THIS WEEK’S GLOBAL ANTISEMITISM REPORT
Leaders from around the world spoke out against the use of the term “apartheid” to isolate Israel. “Categorizing Israel as an ‘apartheid’ state is just plain antisemitic…“such characterization counters progress made in the region, instead it deepens the rifts and fuels antisemitism around the world,” said Vice President of the European Parliament Nicola Beer.
Following a visit to Saudi Arabia, the U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt noted this week, “there is a change afoot in this region. For too many decades, Saudi Arabia was a great exporter of Jew-hatred, but what I found is something quite different, something that has changed there dramatically in the last few years.”
In Canada, seventy gravestones were knocked over in a Jewish cemetery, and pro-Palestinian protesters chanted slurs such as “Shabbat Shalom b****es,” and “from the river to the sea” outside of kosher stores.
In a high-profile case of Holocaust trivialization, Mexico’s president doubled down on comparing a Jewish critic to Adolf Hitler, and the Jewish deputy director of a French hospital had a fake bomb with a swastika left outside his home.
A teenager in Ohio was jailed after police discovered a video in which he threatened to kill black people and carry out a mass shooting at a synagogue. A Florida home was vandalized with swastikas and slurs spray-painted on the garage and a Ukrainian flag hanging outside. A swastika was also drawn on an Israeli restaurant in Los Angeles, as California reported the highest levels of antisemitic hate crimes in a decade.
This week’s global antisemitism report highlights 28 new media reports of antisemitic incidents. The total includes 17 (60.7%) from the far-right, 2 (7.1%) from the far-left, 4 (14.3%) with Islamist motivations, and 5 (17.9%) unidentifiable in nature.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
UNITED STATES
SWASTIKAS SPRAY-PAINTED, UKRAINIAN FLAG VANDALIZED OUTSIDE FLORIDA HOME
By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
A South Florida home was vandalized with swastikas and racist slurs spray-painted on the home’s garage door and on a Ukrainian flag hanging outside of the house. The Fort Lauderdale homeowner told local media that he has no immediate plans to paint over the antisemitic symbols because he wants people to see what happened, adding that the hate in this country and the world are “terrible.”
STRUTHERS, OHIO TEEN JAILED AFTER POLICE FIND THREATS ON HIS PHONE
By JOE GORMAN
A city teen is in the Martin P. Joyce Juvenile Justice Center after reports said he threatened to kill his father and after that, kill as many people as possible. The 15-year-old was booked into the JJC Friday on charges of making terroristic threats, domestic violence, inducing panic and possessing criminal tools. Police took the boy’s phone and got a search warrant to look at it, reports said. Inside the phone, investigators found Nazi and antisemitic materials as well as a manifesto. Also on the phone was a video the teen made where he said he planned to kill his father, then shoot as many Black people as he could while driving to a synagogue, where he was going to carry out a mass shooting.
ISRAELI-INSPIRED RESTAURANT IN LINCOLN HEIGHTS, CA DEFACED WITH NAZI SYMBOL
By BARRY LANK
A Nazi swastika was scratched into the roll-down security gate of an Israeli-inspired restaurant on San Fernando Road, according to photos on the restaurant’s Instagram page. Mazal posted photos last weekend showing the racist insignia etched three-lines-thick into the metal. “In the process of opening Mazal, a common bit of advice I kept hearing from people in my life was to NOT brand the restaurant as Israeli, and rather to market the place as ‘Mediterranean’ or ‘Middle Eastern,’” the owner, Tal Zaiet, posted. “This is one of the reasons why.” The post added that the restaurant has received “yelp/google reviews with antisemitic remarks baked into them, IG comments and DMs, or people actually calling the restaurant itself with threatening remarks.”
WORLD NEWS
GERMANY
GERMAN CITY VIOLATES GOVERNMENT RESOLUTIONS BY RE-POSTING TO WEBSITE INFO OF BDS-PROMOTING GROUP
By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL
The city of Stuttgart has refused to appeal a court verdict ordering officials to re-post to the municipal website the contact information of the country’s most powerful BDS group, the Jewish News Syndicate can first reveal. The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party mayor of Stuttgart, Frank Nopper, defied the pleas of German Jews, who based on a JNS report and together with the Simon Wiesenthal Center urged him to appeal a court decision ordering the city to continue giving a public platform to the Palestine Committee Stuttgart.
