THIS WEEK’S GLOBAL ANTISEMITISM REPORT
Romania’s government passed legislation that protects the right to shechitah, or kosher ritual slaughter of animals, ensuring one critical attribute to the continuity of Jewish life. The new law is in contrast to last year’s opinion by the Court of the European Union that upheld bans of Muslim and Jewish traditional slaughter in two Belgian states.
The European Commission launched a network of young European Ambassadors to promote Holocaust Remembrance during the first EU Civil Society Forum on combating antisemitism and fostering Jewish life. Both the Forum and the network of Ambassadors are part of the EU Strategy on combating antisemitism and fostering Jewish life.
The Vancouver, Canada City Council adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism, and U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt, praised Morocco’s religious tolerance and leadership in combating antisemitism, during a tour of the North African country.
Dozens of headstones were vandalized with red spray-paint that included swastikas and the phrase “Kanye was rite” in the suburban-Chicago Congregation Am Echod Jewish Cemetery. In Bethesda, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C., large red spray-paint was also found, on a popular walking trail that read “No Mercy For Jews” next to a giant swastika and three “stick figure” Jews hanging from gallows.
Police at the University of Michigan are investigating after a female Jewish student was grabbed and assaulted on campus during the afternoon by a man yelling antisemitic slurs. At Chicago’s Northwestern University, Students for Justice in Palestine tied together copies of an op-ed by a Jewish student and graffitied it with the slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” outside the library, after also painting the same slogan on a campus monument.
In New York City, three men fired gel guns at a Hasidic Jewish woman and her son as they walked down the street. A student wearing a yarmulke was attacked in a subway station in Vienna, Austria, and a suspect was arrested after attacking visibly Jewish men in London.
This week’s global antisemitism report highlights 46 new media reports of antisemitic incidents. The total includes 24 (52.2%) from the far-right, 10 (21.7%) from the far-left, 3 (6.5%) with Islamist motivations, and 9 (19.6%) unidentifiable in nature.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
UNITED STATES
HASIDIC WOMAN, SON BLASTED WITH GEL PELLETS IN ALLEGED NYC HATE ATTACK
By TINA MOORE and JORGE FITZ-GIBBON
Three men fired a gel gun at a Hasidic woman and her son on a Bedford-Stuyvesant street late Tuesday — in an alleged hate crime that is just the latest “Orbeez”-style pellet attack in the city, police sources said. The trio was driving near Kent and Park avenues around 8:30 p.m. when they allegedly fired off the plastic water-filled pellets at the 47-year-old and her son, 23, as they walked along the street, the sources said. The victims called 911 from the scene and cops caught up with the white sedan nearby.
DAVE CHAPPELLE’S ‘SNL’ MONOLOGUE SPARKS BACKLASH AS BEING ANTISEMITIC
By LISA RESPERS FRANCE
Dave Chappelle’s comments about the Jewish community during his “Saturday Night Live” monologue are being slammed as antisemitic. The controversial comic hosted the show and addressed the firestorm around Kanye West, who has legally changed his name to “Ye,” following his remarks about Jewish people. Chappelle began the show by reading a statement which said “I denounce antisemitism in all its forms and I stand with my friends in the Jewish community.” “And that, Kanye, is how you buy yourself some time,” Chappelle joked. He went on to say that Ye had broken “the show business rules” which are “the rules of perception.” “If they’re Black, then it’s a gang. If they’re Italian, it’s a mob,” Chappelle said. “But if they’re Jewish, it’s a coincidence and you should never speak about it.” Chappelle went on to talk about the abundance of Jewish people in Hollywood.
ANTISEMITIC GRAFFITI DEPICTING JEWS HANGING FROM GALLOWS DISCOVERED IN MARYLAND
By JNS
Antisemitic graffiti was found at the Bethesda Trolley Trail in Maryland on Monday, including stick figures hanging from gallows alongside the words “no mercy for Jews,” as well as a swastika. Commenting both on Monday’s graffiti discovery and the recent distribution of antisemitic flyers in the Kalorama neighborhood of Washington, D.C., Jewish Federation of Greater Washington CEO Gil Preuss said in a statement, “These antisemitic and hateful symbols and materials have no place in our society.”
