Archive | 2023/09/08

Naukowcy piszą do Beniamina Netanjahu w obronie dyrektora Instytutu Yad Vashem

Sep8

Premier Izraela Benjamin Netanjahu, 4 września 2023 r. (Fot. Petros Karadjias / AP Photo)

Naukowcy piszą do Beniamina Netanjahu w obronie dyrektora Instytutu Yad Vashem

Jan Grabowski

Od kilku dni trwają próby usunięcia Daniego Dayana ze stanowiska dyrektora jerozolimskiego Instytutu Yad Vashem, instytucji stojącej na straży pamięci o Holocauście.

Pierwszy atak przepuścił Yoav Kisch, minister edukacji Izraela, zarzucając Dayanowi pogwałcenie wewnętrznych regulaminów Yad Vashem oraz ignorowanie samego ministra Kischa.

Równocześnie zabrała głos Sara Netanjahu, wpływowa żona izraelskiego premiera, potępiając zaproszenie przez Dayana na uroczystości w Yad Vashem piosenkarki Keren Peles, znanej z krytycznych wypowiedzi pod adresem obecnych władz Izraela.

Spór o politykę wobec Polski i Węgier

To jednak tylko preteksty. Jak twierdzą ludzie lepiej poinformowani, planowana dymisja dyrektora Yad Vashem wiąże się przede wszystkim z jego nieustępliwym stanowiskiem w kwestii ceny, jaką rząd Izraela gotów jest zapłacić za zacieśnienie kontaktów dyplomatycznych z władzami Polski i Węgier.

W obu wypadkach chodzi o kraje, których narracja historyczna dotycząca lat 1939-45 oparta jest w znacznej części na zniekształcaniu historii Zagłady (po angielsku Holocaust distortion). W wypadku Polski nie tak dawno władze Izraela zgodziły się na przyjęcie opracowanej przez polskich urzędników listy muzeów polecanych młodzieży izraelskiej przyjeżdżającej na wycieczki edukacyjne do Polski. Skandal wybuchł, gdy okazało się, że na zatwierdzonej liście znalazły się muzea “żołnierzy wyklętych”, wśród których nie brak morderców Żydów.

Dayan walczył z handlem pamięcią Zagłady

Dla obecnych władz Izraela pamięć o 6 mln ofiar Zagłady ma wymierną cenę, a ceną tą jest dyplomatyczny sojusz z nacjonalistami rządzącymi w Polsce czy na Węgrzech. Dani Dayan, oraz kierowany przez niego Instytut Yad Vashem, niejednokrotnie dawali znać, że handel pamięcią Zagłady jest czymś niegodnym i niedopuszczalnym.

W obronie Dani Dayana i niezależności Yad Vashem wystąpił amerykański Departament Stanu oraz ponad 200 badaczy Zagłady, których petycja przesłana została na ręce ministra Yoava Kischa oraz premiera Beniamina Netanjahu.

Jan Grabowski jest historykiem, pracuje na uniwersytecie w Ottawie. W 2022 r. otrzymał najbardziej prestiżową kanadyjską nagrodę naukową Impact Award 2022 za badania nad Holocaustem, którą przyznaje kanadyjska Rada ds. Badań Nauk Społecznych i Humanistycznych (SSHRC)

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Outrage over Abbas’s antisemitic speech on Jews and Holocaust

Sep8
Outrage over Abbas’s antisemitic speech on Jews and Holocaust

Yolande Knell

The aging Palestinian president has previously been denounced by Jewish groups as a Holocaust denier

German and Israeli officials have condemned Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for comments he made about Jews and the Nazi Holocaust in a speech.

Mr Abbas said Adolf Hitler ordered the mass murder of Jews because of their “social role” as moneylenders, rather than out of animosity to Judaism.

Israel’s ambassador to the UN accused him of “pure antisemitism”.

“History is clear,” Germany’s Ramallah mission said. “Millions of lives were erased – this cannot be relativized.”

“We strive to promote a dignified and accurate memory of the victims.”

The German ambassador to Israel, Steffen Seibert, added: “The Palestinians deserve to hear the historical truth from their leader, not such distortions.”

