS
By JNS
The U.S. Department of Education has ruled that an Arizona school district violated the civil rights of a Jewish student who was subject to anti-Semitic harassment. According to the ruling by the DOE, Kyrene School District #28 failed to address the student’s concerns after being alerted to months of harassment from “numerous classmates” in school and on social media. The incidents took place during the 2018-19 school year. They included the female student being called a “dirty” and “filthy” Jew, and seeing fellow students march around and salute like Nazis soldiers and speak with German accents. In another instance, according to the student, her peers would ask her, “How do you get a Jewish girl’s number?” before lifting up her sleeve.
HILLEL USC VANDALIZED, INVESTIGATION UNDERWAY
By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
As students return to campus for the fall semester, vandals targeted the Hillel Jewish center at the University of Southern California.
A photo of the attack was shared on Twitter Tuesday by the nonprofit watchdog group StopAntisemitism. “Horrifying – the Hillel Jewish center at @USC has been vandalized as an object was thrown through the door, shattering the glass,” the caption reads. The building was not occupied at the time of the incident. In an Instagram post following the attack, USC Hillel Executive Director Dave Cohn addressed the community. “At this time, we do not yet know the motives or identities of any involved, and are not yet prepared to characterize the incident,” Cohn wrote.
MOSSAD ‘LIKELY’ BEHIND SALMAN RUSHDIE STABBING, CLAIMS DENVER PROFESSOR
ANALYSIS & OP-EDS
STUDIES & STATISTICS
MORE THAN 1/3 OF UK ADULTS AGES 18-24 BELIEVE JEWS HAVE ‘UNHEALTHY CONTROL’ OF BANKS
By CAM
More than 1/3 of Britons ages 18-24 believe Jews have “an unhealthy control over the world’s banking system,” according a new study published by the HOPE not hate anti-fascism and anti-racism advocacy organization, the UK’s Jewish News reported.The decennial study — focused on the broader issue of identity politics in Great Britain — found that 34% of respondents in that specific age bracket thought that the statement about Jews and banking was “probably” or “definitely” true. Around 28 % of those surveyed in the 25-34 age bracket felt the same, while the figure decreased to 12% among those over 75 years old.
GOVERNMENT & POLICY
MORNINGSTAR ESG RATING SYSTEM VIOLATES ARIZONA ANTI-BDS LAW, TREASURER SAYS
By MARC ROD
Arizona’s state treasurer notified Morningstar last week that the investment firm’s Environmental and Social Governance (ESG) rating system violates the state’s anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions law. The move, first revealed in a release obtained by Jewish Insider on Monday, would place Morningstar on Arizona’s list of prohibited investments unless the firm can explain to the state, within 30 days, how it has not violated the law. Arizona Treasurer Kimberly Yee wrote in a letter to Morningstar CEO Kunal Kapoor that, based on an outside report by law firm White & Case commissioned by Morningstar, the Treasurer’s Office had determined that Morningstar’s ESG subsidiary, Sustainalytics, “uses anti-Israel and antisemitic sources to negatively impact the scores of companies doing business in Israel and in Israeli-controlled territories.”
INTERNATIONAL GROUP OF LEGISLATORS WORKING TOGETHER ON SOLUTIONS TO COMBAT ONLINE ANTISEMITISM
HUMANITY
DALLAS COWBOYS TACKLE ANTISEMITISM AFTER COLLEYVILLE HOSTAGE STANDOFF
By JACK FINK
Brad Sham has been the Voice of the Dallas Cowboys for more than 40 years. Now, the broadcasting icon has something else to say on behalf of the team. Like so many other people on a Saturday morning in January, Sham heard about the British national who was holding four hostages at gunpoint inside Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville – all while the morning Shabbat service was being live-streamed. Days later, Sham said the head of the Cowboys’ human resources department called him and their General Counsel, Jason Cohen, who is also Jewish. The Cowboys wanted to add to their organization’s discussions with employees about diversity, equity, and inclusion and tackle the topic of antisemitism. Sham said, “They said we need to talk about this. We don’t know enough about what went on, what goes on, we need to know more, will you help us?” Sham said he called Cheryl Drazin, the Vice President of the Central Division of the Anti-Defamation League or ADL.
The Combat Antisemitism Movement is a global coalition engaging more than 360,000 people and 450 organizations from a diverse array of religious, political, and cultural backgrounds in the common mission of fighting the world’s oldest hatred. We act collaboratively to build a better future, free of bigotry, for Jews and all humanity.