HEADSTONES VANDALIZED WITH SWASTIKAS AT JEWISH CEMETERY IN WAUKEGAN, IL
By CATE CAUGUIRAN
Police in Waukegan are searching for those responsible for spray painting swastikas on headstones at a Jewish cemetery. Police were called to the Congregation Am Echod Jewish Cemetery Monday morning and found 16 large headstones with bright red swastikas on them. ABC7 has blurred out those images. Twenty-three other headstones had other graffiti on them, police said.
WORLD NEWS
UNITED KINGDOM
PALESTINE PROTESTERS SPRAY KETCHUP ‘BLOOD’ OVER LORD BALFOUR STATUE IN PARLIAMENT
By JEWISH NEWS REPORTER
Two women have been arrested after protesters pretending to be tourists squirted tomato ketchup on to a statue in the Houses of Parliament. Members of Palestine Action used tourist passes to enter the Members’ Lobby of the House of Commons. They targeted a statue of former prime minister Lord Arthur Balfour, signatory of the Balfour Declaration – a 1917 document which pledged the formation of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine.
SUSPECT ARRESTED FOLLOWING REPORTED ATTACKS ON VISIBLY JEWISH MEN
By SHOMRIM
Shomrim volunteers responding to further reports of attacks on Jewish males caught a male red-handed in the middle of an assault.
GERMANY
GERMAN JEW BLASTS COPS FOR DETAINING HIM FOR SPARRING WITH ANTISEMITIC PROTESTERS
By LISA SCHNEIDER
The protest was organized by the so-called “Querdenker,” the German equivalent of the QAnon conspiracy theorists, who were demanding the release of “political prisoners.” The demonstration was held last Wednesday night, which coincided with the 84th anniversary of Kristallnacht — “The Night of Broken Glass” — when mobs of Germans and Austrians attacked, looted and burned Jewish shops and homes, destroyed 1,400 synagogues, killed 92 Jews and sent another 30,000 to concentration camps. The Querdenker group regularly compares the treatment of the unvaccinated during the pandemic to the persecution of Jews during the Third Reich.
GERMANY – ANTISEMITIC INSULTS AGAINST MUSICIANS IN REGENSBURG
VANCOUVER CITY COUNCIL ADOPTS IHRA ANTISEMITISM DEFINITION TO COUNTER RISING JEW-HATRED
By CAM
The Vancouver City Council approved by a 6-1 vote on Wednesday a resolution to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism. The motion — introduced by Councilmember Sarah Kirby-Yung — said, “To date, and in the face of the alarming global increase in antisemitism and anti-Jewish hate and the significant and meaningful actions taken by the federal and provincial governments, the City’s actions are not as emphatic or supportive as the situation demands. In the face of ongoing and increasing antisemitism, Council should take a strong stance to combat antisemitism in our city and provide the practical tools, such as the IHRA non-legally binding working definition of antisemitism, to identify antisemitism when and wherever it manifests in our community.”
OTHER WORLD NEWS
AUSTRIA – ATTACK ON A STUDENT WEARING A YARMULKE IN A SUBWAY STATION
By MEINBEZIRK
According to the antisemitism reporting office of the Vienna Jewish Community (IKG), an antisemitic attack occurred at around 8 a.m. on November 3 at the Donaumarina underground station. Unknown perpetrators attacked a Jewish schoolboy wearing a yarmulke at a subway station. The alleged perpetrators have inflicted a blow on the back of the student’s head. The blow was so strong that the victim was stunned. The alleged perpetrators also laughed at the student. In addition, the alleged perpetrators pulled out their cell phones and filmed the whole situation.
POLISH INDEPENDENCE DAY MARCH FEATURES NAZI SYMBOL, CALLS TO BURN JEWS
By VANESSA GERA
Opposition politicians in Poland criticized police Saturday for detaining anti-fascist activists but not reacting to the appearance of a Nazi-era symbol during a nationalist march. The detention of the activists occurred during Friday’s yearly far-right-led Independence March in Warsaw. Many liberal groups who oppose the march have accused the police for years of displaying favorable treatment toward the nationalists while treating protesters of the event unfairly.
MAIN PRO-ISRAEL GROUP IN SPAIN DENOUNCES PRO-PALESTINIAN EVENT ORGANIZED AT THE SPANISH PARLIAMENT, ‘A HATE-FEST AND AN ATTACK AGAINST THE JEWISH PEOPLE’
By YOSSI LEMPKOWICZ
The main pro-Israel group in Spain slammed an upcoming pro-Palestinian solidarity event organized in the Spanish Parliament by the far-Left. “This event is nothing but an exercise in spreading hatred and slander against the State of Israel and the Jewish People, and belittling the Holocaust, even though it slyly tries to add that it also is about fighting antisemitism,” said Angel Mas, President of Action and Communication on the Middle East (ACOM), an organization dedicated to fighting the delegitimization of Israel “The scheduled speakers have trivialized the Holocaust, offended survivors, and have a long and sordid history of defaming the Jewish People. This is a festival of hate, and not a pro-Palestinian event by any measure,” Mas added.
