Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on March 13, 2024

NEW YORK Emeritus Anti-Defamation League (ADL) director Abe Foxman said two things keep him up at night these days.

The deteriorating relationship between Israel and its one-and-only most important ally, the United States, and how the Jewish people will react to this explosion of antisemitism at the end of the day, Foxman told The Times of Israel.

Were fine now, but what happens if it continues? How will it end, and how will we survive? he wondered on the eve of the centerpiece events of the ADLs Never is Now conference in New York this week.

Having survived the Holocaust as a child and then worked in the Jewish world for over five decades, Foxman is now the organizations emeritus director, after being the national director for 27 years. In an in-depth conversation, he gave The Times of Israel a look into his perceptions of the post-October 7 world and the international climate of antisemitism.

Everyone (including this reporter) asks Foxman if he is surprised by the torrent of antisemitism that has seemingly engulfed the globe since thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed the border with Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping 253 more to the Gaza Strip, most of them civilians.

But Foxman differentiates between surprised and shocked.

After 50 years of dealing with this subject, the answer is no, Im not surprised because those of us dealing with the subject professionally understood a long time ago that antisemitism is a disease without an antidote and without a vaccine. We reported on it, we monitored it, we recorded it we knew that it was there, that it was deep, and that it was serious.

The organized Jewish community developed a containment strategy if we cant eliminate antisemitism, at least lets contain it, Foxman said. Keep it in the sewers with the cover on. [This means] using every means available: media, coalitions, memory of the Shoah, the truth, threats of litigation.

He pointed out that in the over 100 years between the death of Leo Frank in 1915 to the massacre of the Tree of Life synagogue in 2018, only three people were killed in the United States because they were Jewish.

Anti-Defamation League director emeritus Abraham Foxman. (Miriam Alster/Flash90/File)

So thats pretty good in terms of maintaining the community and safetybut it wasnt surprising that a trigger mechanism blew the covers off the sewers, Foxman said.

This containment strategy, Foxman contends, fell apart because of two major factors: the internet and an endorsement of the end of civility in American discourse. Foxman called the internet probably the most significant instrument that has given legitimacy to antisemitism its given it a superhighway, and a level of anonymity more than we ever could have imagined.

When it comes to civility in America, Foxman isnt afraid to use the T word Trump.

The lack of civility in America came as a result of Trumpism Trump legitimized it

The lack of civility in America came as a result of Trumpism Trump legitimized it, Foxman said. Once he broke all the taboos of whats acceptable and whats not, we [the Jews] were the first to go.

[The Unite the Right rally of white supremacists that resulted in two deaths in 2017 in] Charlottesville, he didnt create, but he gave them the hechsher, Foxman said, using the word for a kosher imprimatur of good standing. They felt, its okay to go out there and publicly be an antisemite.

Members of the KKK are escorted by police past a large group of protesters during a KKK rally, July 8, 2017, in Charlottesville, Virginia. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

And skipping ahead to October 7, 2023, Foxman feels, there was fertile ground for antisemites.

So yes, Im not surprised, but I am shocked by the outpouring of antisemitism post-October 7, he said.

Im shocked by the intensity of the hate, Foxman said. We studied it, we knew it was coming from left and right, but what surprised me was the intensity of the hate and the intensity of the silence. Im shocked that you cannot find 10 organizations that we, the Jewish community, have stood within the last 50 years who stood up clearly with us in this moment.

In discussing the current climate of antisemitism at American elite institutions of higher education, Foxman noted the role of university Middle East centers set up by Arab institutions and donors decades ago.

What surprised me was the intensity of the hate and the intensity of the silence

On the face of it, it was benign, Foxman said, noting that even then, some universities approached the ADL asking for nondiscriminatory agreements with Arab countries so that these centers didnt discriminate against Jews. But we didnt prevent that, and the Middle East centers became Judenrein, with donations in some cases explicitly precluding Israel studies and faculty.

Todays academic climate, Foxman contended, is the result of a very deep investment of two generations of scholarship and inadequate parallel measures by the Jewish community.

A demonstrator holds a sign at the All out for Gaza protest at Columbia University in New York City on November 15, 2023. (Photo by Bryan R. Smith / AFP)

Id hear of a Jewish person donating $20 billion to a university and ask them, What condition did you put on it? and theyd say, None, Foxman said. You didnt ask for Jewish studies, Holocaust studies, Israel studies? No. So thats our failure, but we should understand that this is a result of 20, 30, 40 years of investment by the Arabs.

Foxman attributes current antisemitism on campus to a failure of administrative guts on the part of university administrations.

Its not about freedom of speech we know whats permitted to say and whats not, Foxman said. No one is going to protect the n-word under the auspices of freedom of speech, so no one should protect Gas the Jews. Its not about speech its about behavior.

Most universities, Foxman points out, have behavioral codes: You can protest and speak, but you cant stop someone else from going to class. They have the means to act, and theyre not acting, and thats whats so frustrating. We dont need task forces on antisemitism we need task forces on how universities can implement their own codes of behavior. The task forces, what are you going to do tell us whats going on? We all know whats going on. They have to develop consequences.

Pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel demonstrators rally near Columbia University in New York on November 15, 2023. (Bryan R. Smith / AFP)

There needs to be accountability and consequences, Foxman said. Task forces on antisemitism arent giving anyone the responsibility to have accountability and consequences. They need to fulfill their responsibilities under all the tools they have already.

So how does the world put out the wildfires of hate or at least put the cover back on the flames to keep them from spreading?

I think we need to come together and build a new containment strategy, Foxman said. Im not sure I know what it is, because many of the elements that worked for us before no longer exist. The most important of those is truth antisemitism is the big lie, and you answer the big lie with the truth. But Trumpism destroyed truth.

We need to come together and build a new containment strategy

Foxman added that the disintegration of the media and civility also stripped those who would combat antisemitism of two important previous avenues of redress.

Coalitions are gone because were tribalistic. Civility is gone, he said. To build a new strategy will take an awful lot of creativity and putting back some of the things that weve lost.

The question to me, in this new onslaught against the Jews, is that its not about them its about us, Foxman said. How will we respond? Will we put on mezuzahs on our doorposts, or take them off?

So far, Jewish pride has blossomed in the wake of October 7.

The community around the world has stood up and said, I am a Jew. I want to be a Jew, Foxman said. Thats the test of the future: How proud will we be of our Jewishness, and to what extent will we stand up. Its not about what they do. Its terrible, its frightening, its debilitating, but you know what? We can overcome it. Its more about us than about them, and the signs now are very positive.

