European Days of Jewish Culture

Constantly spearheading exciting projects which bring to life Judaism’s rich cultural heritage and educate the public on its integral role in the development of European civilization, The European Association for the Preservation and Promotion of Jewish Culture and Heritage (AEPJ) is now supported by B’nai B’rith Europe and 13 other organizations that have assumed the mantle of preservation in the aftermath of the tragic destruction resulting from World War II. Its visually impressive website is an enticement to hop a plane to get a look at the actual sites that are partially represented by photos depicting highlights of the 33 cultural routes mapped throughout the continent. Located in countries including Austria, Italy, Poland, Spain and Turkey, they were developed to provide an insider’s view of synagogues and other architectural treasures, some recently restored, and sites of historic interest as well as special exhibits and fine arts collections on view in local museums and archives. Assisted in the realization of its mission by important leaders and arts professionals, the AEPJ continues to revise its horizons.

For the past 19 years, AEPJ has spearheaded the annual “European Days of Jewish Culture” devoted each year to a tradition or broad concept intended to inspire a wide range of creativity, innovation and inclusion throughout the continent. Encompassing folklore and private diaries to biblical legends and Kabbalah, “Storytelling” has been designated as this year’s theme, with Sept. 2 representing the official date but in most places the celebration will commence prior to that day, and extend beyond, with cultural events including concerts, dance programs, screenings, dramatic productions, lectures and discussions produced by local arts ensembles, museums, libraries and academic institutions. For the first time, AEPJ has partnered with the National Library of Israel in the creation of a resource guide and a special touring museum show, among other initiatives.

“To Kill A Mockingbird” Coming to Broadway

After a few glitches with the estate of author Harper Lee, Oscar-winning screenwriter, playwright and movie director Aaron Sorkin is going ahead with his plans to bring his dramatic adaptation of her beloved novel, first published in 1960, “To Kill a Mockingbird” to Broadway’s Shubert Theater, slated to premiere on Nov. 1. Of course many remember the 1962 film adaptation starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, a role for which he won an Academy Award.  

Sorkin, whose successful first play “A Few Good Men” later became an even more celebrated film, is often credited with the creation of iconic television shows — “Sports Night,” with its glib repartee, hidden literary references, and complicated characters, and especially the much praised “The West Wing,” the continuing saga of the idealistic, yet flawed President Bartlett and his equally committed close-knit staff — whose content is sometimes said to reflect the Jewish concern for social justice. One of the show’s two Jewish characters, Toby Ziegler, the White House communications director and the Brooklyn-born son of a Russian Jewish mobster, was among its most memorable.

Trusting Sorkin, who like Lee, had a father who practiced law, the late Southern writer had given her permission to him to write the play, but her estate had judged his treatment of “Mockingbird” to be too far afield from the original book.  Little has been revealed about the changes that were contested, but Sorkin has noted that its protagonist, the dignified attorney Atticus Finch, who bravely defends an African-American man on trial for rape in the Jim Crow South, undergoes a transformation, to ultimately realize and act on his ethical decision, a change from Lee’s reverent, albeit one-dimensional portrayal. Sorkin’s intent in endowing Atticus with more human qualities will provide contemporary audiences with opportunity for empathy.

​Cheryl Kempler is an art and music specialist who works in the B'nai B'rith International Curatorial Office and writes about history and Jewish culture for B’nai B’rith Magazine. To view some of her additional content, click here.

​I am German, I am Jewish, my Grandmother is a Schindler survivor.
 
Her fate living through the Holocaust has led me to my academic and professional career and is the driving motivation behind my work combating anti-Semitism and advocating for Holocaust remembrance in Europe as director of EU Affairs for B’nai B’rith International.
 
Jewish life has re-established itself among German society, but so has anti-Semitism, leaving German Jews more vulnerable and disillusioned than at any point since the Holocaust.
 
We should be proud and thankful about, as German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier rightfully called it the “undeserved present of having Jewish communities and culture among its midst despite the unbearable past.” But we should also feel ashamed about the undeniable fact that our society is unable to provide emotional and physical safety for its own Jewish citizens, about the despicable necessity for 24/7 police protection of Jewish kindergartens, schools and synagogues in Germany.
 
This has to be assessed as a devastating failure in the context of Germany’s historic responsibility of preventing anti-Semitism from ever spreading again.
 
Wehret den Anfängen - resist the beginnings, because “Never Again” means to prevent repeating our mistakes of the past. Not comprehending and implementing the actual message has turned the very essence of what Holocaust commemoration comprises to an emotive overused term with the rise of anti-Semitism as a direct consequence.
 
A commemorative culture is obsolete without raising sensitivity toward the actual symptoms that led to it in the first place and that needs to be used to establish guidelines to shape our future:
 
First we have to lay to rest the belief that this could never happen again, and accept the shameful reality that hate, discrimination and anti-Semitism once again has snuck its way into mainstream society, even into politics.
 