Hitler used the Jewish people as a scapegoat for Germany’s ills. He also considered them an inferior race which had to be exterminated.

The Palestinian president, who is 87, has previously been denounced by Jewish groups as a Holocaust denier for his doctoral thesis on the Nazis and Zionism.

Yet over the years, he has continued to give long, rambling speeches expounding his offensive views.

His address to the Fatah Revolutionary Council was made last month and later aired on Palestine TV. His remarks were then translated and publicised by the Middle East Media Research Institute on Wednesday. The translation has been verified by BBC News.

“They say that Hitler killed the Jews for being Jews, and that Europe hated the Jews because they were Jews. No. It was clearly explained that they fought them because of their social role and not their religion,” Mr Abbas says at one point.

Later, he specifies that he was referring to the role of Jews involving “usury, money and so on”.

Mr Abbas also resurrected a long abandoned historical theory that European Ashkenazi Jews were not descended from the ancient Israelites but from 8th Century converts to Judaism among the Khazars, a nomadic Turkic people.

“The truth that we should spread to the world is that European Jews are not Semites. They have nothing to do with Semitism,” he said. “As for the Eastern Jews, they are Semites,” he added, referring to Mizrachi Jews from the wider Middle East.

The president previously caused an international furore for making similar suggestions in 2018, during what he described as “a history lesson” at a rare gathering of the Palestinian National Council.

His aim on such occasions is to dispute the connection between the Jewish people and modern-day Israel. Rights to the land lie at the core of the Israel-Palestinian conflict and are entwined with the historical narratives of both peoples.

The content of the president’s latest speech was shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, by the Israeli foreign ministry and slammed by the Israeli ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan.

“This is the true face of Palestinian ‘leadership’,” the envoy said. “Just as Abbas blames the Jews for the Holocaust, he also blames the Jews for all the Middle East’s issues.”

“The world must wake up and hold Abbas and his Palestinian Authority accountable for the hatred they spew and the ensuing bloodshed it causes. There must be zero tolerance for Palestinian incitement and terror!”

The European Union also condemned the speech, which it described as “false and grossly misleading”.

In a statement, it said: “Such historical distortions are inflammatory, deeply offensive, can only serve to exacerbate tensions in the region and serve no-one’s interests. They play into the hands of those who do not want a two-state solution, which President Abbas has repeatedly advocated for.”

“Moreover, they trivialize [the] Holocaust and thereby fuel antisemitism and are an insult to the millions of victims of the Holocaust and their families.”

In May, Mr Abbas was criticised for likening Israel to Nazi Germany in a speech at a UN event. He accused the country of lying “just like Goebbels”, referring to Joseph Goebbels, the chief propagandist of the Nazi party.

Last year, there was international outrage after he claimed Israel had carried out “50 massacres; 50 holocausts” during a news conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin. The chancellor later said he was “disgusted by the outrageous remarks” and Israel and the US issued strongly worded statements.

Afterwards, the Palestinian leader issued a clarification on the official Palestinian news agency, Wafa. He did not explicitly apologise but said that the Holocaust was “the most heinous crime in modern human history” and that his comments had not been meant “to deny the singularity of the Holocaust”.

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Chosen Comedy Festival Returns to Brooklyn for Second Year With Jewish Comics Poking Fun at Jews and Beyond

Sep8
Chosen Comedy Festival Returns to Brooklyn for Second Year With Jewish Comics Poking Fun at Jews and Beyond

Shiryn Ghermezian

Modi performing on stage at the second annual Chosen Comedy Festival in Brooklyn, NY, on Aug. 8, 2023. Photo: Shiryn Ghermezian

The Chosen Comedy Festival took place on Tuesday night for the second year in a row at the Coney Island Amphitheater in Brooklyn, New York, and thousands attended to watch an impressive lineup of all Jewish comics ridicule them and others.

The event, following last year’s successful show in the same venue, was co-hosted by Jewish comedians Elon Gold and Modi Rosenfeld — who goes by the stage name Modi — and sponsored by the UJA Federation of New York in collaboration with Thrivewell Infusion and the New York City comedy club Stand Up NY.