What Foxman fears, he confides, is Israel losing the United States as its ally.

US President Joe Biden, left, meets with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, to discuss the the war between Israel and Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel, on October 18, 2023. (Miriam Alster/Pool Photo via AP)

Were in a propaganda war, and to an extent, were losing the propaganda war, and I worry about losing America, Foxman said. Its scary, looking at the polls, the Sunday television shows, the major newspapers there is so much out there that is anti-Israel. Its misinformation and disinformation in ways you never could have imagined.

I dont worry about the world, I worry about the US, Foxman said of the future. The US is Israels most important ally, whether its politically, economically, militarily there is no one else. What worries me is that were losing it.

No matter where a person stands politically, Foxman states, on October 7, we were very lucky that Joe Biden was president of the United States.

Biden said to the world that America will not permit to happen to the Jews what it permitted to happen during World War II, Foxman said. He had a moral compass and stood up in a magnificent way, defending Israel and giving money but as the war goes on, its deteriorating.

Then-national director of the Anti-Defamation League Abraham Foxman, right, hands over the Joseph Prize For Human Rights to then-German chancellor Angela Merkel at the chancellery in Berlin, Wednesday, March 19, 2014. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber).

Now, Foxman said, the president is weak and has been politicized.

Constituents in Michigan and elsewhere whose support for Biden is wavering due to the presidents backing of Israel in the ongoing war in Gaza is really taking a toll, Foxman said. Look, to hear the vice president of the United States use ceasefire as the number one condition scared me. The word ceasefire is a code word for the victory of Hamas Its scary, and Im very worried.

The word ceasefire is a code word for the victory of Hamas

Foxman said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is being used to legitimate anti-Israelism.

The irony is that while Bibi Netanyahu has, for years, been a major asset in the US-Israel relationship based on his leadership, articulation and many other factors, today hes become a liability, especially in the US, and people who are criticizing Israel equate the state with Netanyahu and the right-wing government, and thats a very serious problem for us, Foxman said.

A volunteer asks people to vote uncommitted, instead of for US President Joe Biden, outside of McDonald Elementary School in Dearborn during the Michigan presidential primary election on February 27, 2024. (JEFF KOWALSKY / AFP)

Foxman noted that before October 7, Biden had stated that Israels existence made Jews safe.

Zionism was our safe haven we need to be like all the other nations, and therefore we will be safe and secure, Foxman said. Ironically, what has happened is that Israel has become the Jew among the nations. We entered the community of nations, which was the dream of Zionism and Herzl, with a flag and anthem, et cetera and yet were being treated differently than any other nation.

What other nation in the world has no right to determine its own capital and has to defend its right to defend itself?

What other nation in the world has no right to determine its own capital and has to defend its right to defend itself? Foxman asked rhetorically. Who is telling Ukraine where to send its missiles, or that its too many innocent victims? Nobody. We are still the Jew among the nations.

Despite all this, Foxman is quick to point out that hes an optimist.

Jews dont have the luxury to be pessimists, Foxman smiled, quoting the late Israeli prime minister Golda Meir. I survived. I have no right to be a pessimist, and Im not one. Its tough and gets tougher, and I worry more, but okay. Were allowed to be worried. We also believe that out of tragedy, good can come. After destruction, we survive, then we rebuild.

The sense of hope, determination, continuum yes, thats all part of the secret of our survival, Foxman said. I wish the world wouldnt test us so often. Weve proven that we can be positive without the negative.

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Former ADL head Abe Foxman: 'Israel has become the Jew among the nations' - The Times of Israel

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Posted By admin on March 13, 2024

The Anti-Defamation League presented Jared Kushner with its inaugural Abraham Accord Champions Award on Wednesday in front of a crowd who received former President Donald Trumps son-in-law with mixed reactions.

Some people rose to give Kushner a standing ovation as he walked on stage. Several rows of attendees began exiting the room as Kushner began speaking. There was a heavy law enforcement presence in the room and three separate protestors were escorted out.

ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt explained his decision to invite Kushner to speak ahead of his acceptance remarks.

"Our next speaker is someone who I disagree with strenuously. He worked for a White House that I consistently, and we at the ADL, publicly criticized in the strongest terms. And we've had more than enough phone calls," Greenblatt said. "But I invited him to speak here."

Greenblatt said he received calls questioning his choice. Part of the reason is because the ADL is not a partisan organization, he said.

ADL supporters are not from one political party, and Greenblatt said the ADL has always incorporated ideological diversity in its events.

"Another part of the answer is that we are living in an October 8 world, and I firmly believe that we as a Jewish community cannot afford to be divided," Greenblatt said. We do not have to agree on everything, but we cannot allow the partisanship and polarization that has poisoned so much of our society to poison us. We can't allow it to do the same to us. because, like it or not, we are in this together."

Greenblatt went on to call the Abraham Accords one of the most consequential foreign policy accomplishments of the US government over the last 50 years.

Kushner acknowledged that a stage at an ADL conference is the last place he expected to speak the words he's had on his mind since October 7.

Kushner spoke about the pain of the Jewish community following the attacks on October 7 and the challenges of antisemitism. He highlighted the accomplishments of influential Jewish people throughout history.

Kushner reflected on the process of working with his Arab counterparts in negotiating the terms of the Abraham Accords and the success the diplomacy has brought to the region.

"When I started my diplomacy in the Middle East, it was not lost on me that I was a Jewish American, working with Muslim leaders to make breakthroughs that many members of both of our religions thought were impossible," Kushner said. "The approach I took was different from those before me."

Kushner criticized liberal women's groups for being silent about the sexual violence Hamas committed against Israeli women, and he criticized the UN for issuing more resolutions condemning Israel than North Korea or Iran. Kushner also called for the dissolution of UNRWA.

"I challenge the United Nations to take a single year off from focusing on the sole Jewish member state and, instead, work on some of the other vexing problems we have in the world," Kushner said. "Sometimes condemnation is needed. But in most cases, constructive engagement will create better outcomes in clear, mutual understanding, and more importantly, our goal of the elimination of antisemitic thoughts, sentiments, and statements."

Kushner said he's grateful for the many non-Jewish people who have stood out publicly as allies to the Jewish people.

"My heart goes out to the Palestinian people. They could use better friends as well," Kushner said. "Supporters who wish to see them thrive are wasting their efforts by scapegoating Israel. They must demand accountability from Palestinian leaders and expect civil behavior from their citizenry.