Udo Voigt, member of the neo-Nazi party NPD won a seat in 2014 and is currently representing Germany in the European Parliament, and the recent national elections saw the far-right Alternative for Germany, AfD win 92 seats to become the third largest political group in the Bundestag.
 
Along with it goes what already is happening in other European countries, pushed by their right-wing populist governments and parties: A re-narration of history through increasing denial of the past and connection to the crimes committed during the Holocaust.
 
In Hungary statues of Nazi collaborators are erected, Poland is adopting laws that criminalize any mentioning of Polish complicity to the Nazi genocide and now the last taboo of German society has been broken by members of the AfD.
 
At the forefront is the prominent AfD member Björn Höcke, who infamously called the Holocaust memorial in Berlin, that pays tribute to the 6 million murdered Jews in Europe, a “memorial of shame.” Or party leader Alexander Gauland, who proclaimed that Germans should “be proud of what {their} soldiers achieved in two world wars.” German police recorded 1,453 anti-Semitic incidents in 2017, among them 32 violent disorders and 160 malicious damages.
 
An overwhelming 90 percent are still registered as far-right motivated, only 25 incidents are considered religiously motivated anti-Semitism mostly from Muslim extremists and one single incident is believed to be left-wing motivated.
 
It is crucial to note that the dark figures (estimated numbers of unknown cases) are likely much higher, due to lack of reporting and comprehensive surveys but especially, because the escalation of anti-Semitically motivated incidents is so often wrongly labeled or not even registered as such at all.
 
In every case lacking a caught perpetrator, anti-Semitic incidences are automatically registered as right wing motivated. The figures therefore fail to recognize far-left anti-Semitism in all its forms but also the often violent escalation of imported Islamic anti-Semitism that is acted out completely detached from the Holocaust, and without any reference to Germany’s historic guilt or its special connection to the Jewish state of Israel and its security as a raison d'état  
 
Mainstream society, the judicial system, politicians and police often lack the sheer understanding of and education about anti-Semitism and its mutations.
 
Blatantly obvious anti-Semitic incidents such as the arson attack on the Wuppertal Synagogue in 2014 are not even recognized as such and consequently don’t end up in these official statistics, therefore leaving the Jewish community traumatized and in shock twice. First through the attack itself and inability of German authorities to neither prevent nor protect, and then again through the incomprehensible inability of a judge to connect the painfully obvious dots.
 
Equating the policies of the Israeli government with German Jews, holding them responsible for a conflict thousands of miles away and consequently attacking a Jewish community in Germany by throwing a firebomb on a synagogue, equals anti-Semitism in its purest form. There must not be any discussion or room for interpretation.
 
Because of instances such as the Wuppertal Synagogue arson attack, organizations combating anti-Semitism don’t have the luxury of raising awareness once a year; we have to deal with the hostile reality and its impact on Jewish communities every day.
 
I believe it is crucial to understand and acknowledge that anti-Semitism is not an extremist ideology, but a worrisome mainstream phenomenon that can be found in the midst of German society among all demographics and ages, in class rooms, rap music, football stadiums, among academics, media and online social networks.
 
The younger generation shall not feel ashamed or personally responsible for what happened. But it has an undeniable responsibility that grows out of Germany’s historical burden and does not vanish over time. And that is the obligation to protect and cherish Jewish life and culture in German society and not only combat, but eradicate any anti-Semitic tendencies.
                                                                                    
I believe that the underlying issue with German Holocaust commemoration lies in its discrepancy between the mutual omnipresent condemnation of the Holocaust and lack of actually addressing the cause of hate and evil in any way.
 
This discrepancy then serves as the breeding ground for a dichotomy in German society – that ubiquitous historic responsibility and guilt is able to exist in parallel to rising anti-Semitism.
 
Holocaust commemoration needs to serve as the foundation on which to build strategies to combat the virus.
 
If this foundation is an empty shell, motivated by guilt and forced societal obligation rather then individual willingness to ask the crucial questions of how and why, and consequently draw the painful lessons by learning from the past, the commemoration day becomes meaningless; and so is any politician’s repetitive reminder of “Never Again,” their many references to the historic responsibility and the emphasis on this apparent Judeo-Christian heritage.
 
But besides the moral impediment that grows out of Germany’s historic responsibility, it should be in everyone’s self interest to address anti-Semitism.
 
Such discrimination does not stop with the Jews – it corrupts and corrodes the very core of our democratic society as a whole.  Eradicating anti-Semitism should be an imperative in the name of modern civilized society.
 
One should not speak out against anti-Semitism because of a moral obligation to be a philo-Semite or friend of Israel, but for the simple reason alone that a fellow citizen and human being is harassed or attacked.
 
Jewish rights are human rights, and hate against Jews is hate against humanity.
 
This might sound overly simplistic, emotive and obvious, but is nevertheless not being implemented in our approach to tackling the issue, or in developing strategies to combat it.
 
Instead ant-Semitism has become so powerful that it outgrew the Jews and can function even without a single Jew actually being present.
 