ANTISEMITIC GRAFFITI IN HAMBURG
CANADA
PRO-PALESTINIANS, PRO-ISRAELIS CLASH ON CANADA DAY AT KOSHER STORES
By CAMPAIGN AGAINST ANTISEMITISM
A group of protestors have been filmed gathering outside a series of kosher establishments in Thornhill, Ontario chanting “From the river to the sea” while waving Palestinian Authority flags. The chant of “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” only makes sense as a call for the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state — and its replacement with a State of Palestine — and is thus an attempt to deny Jews, uniquely, the right to self-determination, which is a breach of the International Definition of Antisemitism. In another video, a protestor shouts, “Shabbat Shalom b****es” while waving her middle finger at store owners.
70 GRAVESTONES PUSHED OVER IN JEWISH CEMETERY FEEL LIKE A ‘SLAP IN THE FACE’ FOR COMMUNITY
By RACHEL BERGEN
About 70 gravestones at a Jewish cemetery in West Kildonan were tipped over earlier this week, shocking and upsetting members of the community. Staff of the Shaarey Zedek Cemetery arrived at work Wednesday morning and noticed the heavy stones had been pushed off their plinths, said Ran Ukashi, executive director of Congregation Shaarey Zedek, which owns and administers the cemetery. The phone has been ringing off the hook since then, Ukashi said, and people in the community are hurt.
GOVERNMENT FUNDED CANADA MUSLIM ORG HOSTS ANTI-LGBTQ, PRO-TERRORISM SPEAKERS
FRANCE
THE DIRECTOR OF THE SAINT-LAURENT-DU-PONT HOSPITAL, VICTIM OF THREATS OF AN ANTISEMITIC NATURE
By LAURENT GALLIEN
An investigation is opened in Saint-Laurent-du-Pont (Isère) after the discovery of a tag and a fake bomb threatening the deputy director of the small hospital. Antisemitic threats denounce the Crif Grenoble, the representative Council of Jewish institutions in France.
OTHER WORLD NEWS
INSIDE THE INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN TO SAVE KYRGYZSTAN’S ONLY JEWISH SCHOOL
By JUDAH ARI GROSS
With only several hundred Jews, few international Jewish organizations maintain a significant presence in the relatively poor former Soviet country.. So when Kyrgyzstan’s only Jewish school, Pri Etz Haim-Ort, in the country’s capital of Bishkek, received an eviction notice last month, the community did not have many places to turn to for help. “The only thing that keeps it together is the school. Without the school, the community would disappear,” Singer said. For years, a small but vocal group of Bishkek residents has railed against Pri Etz Haim-Ort school, calling for its eviction. This campaign has based its criticism of the Jewish school on the grounds that it is located in what was once a municipal kindergarten, which the group says is needed for local children. Singer sees the campaign as antisemitic in nature, noting that Jewish stereotypes and antisemitic canards appear in many of the statements and social media posts put out by Nashe Pravo supporters.
MEXICO PRESIDENT DOUBLES DOWN ON HITLER COMPARISON WITH JEWISH ANALYST AFTER PROTEST
By REUTERS
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Thursday said he was right to compare a prominent Mexican Jewish figure to Adolf Hitler for his political mindset, shrugging off a protest from the country’s Jewish community. Lopez Obrador on Wednesday said advertising executive and political analyst Carlos Alazraki, a critic of the president, was “Hitlerian,” prompting the Mexican Jewish community to issue a statement rejecting the remarks as “unacceptable.”
COURT SENTENCES PASTOR TO 18 YEARS IN PRISON FOR DISCRIMINATION AGAINST JEWS
MIDDLE EAST
IRANIAN PULLS OUT OF JIU-JITSU COMPETITION AFTER REFUSING TO PLAY AGAINST ISRAELI OPPONENT
By JNS
An Iranian athlete withdrew his participation in an international jiu-jitsu competition in the United Arab Emirates to avoid facing an opponent from Israel. Hamid Amraei was originally scheduled to go head-to-head against a competitor from Brazil in the men’s 77-kilogram weight class in the AJP Tour Fujairah International Pro Jiu-Jitsu Championship, which took place in the UAE from July 2-3. However, officials changed the draw, and he was matched to go against an Israeli competitor. In protest of the decision, Amraei decided to pull out of the international tournament to avoid competing against the Israeli athlete.