Kushner then acknowledged his father-in-law, saying people can think whatever they want about Donald Trump, but that he is not an antisemite.

Some audience members loudly booed at this remark.

"For me, the condemnation by some Jewish groups of a man I know who blessed my wife converting to Judaism, or wore yarmulke when he walked down the aisle at our wedding, who proudly attended the brit milah of his grandson - his Jewish grandson - and who has always been a strong and vocal supporter for the Jewish people in the State of Israel, was confusing," Kushner said.

The result of Trump's presidency speaks loudly, Kushner said, and he went on to highlight Trump's sanctions on Iran, move the embassy to Jerusalem, and return the Golan Heights to Israel.

Kushner also said Trump foresaw the growing antisemitism on college campuses, which he completed with an executive order - which the ADL supported - to force universities to provide equal protection to Jewish students being discriminated against.

Kushner expressed his reluctance of accepting the award and speaking at the conference as he grew skeptical of the ADL, viewing it as a political organization.

However, Kushner said he believed Greenblatt's genuine desire for a partnership to fight antisemitism that transcends political ideology.

"After all, how can we ask others to stand with the Jewish people if we cannot stand with each other? We cannot let this be about politics. This is about the Jews," Kushner said. "If Jews cannot look past their partisan beliefs to acknowledge positive efforts on behalf of the Jewish people, then we will be doomed to history repeating itself as it has time and time again."

Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Coalition of America, criticized the ADL's decision to host Kushner in a post on X following his remarks.

"For the record, I care how you vote. And I can't fathom why anyone would normalize a former president who mocked Israel, praised terrorists, incited an insurrection, emboldens antisemites, aligns with Putin, refuses to condemn white supremacy, pledges to be a 'dictator on day one,' and called 75% of us 'disloyal,'" Soifer said.

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ADL CEO defends choice inviting keynote speaker Jared Kushner - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By admin on March 13, 2024

Ben Stern, a Holocaust survivor who endured years in Nazi concentration camps and two death marches before settling in Skokie, Ill., where he helped rally opposition to a planned neo-Nazi demonstration in the late 1970s that produced one of the most explosive cases in First Amendment law, died Feb. 28 at 102.

The cause was congestive heart failure, said his daughter Charlene Stern. Mr. Stern had lived for decades in Illinois before moving to California to be closer to his family. He died at his home in Berkeley.

Mr. Stern, a Polish-born Jew, lost his parents, his sister and six of his seven brothers in the Holocaust. He evaded selections for the gas chambers at Auschwitz, one of numerous Nazi camps where he was imprisoned, and was marched for weeks without bread before his liberation in 1945.

With no family and no home left in Europe, Mr. Stern immigrated to the United States in 1946 with his wife, a fellow survivor he had met in a displaced-persons camps. Despite speaking no English at first, he became a businessman and established a chain of laundromats across Chicago. The couple and their three children eventually settled in the suburb of Skokie, which was home to a large Jewish community and an estimated 6,000 Holocaust survivors.

For those survivors, Skokie was a world away from the one they had left behind. But a specter of the past emerged in 1977 when the National Socialist Party of America, a small group of neo-Nazis led by Frank Collin, announced plans for a rally in Skokie. In a standoff that ultimately landed in the U.S. Supreme Court, Mr. Stern was among the activists who set out to stop them.

As the town of Skokie undertook efforts to block the demonstration, the neo-Nazis were represented in court by the American Civil Liberties Union, whose principal lawyer faced death threats for arguing that even speech as abhorrent as that of neo-Nazis must be defended if the First Amendment protection of free speech is to endure.

In making its case, the ACLU noted that some of the measures invoked by Skokie officials to keep out the neo-Nazis, including a provision that demonstrators post sizable insurance bonds, had been used in efforts to stop civil rights protests in the South.

Mr. Stern understood the argument but could not abide the sight of a swastika in a public square in America. Nor could he accept the position of those including the rabbi at his synagogue, who advised the congregation to ignore the neo-Nazis and let the moment pass.

Upon hearing his rabbis admonition during an observance of the High Holy Days, Mr. Stern recalled, he jumped up before the packed congregation and interrupted the service to declare: No, Rabbi! We will not stay home and close the windows. We will not let them march. Not here, not now, not in America!

The neo-Nazis prevailed in their legal proceedings their speech was protected under the First Amendment, court after court ruled. But they canceled their rally in Skokie, in part because they were faced with the prospect of a massive counter-demonstration organized by Jewish groups and activists including Mr. Stern, who had written letters to the editor, appeared on television, gathered petitions and rallied people to their cause.

The neo-Nazis did ultimately gather in Chicago in 1978. But to Mr. Stern and those who had fought them with him, the successful effort to drive them from Skokie was a victory on behalf of the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust.

Reflecting on the feeling after 30 years of rising from the ashes to have to face a threat from the Nazis, Mr. Stern said, I could not believe it, and I wanted to face it head on, not hide and not let it happen.

Bendit Sztern was born to an Orthodox Jewish family in Warsaw on Sept. 21, 1921. Both of his parents had been widowed in World War I, and the household included six children from their earlier marriages, as well as Mr. Stern and two other children born to their union. A brother who immigrated in the 1930s to what was then the British mandate of Palestine was Mr. Sterns only sibling still alive at the end of the Holocaust.

Mr. Sterns father devoted much of his time to the study of the Torah, the Talmud and other religious texts. Mr. Sterns mother and maternal grandmother ran a general store that sold liquor and other goods in Mogielnica, a town south of Warsaw where he spent part of his youth.

On Sept. 1, 1939, weeks before Mr. Stern turned 18, Germany invaded Poland, and the continent was soon at war. The following year, Mr. Stern and much of his family were confined to the Warsaw ghetto. His grandmother, an older brother and his father were among the thousands of Jews who died in the ghetto amid rampant starvation and disease.

Mr. Stern was with his mother and younger brother during a mass deportation in 1942. Amid the chaos, he had no chance to say goodbye as they were loaded onto a cattle car bound for Treblinka, a Nazi killing center in occupied Poland, and he was pushed onto another one headed for Majdanek, a Nazi concentration camp located near Lublin.

Mr. Stern was later transferred to Auschwitz, among other camps and subcamps, before arriving after his first death march at Buchenwald in Germany.