Commemoration of the Holocaust needs to serve as a guideline and toolkit that works not only in the context of historic guilt. Remembrance, based on guilt alone, can become overwhelming and might even backfire to the extent of paralyzing individuals, national identity and society as a whole.  
 
Nazi Germany did not invent anti-Semitism, but it did invent the Final Solution, that culminated in the industrial murdering of 6 million Jews.
 
It is essential to focus on underlying structures, the root causes of the Holocaust and analyze accountability for the horrors of the past, while directly addressing current anti-Semitic sentiments in all layers of society and politics. This needs to happen in close cooperation with Jewish communities themselves but also by building coalitions between special coordinators inside government institutions, civil society and other minority groups that are discriminated against.
 
“We do not want to preserve our dismay, but draw lessons, that can provide guidance also for future generations,” then German President Roman Herzog urged while establishing the official commemoration day in 1996.
 
Holocaust remembrance is a responsibility and obligation of German society as a whole.  But so is the engagement in combating anti-Semitism, as emphasized by the German government’s recent anti-Semitism resolution that was adopted with large majority. The resolution reads in part:
 
“The German Bundestag is grateful, that Jewish life and culture exists after the national-socialist dictatorship and despite the Holocaust. Its existence is an enrichment to our society and, in light of our history, a special declaration of trust toward our democracy and state of law, that we want to live up to and have to be committed to forever.”
 
We must not destroy this trust, and cannot leave German Jewry alone in combating the re-emergence of mainstream anti-Semitism. We should protect and cherish Jewish life in Germany with everything we have, not only due to the moral obligation based on Holocaust commemoration or guilt, but because it elevates our democratic society, our dignity, common values and human rights as a whole.

​​Benjamin Nägele was named director of E.U. affairs for B’nai B’rith International in 2015. In this capacity he focuses on promoting EU-Israel relations and advocates for Jewish causes at the European institutions in Brussels. He previously worked as an EU affairs officer for B’nai B’rith International and as a policy advisor at the European Parliament. Click here to read more of his work.

It’s a familiar arc: A Jewish community is attacked or threatened by anti-Semites, after which recriminations and regrets are publicly aired and the Jewish world wonders what could have been done differently to ensure Jewish safety.
 
And then there is Gothenberg.
 
This Saturday—not coincidentally Yom Kippur—the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM) will march through the coastal town of Gothenberg, Sweden, spreading its anti-Semitic hatred on the holiest day of the Jewish year. During the Holocaust, it was customary for the Nazis to carry out atrocities on days important to the Jewish calendar. The added benefit to the NRM of holding its hate march on Yom Kippur is that it is the day when even Jews who rarely worship are likely to attend synagogue.
 
Gothenberg authorities have already changed the NRM’s planned route to avoid proximity to the town’s synagogue, prompting 60 Nazi supporters to demonstrate in the city center on Sept. 17. The protesters railed against immigration and knocked down a woman who confronted them about their message. A spokesman for the NRM subsequently said that the group might choose to ignore orders to change the route of the march.
 
The NRM’s history of violence and intimidation suggests that whether Saturday’s march passes immediately by the synagogue or not, the threat posed to the Jewish community is real. The group openly espouses anti-Semitism and racism and has spoken admiringly about Adolph Hitler. Group members have advocated for mass deportation of refugees and immigrants. This summer a Gothenberg court sentenced three men with ties to the movement for carrying out bomb attacks on refugee shelters.
 
The presence of a majority of the city’s Jews in the center of town this Saturday increases the likelihood that they will become targets of the NRM’s hostility. It is also probable that some Jews, fearing for their safety, will opt not to attend Yom Kippur services this year.
 
American Jews are still reeling from the experience of a white supremacist march in Charlottesville, Virginia, last month that led to one death and 19 injuries. Some of the marchers stood in front of the local synagogue with guns, forcing worshipers to leave through the back door.  Hate mongers carrying flags and posters bearing swastikas shouted “Heil Hitler” and “blood and soil,” a Nazi slogan.  Will Gothenberg become another Charlottesville? Only Swedish authorities can ensure this does not happen.
 
In a letter to Prime Minister Stefan Löfven, B’nai B’rith has urged the Swedish government to stop the Nazi march from occurring on Yom Kippur.  This is not a matter of suppressing free speech.  The city of Gothenberg has maintained it’s powerlessness to stop the event from taking place. But what about the government’s obligation to maintain public order and protect its citizens from threats and intimidation by hate groups?  At the very least, the march could take place on a different day, when violent attacks are less likely to result.
 
It’s often said that hindsight is 20-20.  But there is something to be said for keen foresight, as well. Sweden’s neo-Nazis are preparing to descend on Gothenberg this Saturday, as the town’s Jewish community braces itself for what is supposed to be a day of introspection and atonement but figures instead to be one of fear and dread, perhaps violence as well.
 
To Swedish authorities, the message should be clear: Don’t let it happen.  Protect your citizens.  Ensure public safety.  Don’t make the day after Yom Kippur one on which the world asks, “How could this have been avoided?”