TERRORIST MURDERERS FROM MUNICH OLYMPIC MASSACRE ARE “HEROES,” SAYS FATAH OFFICIAL
ON CAMPUS
CUNY CHANCELLOR BAILS ON ANTISEMITISM HEARING
By JACOB MILLER
In a fraught public hearing on antisemitism, New York City councilmembers clashed with administrators from the City University of New York (CUNY) schooling system, whose chancellor withdrew from testifying before the Thursday hearing. The hearing, which had been delayed for weeks to accommodate CUNY Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez’s schedule, focused on allegations of antisemitism within CUNY’s school system and featured virtual testimony from CUNY administrators, including the school’s senior vice chancellor for institutional affairs, Glenda Grace; vice chancellor for student affairs and enrollment management, Denise Maybank; and Graduate Center President Robin Garrell.
ANALYSIS & OP-EDS
STUDIES & STATISTICS
NUMBER OF ANTISEMITIC INCIDENTS IN CZECH REPUBLIC SURGES NEARLY 30% IN 2020, JEWISH COMMUNITY DATA SHOWS
By CAM
A total of 1,128 antisemitic incidents were recorded in the Czech Republic in 2021, marking a 29% rise from the 874 of the previous year, according to a new data report published by the Federation of Jewish Communities in the Czech Republic (FZO). Nearly all — or 98% — of the incidents fell into the category of online hate — including articles, social media content, discussion posts, and anonymous comments.
GOVERNMENT & POLICY
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT VICE PRESIDENT: ‘CATEGORIZING ISRAEL AS AN APARTHEID STATE IS JUST PLAIN ANTISEMITIC’
By YOSSI LEMPKOWICZ
“Categorizing Israel as an apartheid state is just plain anti-Semitic,” said MEP Nicola Beer, Vice President of the European Parliament and Special Envoy on Combatting Religious Discrimination including Antisemitism, writes Yossi Lempkowicz. “In my opinion, such characterization counters progress made in the region concerning the peace process, instead it deepens the rifts and fuels antisemitism around the world,” she added as she addressed a conference co-hosted by the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), NGO Monitor and the World Zionist organization. The conference gathered world leaders, diplomats, legislators, and policymakers who discussed what must be done to restore the “apartheid” term to its proper South African context and delegitimize its use in defaming and isolating Israel by portraying it as a racist entity.
ANTISEMITISM ENVOY LIPSTADT SEES JEW-HATRED DECLINING IN MIDEAST, RISING IN US
By YAAKOV SCHWARTZ
On the heels of a landmark trip to Saudi Arabia, the United States special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, Prof. Deborah Lipstadt, said Tuesday that “there is a change afoot in this region.” “For too many decades, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia was a great exporter of Jew-hatred, but what I found is something quite different, something that has changed there dramatically in the last few years,” Lipstadt said, noting that the kingdom has also begun to implement changes in religious laws and the position of women in the country.
HUMANITY
GERMAN HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR MARGOT FRIEDLÄNDER HONORED FOR LIFE’S WORK
By AFP
Holocaust survivor Margot Friedländer was awarded the Walther Rathenau Prize for outstanding lifetime achievement in foreign policy during a ceremony in Berlin on Monday. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier honored Friedländer’s courage as well as her dedication to sharing her story with young people and commitment to ensuring the horrors of the Holocaust are not forgotten.
CHRISTIAN GROUPS PROTEST MOVE BY PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (USA) ACCUSING ISRAEL OF APARTHEID
By ANDREW JOSE
The International Engagement Committee of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A)’s 225th annual General Assembly adopted an overture accusing Israel of being an apartheid state on June 28. Several Christian organizations, alongside groups opposed to anti-Semitism, protested against the overture and the denomination’s growing anti-Israel posturing before and after its adoption. The Philos Project, a Christian nonprofit dedicated to fostering positive Christian engagement with the Middle East, was at the forefront of the demonstrations.
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.