During his years in the camps, he was subjected to forced labor in coal mines and hauling stone. He witnessed inmates throwing themselves against electrified fences and saw smoke pouring from crematoria where victims of the gas chambers were burned. He was made to haul away ashes and recalled saying Kaddish, a Jewish prayer for mourning, when he discovered bits of bone.

You could go insane on the spot, he said in a 2016 documentary film, Near Normal Man, directed and produced by his daughter Charlene. At that time, I decided to go on, he said. I didnt give in.

As the Allies closed in on the Germans, Mr. Stern was sent with other Buchenwald inmates on a second death march, this one toward the Austrian border. He was among the few prisoners still living when the U.S. Army liberated them in May 1945.

In the aftermath of the war, Mr. Stern searched displaced-persons camps for members of his family but found none. He met Chaya Kielmanowicz, a survivor from Warsaw, and married her within six weeks of their first encounter. She was just as lost as I was, he later observed.

Sponsored by members of her family, the couple arrived in Chicago. Although Mr. Stern had no education and no trade, he had ten fingers, he remarked, as well as the will to go forward. He worked as a carpenter before opening his chain of laundromats. Only when his first child was born, Mr. Stern said, did he begin to free himself from the past.

I walked the street and said, Im a father, Im a father! he recounted in the documentary. I just couldnt contain that joy of seeing a living thing coming out of us. It was just so sweet.

Mr. Sterns wife, known in the United States as Helen, died in 2018. Survivors include their three children, Charlene Stern of Berkeley, Norman Stern of Cleveland, Ga., and Susan Stern of Fairfield, Calif.; seven grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren.

Charlene Stern said that her father spoke to hundreds of audiences about his experience in the Holocaust. He protested anti-Muslim bigotry in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the Trump administration policy of separating immigrant children from their parents at the U.S. border.

In 2017, shortly after neo-Nazis and white supremacists raised their arms in Nazi salutes at the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Mr. Stern led a phalanx of counter-protesters who vastly outnumbered a small contingent of white supremacists who gathered in Berkeley.

Im not here alone with the live people, Mr. Stern said, but I see all the people of my past my family, my friends who didnt make it.

The same year, Mr. Stern was featured in The Washington Post when he opened his home to Lea Heitfeld, a German student whose grandparents had belonged to the Nazi Party and who lived with Mr. Stern while attending the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. His experience in the Holocaust, he said, had served not to embitter him, but to make him more compassionate.

Late in life, after the release of his daughters documentary film, Mr. Stern came to know Ira Glasser, who, after becoming executive director of the ACLU in 1978, had vigorously defended the organizations representation of the neo-Nazis in their petition to gather in Skokie.

Scheduled to speak together on a panel in California, Mr. Stern met Glasser at the airport. In an interview, Glasser recalled that Mr. Stern extended to him a hand and said, Were not going to agree, but were going to be friends.

In a private meeting before the public event, the two men spoke for hours, fervently but civilly, about their respective positions and the tensions between them, which remained unchanged.

There was no meeting of the minds, Glasser said. His agony was too imprinted on his soul by what happened to him. And I remember thinking that if I were in his [place], I would probably be taking the same position. Mr. Sterns defiance, Glasser said, had been heroic.

Before they parted, Mr. Stern insisted upon sharing with Glasser a drink from a bottle of schnapps that he had bought in the 1980s when he returned to Poland for the first time since the end of the war. It was the same brand that his family had sold at their store, and there remained in the bottle exactly two shots, one for each of them.

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Ben Stern, Holocaust survivor who challenged neo-Nazis, dies at 102 - The Washington Post

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Posted By admin on March 13, 2024

Ive always loathed Russia: its regime, its remnants of enduring Stalin-worship, its rulers century of malign influence on the world. The cold-blooded autocrat Vladimir Putin, whose invasion of Ukraine is all too redolent of the USSR, is succeeding in his aim of shattering the security and stability of Europe. I watch clips of Putin addressing vast cheering crowds in Moscow and wonder: whats wrong with these otherwise sophisticated people? The alternative narratives are mere clicks away on their smartphones, yet they choose to swallow Putins dangerous lies and propaganda. Have they learnt nothing from their own history?

With the secret police prowling the streets, she needed to deflect suspicion

My Russia-phobia is nothing new: when I was four years old, my family fled Hungary in the aftermath of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. This popular uprising against communist repression had been brutally crushed by Soviet tanks: civilians were massacred, thousands imprisoned, the revolutions leaders hanged. Perhaps its not altogether surprising that I feel the way I do about Russia. But then I remind myself that, if it werent for one particular Russian, I wouldnt be alive today. Or, to be more precise, I would never have been born.

My mother, Vali Racz, was a celebrated singer and actress in Hungary during the Second World War. Thanks to her glamorous looks and sex appeal, she was labelled the Hungarian Marlene Dietrich. In March 1944, the Nazis occupied the country and began rounding up Jews. As a Catholic, she wasnt personally under threat, but many of her friends and associates were Jewish. Several of them now desperately sought her help.

She didnt disappoint. For eight months, her villa in Budapest provided a clandestine refuge for five Jewish fugitives. With the secret police prowling the streets, she needed to deflect suspicion, so she openly socialised with Wehrmacht officers.

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The remarkable story of my mother, the heroine of the Holocaust - The Spectator

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Posted By admin on March 13, 2024

On March 5, 2024, North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson was declared the Republican Party's winner in the state's race for the governor's mansion. Days earlier, his campaign was endorsed by former U.S. President Donald Trump. "This is Martin Luther King on steroids," Trump told a crowd that he said of Robinson. "I think you're better than Martin Luther King. I think you are Martin Luther King times two."

In the aftermath of Robinson's victory and in the months that preceded Super Tuesday some of his past comments about a variety of subjects were resurfaced online, in the news and on late-night TV shows including "Late Night with Seth Meyers," "The Daily Show" and "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver."

For example, Snopes previously reported about a video in which, some people believed, Robinson once said he was against women having the right to vote. However, the full video showed that this mistaken belief spawned out of a partial quote that was shared without its original context. As of March 11, the partial quote removed from its context remains available on both MSNBC'swebsite and YouTube channel, in a video from an MSNBC broadcast in which hosts Nicolle Wallace and Rachel Maddow discussed Robinson's remarks. A misleading caption next to the video says of Robinson, "He states he wants women to not be able to vote."

In this article, we provide information about a sampling of Robinson's past comments that have been discussed online or received mentions in news articles, specifically regarding the subjects of Adolf Hitler, antisemitism, Jews and the Holocaust. Snopes contacted Robinson's campaign by email on March 7 but did not receive a response within four days.