Despite an astounding array of conventions, covenants, directives, framework decisions, case law and other existing legal instruments meant to ensure human rights and freedom from discrimination in the European Union, Jews continue to face high levels of anti-Semitism in nearly all of the 28 EU member states.

I had the privilege of participating recently in the 10th Israel-EU Bilateral Dialogue on Combating Antisemitism, Racism and Xenophobia at the invitation of the Israeli Foreign Ministry (MFA) in Jerusalem earlier this month. The forum was established to allow Israelis and representatives of the European Commission—the government of the European Union—to discuss their ongoing work in combating antisemitism, exchange experiences and compare best practices. Participants included high-ranking European Commission and Israel Foreign Ministry officials, experts and practitioners in the field of education and social media.  

The meeting occurred after the failed attempt by the 57-member Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), to adopt the long-awaited Working Definition of anti-Semitism. Researchers, lawmakers and law enforcement practitioners have long complained that the lack of a generally agreed-upon definition of anti-Semitism—even if not legally binding—has helped confound efforts to combat the issue. So long as there was no definition, one man’s anti-Semitism could arguably be another man’s legitimate, albeit judgmental, opinion about Jews or Israel.

READ: A Potential Breakthrough in Defining Anti-Semitism

The definition proposed to the OSCE—only one sentence long with no mention of the State of Israel—goes on to provide 11 illustrative examples, most of which reference different manifestations of anti-Israel prejudice as forms of anti-Semitism: “Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust;…Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g. by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor; Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation; Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g. claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis; Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis...” – while adding the clear caveat that “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.”

The definition was adopted in May by the 31-member International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (encompassing European states plus the U.S., Canada, Argentina and Israel), but due to an obstructionist role played by a single member, the Russian Federation, the definition did not pass muster at OSCE, leaving states wanting to do utilize this new tool in the fight against anti-Semitism to adopt it individually as local legislation. The UK’s new prime minister Theresa May has committed Great Britain—faced with an alarming 61% increase in anti-Semitic crime over the past year—to being the first country to formally adopt the definition as law.

Despite the palatable disappointment at the OSCE vote, the Israel-EU dialogue provided a useful opportunity for officials to restate the Union’s commitments to counter anti—Semitism. Daniel Braun, the deputy head of cabinet for Věra Jourová, the European Union's commissioner for justice, consumers and gender equality, declared that combating anti-Semitism is not the responsibility of the Jewish community alone but an assault on fundamental rights that affects all people and not only minorities. Paul Nemitz, director for fundamental rights and rule of law, said that the Holocaust is part of European citizenship and that everyone, not only Jews, suffer from the effects of anti-Semitism, adding that the dialogue on combating the issue must continue irrespective of the state of the political dialogue between Israel and the EU.

The dialogue also provided a platform for an exchange of views on best practices, latest research and technological advances in combating anti-Semitism and also for a reality check on the efficacy of some long-held axioms.

For example, the EU has put much hope—and funding—into education and youth action as a means of tackling radicalization and anti-Semitism. Indeed, the concluding sentences in the extensive 10-year review on anti-Semitism in the EU, published last month by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, states that “Education is essential to prevent intolerant attitudes. Through education that fosters socialization, tolerance, universal values and encourages critical thinking, children and young people can bring change to their families and communities, and ultimately to the broader society.” This was reflected in the message of Katharina Von-Schnurbein, coordinator for combating anti-Semitism, who said that to change attitudes in the long term, EU member states need to tackle hate through education by working among teachers and principals. Braun also said that tolerance education must involve the whole spectrum of Jewish history in Europe, not just the Holocaust, which has been the focus of EU efforts until now. He was concerned by reports of anti-Semitic acts in schools and universities in Europe, adding that newcomers to the continent are bringing anti-Semitic attitudes with them and that it is Europe's responsibility to inculcate its basic principles of respect and tolerance into these newcomers.

But putting this approach into question, Dr. Eyal Kaminka, director of the International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem, argued that in the current hyper-charged atmosphere at many schools across Europe today, it is doubtful that meaningful change could be affected in schools since, as reported by many of the European teachers his school trains in methods for teaching the Holocaust, they are unable to implement any Holocaust curriculum in the face of student’s raucous objections, fanned by attitudes of Holocaust denial at home. Kaminka called on the EU officials to review the telling testimonies he has compiled of teachers across Europe that reflect the true face of intolerance and anti-Semitism in the classroom.

Perhaps the most hopeful news at the dialogue came from reports on implementation of the new Code of Conduct on countering illegal hate speech online reached this May between the Commission and four major IT platforms: Microsoft, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Social media is widely recognized as the principal platform for the promotion of anti-Semitic attitudes today. Under the Code, the IT companies must put in place a clear and effective process to review notifications regarding illegal hate speech on their services so they can remove or disable access to such content. Von-Schnurbein said that the Code establishes that the internet is no longer a legal black hole—, as it has been since its inception some 15 years ago, but that standards of incitement and illegal hate speech apply there too as it does in the print and broadcast media, terminating the privilege IT companies had claimed until now that they are not responsible for 3rd party content.
​
Although much hope was put in the Code, Von-Schnurbein expressed disappointment at the findings of the first review of implementation undertaken in October that indicated that only 28% of flagged entries have been removed by the platforms, a percentage she admitted did not meet expectations.  When the fact that the flaggers are all vetted and paid for by the IT companies themselves, the percentage of takedowns pales even further (takedowns of flagged offensive material from non-vetted sources is even lower). 