‘YOU BIG NOSES SHOULD HAVE BEEN CREMATED,’ ITALIAN TEACHER ALLEGEDLY TELLS JEWISH STUDENTS
By ALGEMEINER STAFF
Jewish students at a high school for the arts in Rome have allegedly been subjected to crudely antisemitic insults by an art teacher, leading to calls for disciplinary proceedings against the alleged offender, according to Italian media reports. According to the OSA Collective — a left-wing student organization — the same teacher at the Enzo Rossi school made offensive comments to both Jewish and female students. Addressing Jewish students, the teacher is alleged to have told them “You big noses should have been cremated” — a reference to the Nazi gas chambers. Female students seen bending over to pick up pens and other objects were told, “This is how you provoke me,” by the teacher.
SPAIN – ANTISEMITISM AT FESTA MAJOR DEL CLOT
ON CAMPUS
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN POLICE INVESTIGATE ASSAULT, ETHNIC INTIMIDATION AGAINST STUDENT
By DEJANAY BOOTH
The University of Michigan Police Department is investigating a reported assault on campus over the weekend. Police say the incident happened at about 2:20 p.m. on Nov. 10 on the university’s North Campus near Baits Field. A student was walking when a man going in the opposite direction allegedly grabbed the student and made an antisemitic comment, according to police. An investigation determined the assault to be a crime of ethnic intimidation.
NEO-NAZI GROUP THREATENS RESIDENTS IN HARVARD SQUARE
By SARAH GIRMA and BRANDON L. KINGDOLLAR
Members of a neo-Nazi group harassed and threatened residents in Cambridge Sunday, lunging and shouting at people across the street from Quincy House. Members of the group wore apparel bearing the name of the Nationalist Social Club, also known as the 131 Crew, a neo-Nazi group based in New England. The group is known for espousing antisemitic and white supremacist rhetoric and violence, according to the Anti-Defamation League. A video posted by NSC-131 Tuesday on the online video-sharing platform Odysee showed members of the group performing an apparent Nazi salute in front of the Democracy Center — a Cambridge meeting house where the Boston Anarchist Bookfair was taking place over the weekend.
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS FOR JUSTICE IN PALESTINE TARGET JEWISH STUDENT WRITER
By DION J. PIERRE
On Monday, the university’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter tacked together copies of an op-ed by a Jewish student, Lily Cohen, graffitied it with the slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and zip-tied it to fences enclosing the Deering Library. SJP painted the same slogan, which is interpreted as calling for the ethnic cleansing of Jews living in Israel, on a campus monument that serves as an unofficial student message board.
5 CAL STUDENT SENATORS SIT OUT ANTISEMITISM VOTE IN PROTEST
By GABE STUTMAN
AUC Berkeley student government resolution denouncing antisemitism failed to earn unanimous support at a meeting of the student senate last week. Five of the 20 student senators — elected to the ASUC, or the Associated Students of the University of California — protested the vote by not appearing at the Nov. 9 meeting where the resolution was considered and approved, according to Shay Cohen, the senator who introduced the measure. The students who opposed the bill said it “penalizes” senators, “forcing them” to approve a resolution that “equates supporting Palestine with being antisemitic,” according to the Daily Cal student newspaper, quoting a student government official who spoke on behalf of the dissenting senators at the meeting.
OHIO STATE BUILDING BEING INVESTIGATED FOR RACIST, ANTISEMITIC GRAFFITI
ANALYSIS & OP-EDS
STUDIES & STATISTICS
STUDY FINDS RACIST, ANTISEMITIC HATE SPEECH SPIKES ON TWITTER AFTER MUSK TAKEOVER
By DAVID KLEPPER
Instances of racial slurs have soared on Twitter since Elon Musk purchased the influential platform, despite assurances from the platform that it had reduced hateful activity, a digital civil rights group reported Thursday. Researchers at the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that the number of tweets containing one of several different racial slurs soared in the week after Musk bought Twitter. Examples of offensive terms used to target Jews and Hispanics also increased. All told, the researchers looked at nearly 80,000 English-language tweets and retweets from around the world that contained one of the offensive terms they searched for.