On March 5, 2024,The Guardian reported, "Hitler-quoting candidate wins North Carolina Republican gubernatorial primary." Similarly, The New Republic published the headline, "Meet North Carolina's GOP Governor Candidate: A Hitler-Quoting Extremist." Both stories also noted that North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein who is Jewish had won the Democratic primary.

The two headlines referenced a 2014 post on Robinson's personal Facebook account. The post read, "History who said it #1; 'Pride in one's own race - and that does not imply contempt for other races - is also a normal and healthy sentiment. I have never regarded the Chinese or the Japanese as being inferior to ourselves They have the right to be proud of their past, just as we have the right to be proud of the civilization to which we belong.'"

In the summer of 2023, three years after he was elected as North Carolina's lieutenant governor, Robinson defended the old Facebook post while speaking at an event for the conservative group Moms for Liberty in Philadelphia.

However, Robinson's defense of the 2014 post was taken out of context online, as Reuters reported. The X account @HeartlandSignal shared a 25-second video clip from Robinson's appearance at the event and failed to include the bolded portion below:

They know the story. They know the playbook that they always have. Lie. Deride. Besmirch. Make innuendos. Tell flat-out untruths. "Because you quoted Hitler, you support Hitler." I guess every history book in America supports Hitler now. They all quote him.

And here's the thing. Whether you're talking about Adolf Hitler, whether you're talking about Chairman Mao, whether you're talking about Stalin, whether you're talking about Pol Pot, whether you're talking about Castro in Cuba or whether you're talking about a dozen other despots around the globe, it is time for us to get back and start reading some of those quotes.

It's time for us to start teaching our children some of those quotes. It's time for us to start teaching our children about the dirty, despicable, awful things that those communists and socialist despots did in our history.

On Robinson's X account, he pointed out the truth of the matter, which was that his remarks defending his previous remarks were taken out of context, writing: "Only Lying Leftists would take a speech DENOUNCING dictators, communists, and socialists and try to make it seem like I support them. Despicable."

His full speech is available in a video posted on the Moms for Liberty YouTube channel.

On July 7, 2023, an account on X known as Republicans Against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) posted that Robinson had said he was "so sick" of seeing discussions about Nazis and Hitler.

This was a genuine quote from Robinson's Facebook feed. He made this poston May 31, 2017, writing, "I am so sick of seeing and hearing people STILL talk about Nazis and Hitler and how evil and manipulative they were. NEWS FLASH PEOPLE, THE NAZIS (National Socialist) ARE GONE! We did away with them."

He then went on to mention communism and other subjects in the same post.

On November 26, 2017, Robinsonpostedon Facebook, "There is a REASON the liberal media fills the airwaves with programs about the NAZI and the '6 million Jews' they murdered.There is also a REASON those same liberals DO NOT FILL the airwaves with programs about the Communist and the 100+ million PEOPLE they murdered throughout the 20th century."

Robinson's post included quotation marks around "6 million Jews," a fact that was pointed out in a report from Jewish Insider.

The genocide known as the Holocaust was a systematic, state-sponsored killing of 6 million Jewish men, women and children, and millions of others, by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II,Brittanica.com published. More information about the Holocaust can be read on AnneFrank.org, Yad Vashem and the website for the United State Holocaust Memorial Museum.

On March 6, 2024, X user@SawyerHackett posted, "Actual quote from the new Republican nominee for Governor of NC, Mark Robinson: 'This foolishness about Hitler disarming MILLIONS of Jews and then marching them off to concentration camps is a bunch of hogwash.'"

This was a genuine quote that came from a Facebook post Robinson made in 2018.

On Oct. 12, 2023, the Raleigh, North Carolina-based NBC affiliateWRALreported, "Robinson in a past Facebook post called reports of the Holocaust 'hogwash.'" The article also included a quote from a spokesperson for Stein the state attorney general and 2024 Democratic primary winner who said, "Mark Robinson called the Holocaust 'hogwash' and now uses the slaughter of Israelis and Americans to perform a transparent political stunt. This is as close as he should ever get to being governor."

From our reading of Robinson's full, original post as well as Robinson's own comments that he added under the post in the hours and days that followed it did not appear in this specific instance he had said he believed concentration camps and the Holocaust were "hogwash." Rather, the three-sentence post appeared to be an attempt to make a point about gun-control measures.

The full post read, "The center and leftist leaning Weimar Republic put heavy gun ownership restrictions on German citizens long before the Nazis took power. This foolishness about Hitler disarming MILLIONS of Jews and then marching them off to concentration camps is a bunch of hogwash. Repeating that hogwash makes the conservative argument against the current attempts by liberal Marxist to push Unconstitutional gun control measures in this Nation look FOOLISH."

In October 2015, PolitiFact looked at the claim that gun-control measures allowed the Nazis to carry out the atrocities of the Holocaust and rated it as "false." One of the specific pieces of information that the story focused on concerned a passage in Dr. Ben Carson's book"A More Perfect Union." At the time, Carson was one of several Republican candidates for president.

The passage in Carson's book read, "German citizens were disarmed by their government in the late 1930s, and by the mid-1940s Hitler's regime had mercilessly slaughtered six million Jews and numerous others whom they considered inferior. Through a combination of removing guns and disseminating deceitful propaganda, the Nazis were able to carry out their evil intentions with relatively little resistance." The PolitiFact writer called Carson's claim "a misreading of history."

The aforementionedreporting from Jewish Insidersaid thatMark Walker, one of the Republican candidates facing off against Robinson in the governor's race, had denounced Robinson's past comments. "His history of antisemitic remarks is troubling," Walker told the publication. "His denial of the Holocaust reaches a whole different level and should be strongly condemned in every aspect possible."

The stories also made note of other past Facebook posts from Robinson about the 1977 TV miniseries "Roots," the 2018 feature film "Black Panther" and other subjects.

Carson, Dr. Ben, and Candy Carson. "A More Perfect Union: What We the People Can Do to Reclaim Our Constitutional Liberties." Google Books, 2015, books.google.com/books/about/A_More_Perfect_Union.html?id=mthJBgAAQBAJ.

"Donald Trump Endorses Mark Robinson for Governor at Greensboro Rally."YouTube, FOX8 WGHP, 3 Mar. 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st51hduqLPk.