This led a number of participants in the dialogue to express incredulousness at the IT company's continued insistence on using manual flagging while objecting to the institution’s use of more uniform and reliable technological solutions for automatic removal as they already do to generate individualized advertising and content. As reported recently by Digital Trends, Google recently made improvements to its algorithm that will prevent Holocaust denial websites from appearing in search results. This improvement in the algorithm was made after Google came under fire for enabling neo-Nazi and Holocaust-denying websites to rank high up in search results for questions such as: "Did the Holocaust happen?"  

Some of the most advanced technology available to cleanse the web from hate speech has been developed in Israel. One of these is Spot.IM—a fully automated tool that monitors the comments sections in online media outlets for hate and verbal violence, identifying individuals who prowl the internet hoping to spark violent discourse or aggravate them. The platform, now used by over 5,000 active news sites and online magazines in the U.S., Israel and Europe—automatically filters their activity up to and including blocking them and deleting their entire comment history.

Israel is also in the process of falling in line with the U.S., Canada, Australia and the UK after a new legislation, the Removal of Terror-Inciting Content from Social Media bill, dubbed the “Facebook bill,” passed first muster last week in the Cabinet. Under the bill, courts will be empowered to order social media companies to remove posts that the authorities consider “a criminal endangerment to personal, public or national security." Although in the past year, 71% of 1,755 requests made by the Justice Ministry to providers to remove content were met, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said that while internet companies were cooperating with the government in cleansing the web of content that violates defamation, adoption, Holocaust denial, incitement and anti-terrorism laws, "it is important that this cooperation be required, and not according to their whims.” The bill would apply to posts that “call for an act of violence or terrorism" and demands that posts are removed from visibility in Israel.

The Jewish community in general and B'nai B'rith in particular, along with other watchdog agencies, have a responsibility to ensure that the Commission keeps up pressure on the providers to make the Internet and social media a safer environment. In fact, speakers at the dialogue expressed that the dedication and commitment exhibited by Jewish interlocutors on this issue could be duplicated among other targeted minorities in Europe. This is a distinction I believe many of us would be only too happy to concede.

Through this summer’s din and uncertainty of Brexit, the migration crisis and a wave of terror, Europe has remained constant in one respect: its singular fixation on a wrong-headed policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

If the Middle East were an arrivals and departures board at a train station, the Israeli-Palestinian question would be down somewhere at the fifth or sixth spot, behind the war on ISIS, the Syrian civil war, the Libya fiasco and Iranian hegemonism. All those decades in which the mantra “if you solve the Palestinian issue, all outstanding issues will fall into place,” has been proven to be nothing more than hollow conventional wisdom. The Sunni-Shia divide has become a roiling ocean, creating aftershocks in nearly every corner of the region — and beyond.

For years, the Palestinian leadership has become accustomed to “pride of place” on the issue, picking up supporters and apologists globally, but no more so than in Europe itself. Explanations for this are varied: some countries were concerned at one point about the spread of PLO terrorism in Europe, and sought accommodation with the terrorist organization. Some European governments were driven by ideological considerations and looked the other way at the thuggery, then the obstructionism of the PLO and its successors, while coming down hard on a succession of center-left and center-right Israeli governments. Some European leaders saw themselves as mediators and interlocutors, worrying that a shortage of obeisance to the Palestinian narrative would disqualify them from being “honest brokers.”

Indeed, since its 1980 Venice Declaration, in which the then-EEC (European Economic Community) supported the Palestinian’s call for “self-determination,” Europe has always tilted to the Palestinian side, despite the existence of generally good bilateral relations between a number of European Union (EU) countries and Israel.

As the EU grew in size, some differences in this approach became discernible. After the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989, a number of the new democracies could be found voting against, or abstaining on issues considered to be biased against Israel at the United Nations (U.N.) and other international fora. Increasingly, though, the demand for consensus in EU voting has seen the voting independence of the former Central and Eastern European states dissipate in the face of pressure from Brussels and from a number of the senior EU member capitals.

The 2012 decision to upgrade the status of the Palestinians to “non-member state”—despite the EU’s call for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, with the object of reaching a two state solution—was supported by no less than 14 EU members. Only the Czech Republic voted against; 12 others abstained. The message to the Palestinian Authority couldn’t have been clearer: why negotiate with Israel when the international community, including key European countries, could do the heavy lifting for it?

Gaming the U.N. system has become a PA specialty.