UNDER 1/3 OF ANTISEMITIC CONTENT ON LINKEDIN REMOVED – FOA REPORT
By SAM HALPERN
Fighting Online Antisemitism (FOA), an organization that monitors online anti-Jewish prejudice, recently conducted a survey that revealed abundant antisemitic content on LinkedIn that was reported but not removed. The survey used the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism to identify over 100 antisemitic posts. LinkedIn, the business and employment social media website, has committed to opposing discriminatory content, as per its “professional community policies.”
ANTI-ZIONIST FACULTY, STUDENTS SEEK TO SEPARATE JEWISH STUDENTS FROM THEIR IDENTITY
By MIKE WAGENHEIM
A pro-Israel non-profit dedicated to combating antisemitism on U.S. college campuses released a study Wednesday showing not only the safety of Jewish students under threat but Jewish identity itself. The annual report from the AMCHA Initiative found a year-over-year doubling of threats related to Jewish identity at 60% of schools most popular with Jewish students. Those threats are defined as attempts to “dissociate Zionism from Judaism, pit Zionism against progressive values, accuse Zionist Jews of undue privilege, power and control, and purge Zionism and Zionists from campus life.”
GOVERNMENT & POLICY
EU COMMISSION LAUNCHES NETWORK OF YOUNG EUROPEAN AMBASSADORS TO PROMOTE HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE
By YOSSI LEMPKOWICZ
Education is key in the ongoing fight against antisemitism. The European Commission is hosting Wednesday the first-ever EU Civil Society Forum on combating antisemitism and fostering Jewish life. On this occasion, the two-day gathering will see the launching of a network of young European Ambassadors to promote Holocaust Remembrance. The Forum and the network of Ambassadors are flagship initiatives of the EU Strategy on combating antisemitism and fostering Jewish life initiated by the EU Commission in 2021.
U.S. SPECIAL ENVOY HAILS MOROCCO’S RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE
By NORTH AFRICA POST
U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, has hailed Morocco’s religious tolerance and the country’s leadership in combating antisemitism. Speaking at a meeting hosted on Monday by the U.S. Consulate General in Casablanca, Mrs. Lipstadt said the number of synagogues, Jewish cemeteries and institutions in Morocco is very impressive, attesting to the longstanding coexistence, openness and tolerance of the North African Kingdom.
CURRENT, FORMER US AMBASSADORS TO LEAD MARCH OF THE LIVING IN BIPARTISAN STATEMENT AGAINST ANTISEMITISM
By JNS
The current and immediate past U.S. ambassadors to Israel, Tom Nides and David Friedman, will lead the 2023 International March of the Living in what the organization described as a bipartisan commitment to combating antisemitism. Since 1988, March of the Living has brought students, Holocaust survivors, educators and leaders from around the world to Poland to study the history of the Holocaust, including participants’ march from Auschwitz to Birkenau on Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day).
ROMANIA PASSES ‘LANDMARK LAW’ GUARANTEEING THE RIGHT TO KOSHER SLAUGHTER
By MARCEL GASCÓN BARBERÁ
Romanian authorities adopted a law that recognizes and gives specific protection to shechitah, or kosher ritual slaughter of animals, the Conference of European Rabbis said in a statement, hailing the move as a “landmark” example for other countries in Europe. The new legislation, which the Romanian parliament passed Tuesday, comes roughly a year after the Court of the European Union upheld the bans of both the Muslim and Jewish traditional methods slaughter of animals for food in two Belgian states.
FEDERAL AGENCY TO INVESTIGATE VIRGINIA SCHOOL DISTRICT’S RESPONSE TO REPORTS OF ANTISEMITIC HARASSMENT
HUMANITY
HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR TELLS HER STORY TO MUSLIMS IN DUBAI
By ILANA SHTOTLAND
Holocaust survivor Eve Kugler has told her story throughout the world for decades, but when she told her story on Wednesday, she was especially moved. It was the first time that Kugler, 91, recounted in an Arab country the events of Kristallnacht that she had witnessed as a little girl. Kugler came to Dubai as part of a series of simultaneous interfaith events under the “Let There Be Light” campaign organized by the International March of the Living, marking the 84th anniversary of Kristallnacht.
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The Combat Antisemitism Movement is a global coalition engaging more than 375,000 people and 550 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.