Doran, Will. "NC Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson Downplays Past Remarks about Jews, Declares Israel Solidarity Week."WRAL.com, 12 Oct. 2023, https://www.wral.com/story/nc-lt-gov-mark-robinson-downplays-past-remarks-about-jews-declares-israel-solidarity-week/21093457/.

Greenberg, Jon. "Fact-Checking Ben Carson's Claim That Gun Control Laws Allowed the Nazis to Carry out Holocaust." PolitiFact, 26 Oct. 2015, https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/oct/26/ben-carson/fact-checking-ben-carson-nazi-guns/.

"Holocaust." Brittanica.com, https://www.britannica.com/event/Holocaust.

Houghtaling, Ellie Quinlan. "Meet North Carolina's GOP Governor Candidate: A Hitler-Quoting Extremist." The New Republic, 5 Mar. 2024. The New Republic, https://newrepublic.com/post/179566/north-carolina-governor-candidate-mark-robinson-quoting-hitler.

Kampeas, Ron. "North Carolina Race Pits Jewish Democrat against Republican Accused of Antisemitism."The Times of Israel, 6 Mar. 2024, https://www.timesofisrael.com/north-carolina-race-pits-jewish-democrat-against-republican-accused-of-antisemitism/.

Kassel, Matthew. "In N.C., Walker Hits Robinson for 'Antisemitic Remarks' and 'Denial of the Holocaust.'" Jewish Insider, 13 July 2023, https://jewishinsider.com/2023/07/mark-walker-mark-robinson-north-carolina-republican-gubernatorial-holocaust/.

---. "North Carolina's GOP Front-Runner for Governor Has a History of Racist and Antisemitic Diatribes." Jewish Insider, 7 July 2023, https://jewishinsider.com/2023/07/north-carolina-gop-mark-robinson-racism-antisemitism/.

Lerner, Kira. "Hitler-Quoting Candidate Wins North Carolina Republican Gubernatorial Primary." The Guardian, 6 Mar. 2024. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/05/mark-robinson-north-carolina.

Liles, Jordan. "North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson's Past Remark About Women Voting Was Stripped of Its Context." Snopes, 7 Mar. 2024, https://www.snopes.com//news/2024/03/06/mark-robinson-women-vote/.

"Lt. Governor Mark Robinson at the 2023 Moms for Liberty Summit." YouTube, Moms for Liberty, 6 July 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igTQ2tmpVwk.

"Mark K. Robinson (North Carolina Lieutenant Governor)." Ballotpedia, https://ballotpedia.org/Mark_K._Robinson_(North_Carolina_lieutenant_governor).

"Mark Robinson." Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/mark.k.robinson.3.

Robertson, Gary D. "Heated North Carolina Governor's Race Ahead with Democrat Josh Stein vs. Republican Mark Robinson." The Associated Press, 5 Mar. 2024, https://apnews.com/article/north-carolina-election-primary-governor-b9fb5ebb3f541480705bbbdca3529db9.

---. "Trump Endorses Mark Robinson for North Carolina Governor and Compares Him to Martin Luther King Jr." The Associated Press, 2 Mar. 2024, https://apnews.com/article/north-carolina-donald-trump-endorsement-governor-cf9092cc8c10d0f2106aacedc63fd8af.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. https://www.ushmm.org/zh.

"Video of North Carolina Official Citing Dictators Stripped of Context Online." Reuters, 7 July 2023, https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL1N38T26Y/.

"What Is the Holocaust?" Anne Frank Website, https://www.annefrank.org/en/anne-frank/go-in-depth/what-is-the-holocaust/.

"What Was the Holocaust?" Yad Vashem, http://www.yadvashem.org/holocaust/about.html.

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Here's What North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson Said About Adolf Hitler, Jews and the Holocaust - Snopes.com

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Posted By admin on March 13, 2024

Fifteen Holocaust survivors criticized film director Jonathan Glazer for his Oscar speech claiming that Israel had hijacked the Holocaust in service of the conflict, saying that he should be ashamed to have used Auschwitz to attack the Jewish State.

A survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald, and the only person of his 105 family members to survive, David Schaecter said that Glazer's comments were "factually inaccurate and morally indefensible."

"You chose to use the Holocaust to validate your personal opinion. You made a Holocaust movie and won an Oscar. And you are Jewish. Good for you. But it is disgraceful for you to presume to speak for the six million Jews, including one and a half million children, who were murdered solely because of their Jewish identity," said Schaecter, President of the Holocaust Survivors Foundation USA. "You should be ashamed of yourself for using Auschwitz to criticize Israel."

The 94-year-old said that it was disgraceful that Glazer saw fit to speak on behalf of Holocaust survivors, many of whom were offered no refuge in other countries and where there was "no Jewish nation to which we could flee."

"If the creation, existence, and survival of the State of Israel as a Jewish state equates to 'occupation' in your mind, then you obviously learned nothing from your movie," said Schaecter.

Schaecter said that the current political landscape was the result of past Arab leaders who had rejected the existence of the State of Israel, and the current conflict was a result of Iran and its proxies trying to foil the peace with Israel sought by several Arab states. Iran's efforts were abetted by many who "through naivet or malice, blame 'the occupation.'

The Holocaust survivor said that the current situation in Israel had nothing to do with the Holocaust, a genocide that was also preceded hundreds of years by the Jewish people's presence and right to live in the territory.

Schaecter criticized Glazer's use of the Oscars stage to compare the October 7 Massacre to Israeli self-defense.

The letter was signed by the HSF USA Executive Committee. Survivors Dena Axelrod, Magda Bader, Esther Finder, Renee Firestone, Ella Frumkin, Jay Ipson, Vera Karliner, Annette Lantos, Louise Lawrence-Israels, Shirley Rubin, Anita Schuster, Charles Srebnick, Agnes Vertes, and Thomas Weiss were signatories. Anita Schuster, the spouse of a Holocaust survivor and four children of survivors, Klaire Firestone, Katrina Lantos Swett, Steve Moskovic, and Neal Schaecter, also signed on.

Glazer won the Oscar for Best International Film on Sunday night for a film about the family of the commandant of Auschwitz living on the death-camp grounds.

"Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It's shaped all of our past and present. Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation that has led to conflict for so many innocent people," Glazer said in his acceptance speech. "Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization -- how do we resist?"

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Oscar winner Jonathan Glazer criticized by Holocaust survivors - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By admin on March 13, 2024

About 60 University of Michigan community members gathered at the Michigan League Monday evening for a presentation from Dr. Sabine Hildebrandt, instructor in pediatrics at Boston Childrens Hospital and associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. The talk, which focused on medicine in Nazi Germany, was the first of a three-part series hosted by the Students for Holocaust Awareness, Remembrance and Education as part of their third annual conference.