One recent case in point is a resolution singling out Israel recently adopted at the World Health Organization’s (WHO) World Health Assembly in Geneva. The measure, introduced by Kuwait on behalf of the Arab Group and Palestine, singled out Israel for “physical and procedural barriers to health access” in the territories, east Jerusalem and what they call the “Syrian Golan.” The text also cited the “prolonged occupation and human rights violations on mental, physical and environmental health…”

Anyone with a cursory knowledge of the daily lives of Israelis and Palestinians knows that emergency rooms and hospital wards in Israel treat Palestinians on a daily basis. Indeed, the Israeli organization, Save a Child’s Heart, which performs, gratis, pediatric cardiac surgery, has treated more than 2,000 Palestinian children since its inception in 1996. Beyond that, Israel has been treating hundreds of cases of civilians from across Syria who have been wounded in the barrel bombings and other carnage of that bloody war in medical facilities in the northern part of Israel.

And yet, 107 countries supported this libelous WHO resolution, including all 28 EU member states. On a continent where the blood libel against Jewish communities was a prominent fixture of life in the Middle Ages, and on the basis of facts widely known in European capitals, it is both incomprehensible, and reprehensible that Israel should be castigated in this way.

Another recent example of Palestinian influence at the U.N. is the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) Executive Board’s vote in favor of a resolution on “Occupied Palestine.” There are 40 points in the resolution, some of it rehashing previous resolutions condemning Israel for all manner of absurd accusations of “desecrating” holy sites in the Old City of Jerusalem. But this measure makes no reference at all to the Temple Mount, only to its Islamic/Arabic name, Al-Haram Al-Sharif. In the resolution, the plaza in front of the Western Wall is referred to as the Al-Buraq Plaza; “Western Wall Plaza” is noted in quotes only.

This isn’t only a matter of semantics, or “sensitivity.” In the past, the United Nations documents have referenced the holy site by both the name recognized by Judaism and Christianity (the Temple Mount) and Islam (Al-Haram Al-Sharif). This current re-writing of history, and the elimination of both the Jewish and Christian places in that history, was supported by 33 countries overall. Four EU countries actually supported the measure, and five did oppose, with two abstentions. But why was there a division in Europe over this blatant historical revisionism?

To the Palestinians, all of this has a purpose: to erase or delegitimize Israel’s, and the Jewish people’s claim to the land. That European countries, no strangers to either the Jewish narrative on their own continent or to the ancient connection of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, would, for the sake of diplomatic expediency, dismiss that history with a simple keystroke or a voting show of hands, is unacceptable.

There’s even more counterproductive meddling beyond the U.N. system. Case in point: Last fall’s EU directive to label products from the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights prejudges an issue (settlements) that belongs in a direct negotiation between Israel and the Palestinians. The EU itself, as a member of the Quartet (which also includes the United States, the United Nations and Russia), wants to have it both ways. Calling for face-to-face negotiations but siding with the Palestinians before those talks have even begun on this issue.

This all amounts to flawed diplomacy. Those European countries which engage in this kind of voting behavior or in extra-curricular diplomacy could better spend their time encouraging the Palestinians to end their quixotic sullying of Israel, rather than enabling it. These resolutions set back what remains of the peace process, they don’t advance it. Palestinian expectations are inflated when Europe backs these initiatives, and in Israel, the belief that it can never get a fair break at the U.N. and other international fora is reinforced.

It’s time for Brussels and other European capitals to send a simple message to Ramallah: if you’re serious about peace, get to the table. If not, there is no shortage of crises to occupy our time and attention.

“And if a foreigner sojourns with you in your land, you shall not wrong him. Like one of your citizens shall be the foreigner who sojourns with you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 19:33-34)

 “And you shall guard your lives exceedingly” (Deuteronomy 4:15)

Long before this past weekend’s terrorist attacks in Paris, French and other Western European Jews acutely felt the conflicting pulls of an instinctive empathy for the plight of refugees but also of a particular vulnerability to the security risks accompanying a substantial, let alone uncontrolled, influx of migrants and others from the Middle East. These Jews bear memories of not only the Holocaust but also, often, their own immigrant experiences originating in North Africa and elsewhere. On the other hand, the eventual arrival in Europe of a very large Arab-Muslim population was marked by the dwarfing of domestic Jewish communities’ relative size; much more importantly, the growth in numbers of the Middle Eastern newcomers, rarely as well-integrated as their counterparts in the United States, correlated directly with a continuous intensification of anti-Jewish hostility and violence.

As a result, the focal point of continental anti-Semitism has decisively shifted from Eastern Europe, where “traditional” religious and ethnic animus long pervaded, to Western Europe, to which the Middle East’s toxic anti-Zionism was, already well prior to the recent waves of asylum-seekers, imported in significant volume by the immigrants. Critically, moreover, many of these immigrants were the product of societies that make little distinction between “Zionists” and Jews in general: stark Pew Research Center surveys have found negativity rates of over 90 percent toward Jews--not even simply Israelis—in most Muslim-majority countries the group examined. 