The night began with musical performances by two bands, Emotional Intelligence and the Hasidic folk duo Zusha. Modi and Gold then took to the stage to roast the primarily Jewish audience of over 4,000 people and mock different types of Jews — Persians, Syrians, Israelis, Ashkenazim and Chassidim.

“I have a connection with my Jewish audience that I don’t get with anyone else,” Modi told The Algemeiner. “And that connection is that we get to go deep and really explore our beautiful heritage and culture. [There’s] thousands of years of material there to mine and when I get on stage in front of a Jewish crowd it’s a very, very special deep connection and I love it.”

Throughout the night, Modi and Gold introduced 10 Jewish comedians on stage, some who performed during last year’s event and many new faces. The comedians included Rich Vos, “The Roastmaster General” Jeff Ross, Eli Leonard (a writer on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm), Jessica Kirson, surprise guest David Attell, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog (puppeteered and voiced by Jewish comedian Robert Smigel), Ari Shaffir (who self-released his standup special called “Jew” last year), Eli Lebowicz, Eunji Kim and Josh Cahn, who joined the lineup after winning a competition held by Birthright Israel Beyond and Stand Up NY.

The show, which was DJed by Lady Blaga, ended with an epic few minutes on stage where Attell, Ross, Modi and Gold roasted each other about everything including Ross’ bald head (“you look like a mohel’s mohel” he was told), Attell’s attire (“you look like if the unabomber hung out at Katz’s Deli,” Gold told him) and Gold’s TJ Maxx-looking outfit.

While many jokes remained Jewish-centered, like last year’s show, others were intertwined with secular topics and an emphasis on Israel. Kim, who is originally from South Korea and converted to Judaism, made fun of immigrant moms while Vos joked: “If Moses walked two more f__king miles we would’ve had all the oil. Forty years in the desert and he couldn’t go two more f__king miles!”

Modi discussed how he intensely followed the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, the HBO series Succession, and the “generational differences” he has with his much younger husband who is a millennial.

“People ask me, ‘are you worried that he married you for your money?’ And I said, ‘are you kidding me? I married him for technical support!’” Modi quipped.

He later said about Succession: “This family, every single room they ever walked into always had food. There were always sandwiches, pastries, a little muffin, some cut fruit — and no one else looked or touched it or spoke about it. If this family was Jewish, it is all that they would be concerned with: ‘Where did you order this from? 2nd Avenue [Deli], I’ll take it home cuz I know you don’t hold by them.’ ‘Take the fruit and give it to the housekeeper’ – it’s all that we would be discussing and we would never have the meeting.”

Gold warned that Israelis are not to be messed with and that while “Israelis return fire, Jews return merchandise.” A pre-recorded video also played on two massive screens by the stage that showed Triumph the Insult Comic Dog in London asking people about British former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters and his antisemitism. Earlier in the night, Ross led the audience to sing along with him “Don’t f__k with the Jews. If you want to hear cheers and not boos, never again f__k with the Jews.”

Kosher food trucks also provided food to the audience for purchase throughout the event, ranging from smoked meats and sandwiches, to gelato and pizza.

After the show, Gold was beaming with joy about the successful night and told The Algemeiner, “I think it was a lot like shul — it was too long, but it was way funnier than any shul outing I’ve ever gone too.”

“Tonight everyone that came on stage just really killed it and delivered,” he added. “And me and Modi had the times of our lives working with all our friends. Four thousand Jews showed up for a night of unity, solidarity, Jewish comedy, and Jewish pride and I’m so happy with how it went.”

Since the first Chosen Comedy Festival last year, founded by Stand Up NY owner Dani Zoldan, the show has gone on tour in Miami, Los Angeles and the Catskills. Zoldan told The Algemeiner he hopes to take the show to other US cities in the fall and abroad next year to Israel, London and Canada.

In June, Stand Up NY hosted another Jewish-centered comedy event in Los Angeles called “The Roast of Antisemitism” that included some of the same comics from Tuesday night’s performance in Brooklyn.

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