Hildebrandt started the presentation by talking about eugenics, the study of creating a genetically superior human being by excluding inferior traits from the human gene pool. Eugenics has been condemned as racially biased and unscientific, especially following its growth in popularity in Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. One way in which countries excluded those deemed inferior from the gene pool was through sterilization laws.

In Germany, it was leading psychiatrists that were instrumental in formulating the Nazi-forced sterilization on July 14, 1933, with the so-called Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases, Hildebrandt said. Psychiatrists, neurologists and others served on the hereditary health courts, which passed sentences enforcing sterilizations.

Hildebrandt then explained how eugenics became more racially motivated through the creation of the term racial hygiene by a German eugenicist. Where before the people considered genetically inferior were those with hereditary diseases, the term racial hygiene created the idea that certain races were genetically inferior. This idea was picked up by Nazi Germany and used to further endorse antisemitic and racist ideologies.

So (German doctors) decided about characteristics based on genes that have provided scientific rationales for antisemitic and racist thoughts and policies to exclude, persecute and murder Jews, Hildebrandt said.

The Nazis used eugenics and racial hygiene as justification for conducting brutal medical experiments on Jewish people in concentration camps without consent. During her talk, Hildebrandt discussed how people can learn from the brutality of the Holocaust and how these lessons can be applied to the modern day.

The core values and ethics of health care are fragile and need to be protected, Hildebrant said. They require constant critical assessment and reinforcement. Courage, resistance and resilience are necessary to prevent and counteract potential abuses of trust, power and authority in health care.

LSA freshman Ella Blank said as a Jewish student intending to major in public health, this event helped her explore the intersection between her identity and her intended career.

As a Jew, I think its really important to be educated on my own history, Blank said. I was also specifically fascinated by this topic because Im hoping to get into the medical field.

LSA senior Sydney Kaplan, co-president of SHARE, said the speaker had influenced her senior thesis, making it especially meaningful to hear from her.

We were just very honored to have had Dr. Hildebrandt here, Kaplan said. Her work had inspired my senior thesis on medicine in the Holocaust and she is really a pioneer in this history.

LSA senior Russell Jacobs, co-president of SHARE, said events like SHAREs conference provide an important space for Jewish students and help advance Holocaust education across the U-M campus.

For myself, its just a way for me to express my Jewish identity here on campus and as a way to honor my grandparents, Jacobs said. It makes me really happy to be able to create events like these to show the University of Michigan community why Holocaust education is relevant and why it continues to be.

Daily News Contributor Alyssa Tisch can be reached at tischaa@umich.edu.

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Sabine Hildebrandt speaks on medicine during the Holocaust - The Michigan Daily

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Posted By admin on March 13, 2024

Dan Asia, second from right, carries Handmaker Jewish Services for the Agings Czech Holocaust Torah during a commemorative event at the Arizona Jewish Historical Society in Phoenix on Feb. 25, 2024. (Photo courtesy Arizona Jewish Historical Society)

A commemorative service in Phoenix on Sunday, Feb. 25, included Torah scrolls from two Tucson congregations.

Both are Czech Memorial Scrolls that were collected by the Nazis during the Holocaust, warehoused in a ruined synagogue in Prague following the 1948 Communist coup, and finally rescued and brought to the Westminster Synagogue in London, which established the Memorial Scrolls Trust. The trust allocates scrolls, on loan, to Jewish congregations around the world.

Dan Asia, representing Congregation Eshel Avraham/Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging, and Herb Cohn, representing Kol Ami Synagogue, brought their congregations scrolls to the service, which marked the 60th anniversary of the scrolls arrival in London in 1964. The Arizona Jewish Historical Society and the Memorial Scrolls Trust arranged the Phoenix 60 in 2024 gathering.

For many years, people believed the Nazis planned to use Jewish artifacts to create a museum of an extinct race. But the trust says that according to Ark of Memory, a 2012 monograph by Magda Veselsk of Pragues Jewish Museum, no documents exist to support this theory.

Including Torahs from Greater Phoenix area synagogues, there were 13 scrolls at the anniversary event, which began with a procession of Holocaust survivors or survivors family members accompanying each Torah, followed by a candle-lighting ceremony.

Speakers included Jeffrey Ohrenstein, CEO of the Memorial Scrolls Trust, who traveled from London to attend, and Rabbi John Linder of Temple Solel of Paradise Valley.

Violinist Martin Bukshpan, the director of the Red Rocks Music Festival, provided music to open and close the ceremony, as if we had one of Chagalls fiddlers on the roof, Asia says.

After the ceremony, those whod escorted Torahs to the event displayed them in a meeting room. It was the first time, Asia notes, that he and Cohn met.

Cohn and his wife, Sue, originally obtained Kol Amis scroll in 1995 for a Long Island, New York, congregation. The Cohns moved to Tucson in 2006. In 2009, their former congregation merged with another Long Island congregation that already had a Holocaust scroll. The trusts rules stipulate that a congregation can have only one memorial scroll.

We were very fortunate that the trust agreed to allow us to transfer the scroll to Or Chadash in Tucson, says Sue, who will be reading from the Czech scroll on May 18 when she and three other women celebrate their bnot mitzvah at Kol Ami.

In 2009, the Cohns went to New York to fetch the Torah. They recall getting strange looks as they walked through Newark airport with the heavy, bulky object in a 5-foot-long duffel bag.

People thought we were carrying a dead body, Sue says, adding that they had to buy a seat on the plane for the scroll because they would not dare to put it in the luggage compartment and it was too big to fit in an overhead bin.

At airport security, a guard wanted them to remove and unroll the Torah, Sue says, but fortunately a supervisor had the sechel (wisdom) to allow us to just put it through the scanner and be on our merry way.

Or Chadash and Temple Emanu-El merged in 2019 to form Kol Ami.

Kol Amis Czech Torah, MST 1408, was termed an orphan scroll because its place of origin could not be determined. In memory of that unknown community, Kol Ami adopted a Czech town, Cheb, which was a center of Jewish learning in Bohemia in the 14th and 15th centuries, says Cohn. His grandmother came from Bohemia, the largest region in the former Czechoslovakia.

Two other local congregations, Chaverim and Beit Simcha, also have Czech memorial scrolls on loan from the trust.