And so, with publicly wearing yarmulkes or Star of David pendants having increasingly become a genuine safety hazard in much of France and Western Europe, Jewish anxiety over the expanding presence of Islamic radicalism predates the current moment of collective European alarm. What has over recent months fragmented and stymied European officialdom as a massive humanitarian, socioeconomic and political challenge—the flood of Syrians, Iraqis, Afghans, Libyans and others crossing Europe’s shores and borders—could easily have been recognized by many European Jews as also being a signal security crisis. Over recent months and years alone, after all, they experienced shootings at a Jewish school in Toulouse, the Jewish museum in Brussels and a bat mitzvah celebration in Copenhagen; open expressions of anti-Semitism in Malmo, London and elsewhere; and a litany of attacks in the French capital, whose large Jewish population has slowly declined through aliya, that included the gruesome kidnapping and murder of Ilan Halimi, a synagogue besieged, a Jewish woman raped and (in the shadow of the Charlie Hebdo killings this year) Hyper Cacher grocery shoppers slaughtered.
 
Meanwhile, the one Western European country where, for obvious historical reasons, overt bigotry toward both “Zionists” and Jews still remains substantially inadmissible, Germany, is for those same and additional reasons bearing the lion’s share of European absorption of Middle Eastern refugees—refugees that, at some 800,000 this year alone, will alter Germany’s demographic landscape, quickly constituting around 1 percent of the country’s populace. If history and the fundamental rules of politics are any guide, many of these immigrants will not so easily depart even if the severe upheaval in their homelands is ever settled, and they will inevitably exert influence on their adopted countries’ societal culture and political policies—including those impacting to what degree Jews still consider Europe a viable and hospitable home, as well as those with regard to the unceasing jihadist onslaught faced by Israel. Sadly, too many French and Belgian policymakers, whose countries were most directly impacted by this week’s tragedy, have frequently failed to afford the Jewish state the principled, unwavering support and solidarity that they have received following atrocities that lack any legitimate justification.

But if the latest carnage in Paris has provided searing affirmation for those fearing the “overrunning” of Europe by people who might include more of those committed to striking Western civilization from within, Jews in particular could not and cannot help but be indelibly impacted by other images that have emerged from the Middle Eastern exodus to Europe over recent months. The sights and sounds of refugee families traversing hundreds of perilous miles by sea and on foot, desperately cramming into overheated trains or reception camps—in one country, migrants even briefly had numbers written on their arms by local officials—have been, plainly, unbearable. And the photograph of three-year-old Syrian refugee Aylan Kurdi’s lifeless body washed up on a Turkish beach cried out to the collective conscience of humanity.

Reports now indicate that at least one of the perpetrators of this past weekend’s Paris attacks may indeed have infiltrated Europe on the pretext of (or hidden among those) seeking asylum. But, real security threats notwithstanding, international unresponsiveness cannot be the lot of all those genuinely seeking nothing but to escape their hellish circumstances at home and to find for their families a better life. The solution to their predicament, and that of those responsible for the welfare of the migrants’ intended destinations, is not at all clear. It should be remembered, though, that while many Middle Easterners do hail from settings where antagonism to various Western values, and certainly to Jews, is common, the vast majority of these individuals are not themselves disposed to engage in violence. And, certainly, a deep divide between people will not be overcome simply by ignoring or wishing away immense human suffering, especially that of innocents.

However it ultimately grapples with next-door calamities that continue to spill over onto its terrain, Europe—not enjoying the distance provided by oceans that bring some security even in an age of air travel that is easy and online communication that is even easier—is not likely to be the same as it was five or 25 years ago. And, with enduring implications for the vital and historic Jewish presence on this continent, Jews are likely to continue to be the first to experience trends that stand to remake Europe as a whole.

​In striving to preserve both their societies and essential human values, European leaders cannot be envied for the policy dilemmas that they face. It should by now be clear, though, that morality and security alike require equally confronting the scourge of violent fanaticism irrespective of whether it targets Israelis or Frenchmen, Jews or simply anyone. In a globalized world, ideological wildfires cannot easily be contained in someone else’s domain.

David J. Michaels is Director of United Nations and Intercommunal Affairs at B'nai B'rith International, where he began working in 2004 as Special Assistant to the Executive Vice President. A Wexner Fellow/Davidson Scholar, and past winner of the Young Professional Award of the Jewish Communal Service Association of North America, he holds degrees from Yale and Yeshiva University.To view some of his additional content, Click Here.

A recent international conference in Warsaw, Poland provided an opportunity to take inventory of the struggle against anti-Semitism.  While the U.S. and European governments have made progress in addressing the problem, evidence of anti-Semitism’s persistence is in ready supply.
 
2014 saw a breakthrough at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a multilateral organization charged with, among other priorities, combating anti-Semitism and other forms of intolerance.  For the first time in more than a decade of tackling modern incarnations of Judeophobia, the 57 governments that make up the OSCE codified core principles of the fight against anti-Semitism in a high-level ministerial declaration.  “We reject and condemn manifestations of anti-Semitism, intolerance, and discrimination against Jews,” the document intoned.
 