Rabbi Stephanie Aaron says she wasnt able to participate in the ceremony because Chaverims Czech Torah was with a sofer for repairs.

Rabbi Sam Cohon of Congregation Beit Simcha was out of town and also could not attend the ceremony, but the Cohon family has a deep connection with the Memorial Scrolls Trust.

Rabbi Baruch Cohon, Sam Cohons father, explains that it was his uncle, Rabbi Harold Reinhart of Westminster Synagogue, who first learned of the cache of scrolls from a Czech teen who came to London on a kindertransport ship at the end of World War II.

Reinhart arranged for the scrolls to be rescued, with the help of philanthropist Ralph Yablon, who funded the purchase of the 1,564 scrolls.

Although the elder Cohon never met Reinhart, he did get a tour of Westminister Synagogue from Ruth Shaffer, the secretary who organized and oversaw the Memorial Scrolls Trust for almost 40 years. It was Shaffer who employed David Brand, a sofer (scribe) who would spend 27 years repairing the Czech scrolls.

Brands arrival at Westminister Synagogue has become the stuff of legend, says Cohon.

The Orthodox scribe knocked on the door and announced to Shaffer that he was looking for work.

Do you have any Torah scrolls that need repair? he asked in Yiddish.

We have 1,564; come in! she replied.

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Ceremony Honors Rescue of Holocaust Torah Scrolls | AZ Jewish Post - Jewish Post

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Posted By admin on March 13, 2024

The museum is located inside a former teacher's college that played a vital role in the Dutch resistance. National Holocaust Museum

DuringWorld War II, the Nazis murdered 75 percent of all Dutch Jews, the highest proportion of any country in Western Europe. And yet, for decades, many in the Netherlands were reluctant to acknowledge this dark period in the nations history.

Now, the National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam aims to change that. The new museum, which opened to the public on Sunday, is the first institution devoted to telling the full story of the 102,000 Dutch Jews and 220 Romani victims of the Nazis, reports the New York Times Claire Moses.

Knowing about the Holocaust is not optional, said the Dutch King Willem-Alexander at the opening ceremony, per the Guardians Senay Boztas. This museum shows us what happened. And not so very long ago.

Using roughly 2,500 documents, photographs, films, sound recordings and other artifacts, the museum explores what life was like for Dutch Jews before, during and after the war. Some of the objects were donated by victims, survivors and relatives, while others came from museum collections around the world.

In one room, laws that stripped Dutch Jews of their freedom are printed all over the walls, stretching from the floor to the ceiling. (For example, on June 12, 1942, Jews were ordered to turn in their bikes. By September 14, 1942, Jews were barred from universities.) This area shows how the Nazi regime, assisted by Dutch civil servants, dehumanized Jews ahead of operations to round them up, writes theAssociated Press (AP).

You feel the oppression and the dismantling of the rule of law and freedom for every Jew, Annemiek Gringold, the museums head curator, tells theTimes. That crime, no matter how neatly captured in judicial text, is always present.

Other rooms display everyday items that belonged to Dutch Jews, including suitcases, clothing, jewelry and childrens toys. Curators hope these humanizing objects will help visitors see the victims as people, rather than statistics.

Perhaps this is the closest I can come to the thousands and thousands of anonymous people that were rushed into the gas chamber, Gringold tells the AP. This is something that they chose to wear, and it is one of the last items that they touched.

Roosje Steenhart-Drukker, an 82-year-old survivor, donated the shoes she was wearing as a toddler on the day her Jewish parents left her in hopes she would be found and saved.

I am extremely happy that our history is not lost after all the tragedy, all the sadness, she tells Richard Carter of Agence France-Presse (AFP). But were still here.

The idea for the museum was first proposed in 2005. But the vision has taken nearly 20 years to come to fruition, in part because of a long-felt discomfort in the Netherlands with taking ownership of what happened, says Emile Schrijver, the museums general director, to the Times. The facilitys opening is a kind of closure to a process of acceptance, adds Schrijver.

The building itself, which used to be a teacher training college, played a vital role in the Dutch resistance. In 1943, Jewish children from a nearby daycare center were brought to the college and sent to various hideouts. Ultimately, these efforts helped save the lives of some 600 children, according to themuseum.

Museumgoers can step into the escape corridor to see for themselves where children were ushered into the building, per AFP.

In the museums final rooms, the focus turns toward the 30,000 Jews who remained in the Netherlands by the end of the war. These areas feature video interviews with survivors, who speak about how they tried to regain their dignity and restart their lives, per a statement from the museum.

The venue is located in Amsterdams historic Jewish Quarter, not far from a Holocaust memorial that opened in September 2021. The monument, designed by Polish-American architect Daniel Libeskind, is made of bricks inscribed with the names, birth dates and ages of all the Dutch Jews and Romani people who were killed by the Nazis.

One of the most well-known was Anne Frank, the Jewish teenager immortalized in the pages of her diary. Since 1957, Amsterdam has had a biographical museum dedicated to Frank in the house where she and her family spent two years in hiding.

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With New Holocaust Museum, the Netherlands Reckons With Its Past - Smithsonian Magazine

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Posted By admin on March 13, 2024

The following story was published by RARA, Chabad of Rural & Regional Australia, after two bochurim completed a five week trip visiting Jews across the Australian countryside.

4,230 kilometres later, Effi and Chaim have concluded their RARA trip. They spent 5 weeks visiting towns across Victoria and New South Wales, connecting with locals and creating new connections.

A quick story: the rabbis had visited Orange NSW, and were headed to Katoomba, in the heart of the Blue Mountains. Along the way, they made a brief stop in Bathurst. Unfortunately the few contacts they had there were not available for a visit. Before they headed out of town, Effi and Chaim made a quick stop at the post office to find out if anyone there knows of any Jewish locals.

Well, they didnt have much luck in the post office, but as Chaim was heading back to the RARA van, he sees a woman looking intently at the signage on the sides of it.

Chaim goes over and says hello. Rachel says hi back. It turns out, her mums mum is Jewish, and just last night she had been reading about the Holocaust. This had sparked something in her soul but she wasnt expecting to bump into two rabbis the very next day! The two exchanged details, and Rachel is very much looking forward to hearing about anyone else that may be Jewish in the region.

You never know where you might meet someone!

Thank you Effi and Chaim for your great assistance! We wish you much success going forward.

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When Your Reading About the Holocaust and Your Mothers Mother Is Jewish - CrownHeights.info

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