2014, meanwhile, was also a year that saw a spike in anti-Semitic incidents across Europe and the former Soviet Union.  A wave of anti-Israel demonstrations has swept the OSCE region in 2014 and 2015; these gatherings typically have featured blatantly anti-Semitic themes and often have turned violent.  Attacks on Jewish individuals and institutions have increased in frequency and intensity, as the landscape from Belgium to Bulgaria, Germany to Greece, Holland to Hungary, and Ireland to Italy has witnessed violence against Jewish targets.  This spread of hatred has been accompanied by a corrosion of the public discourse with respect to Jews and Israel and has left European Jewry fearful for their safety and security.
 
The rise of anti-Jewish hatred also has resulted in a proliferation of anti-Semitic propaganda, much of which is directed against the State of Israel.  Tragically, the demonization and delegitimization of the Jewish state has become a daily occurrence, as Israel’s enemies repeatedly accuse it of being a Nazi-like occupier and an apartheid state that disenfranchises the Palestinians.  Falsehoods about Israel are repeated so often that they become widely accepted in the popular culture and sometimes impact government policy.  The effort by Israel’s relentless critics to denigrate the Jewish state is not only evidence that anti-Semitism is alive and well 70 years after the Holocaust—this new variation of the world’s oldest social illness actually poses a security threat to the Jewish state by intensifying its international isolation.
 
Against this backdrop, an OSCE human dimension implementation meeting that B’nai B’rith attended in Warsaw this month underscored that while much has been done to fight anti-Semitism in the past decade or more, much work remains.  The need for practical and effective strategies to combat and defeat this pathology is still crucial.
​
B’nai B’rith’s recommendations to the Warsaw gathering included a call for OSCE member-states to affirm commitments made at the landmark 2004 Berlin Conference on Anti-Semitism— and reiterated in last year’s ministerial declaration—and assess the implementation of those commitments.  B’nai B’rith also urged:

• Member-states must fulfill their reporting requirements with respect to hate crimes data.  Far too few of the 57 governments have done so until now. 
• Governments should widely promote, within the OSCE, the European Union Fundamental Rights Agency’s comprehensive working definition of anti-Semitism and the U.S. State Department’s Fact Sheet on anti-Semitism.  It is crucial that governments and other institutions understand how to identify anti-Semitism in order to properly combat it. 
• The OSCE must enhance funding for the tolerance and non-discrimination unit of its Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.  The TND unit has now become a fixed and integral part of the OSCE’s work in combating hatred.  We must enable them to sustain and expand their critical activities, which include educational programs on anti-Semitism in more than a dozen countries. 
• Finally, we must strongly reinforce the crucial principle declared at the 2004 Berlin Conference—that no political position, cause, or grievance can ever justify anti-Semitism—and make clear that the demonization and delegitimization of the Jewish state is often none other than a pretext for the hatred of Jews themselves.

"If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?” – Hillel

Over the past year, human rights advocates and policy experts alike have warned of the growing plight of refugees fleeing the humanitarian crisis triggered in the Middle East. And over the past few weeks, headlines finally began to reflect this desperate reality.

Stories on the human toll of the refugee crisis abound. Laith Majid in tears clutching his two children just off the Greek Island of Kos. Drowned three-year-old Aylan Kurdi on the shores of Turkey. A truckload of more than 70 refugees die of heatstroke in Austria. 

The number of displaced people in the world today is the highest number since World War II at 60 million people. Currently there are four million Syrian refugees who have escaped war and dire living conditions and an additional seven million Syrian citizens currently displaced within their country’s borders. The European Union’s (EU) border agency has said more than half a million migrants have arrived at the EU's borders this year, a massive influx nearly double the number from 2014, with origins ranging throughout Africa and the Middle East.

A movement by European governments to label products made in the West Bank is gaining traction, even as Israel argues that such a policy would cause great economic and political harm to the Jewish state.

In April, 16 of 28 European Union foreign ministers signed a letter to EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini asking her to move forward on labeling goods that are produced in the West Bank and sold in European grocery chains.

“European consumers must indeed have confidence in knowing the origin of goods they are purchasing,” the letter said.  If a product is made in the West Bank (which Europeans do not consider part of Israel proper), according to the argument, then anyone purchasing it has the right to be notified.

So is this simply a case of truth in advertising?  Of course not.  The same letter from the 16 governments revealed another motive.  “We remain of the view that this is an important step in the full implementation of EU longstanding policy, in relation to the preservation of the two-state solution,” the ministers declared.  “The continued expansion of Israeli illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory…threatens the prospect of a just and final peace agreement.”

If the goal, then, is to advance the two-state solution by repudiating Israeli businesses in the West Bank, why does Europe bother to promote the tertiary argument about inspiring “confidence in knowing the origin of goods”?  Because doing so allows European officials to maintain that they are not participating in the sinister Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

BDS is a campaign to isolate Israel economically and politically through boycotts and other discriminatory tactics.  Its aim is to delegitimize and ultimately cripple the Jewish state.