{"id":68775,"date":"2019-03-23T14:00:37","date_gmt":"2019-03-23T12:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=68775"},"modified":"2019-03-23T15:15:22","modified_gmt":"2019-03-23T13:15:22","slug":"30-00-32","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=68775","title":{"rendered":"At UNESCO, Austria and Poland slam Belgian carnival with anti-Semitic puppets"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>At UNESCO, Austria and Poland slam Belgian carnival with anti-Semitic puppets<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

CNAAN LIPHSHIZ<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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UN cultural body to consider stripping carnival of recognition; it\u2019s the agency\u2019s duty \u2018to be vigilant and uncompromising regarding such occurrences,\u2019 says UNESCO director<\/strong><\/p>\n

A parade float at the Aalst Carnaval in Belgium featuring caricatures of Orthodox Jews atop money bags, March 3, 2019. (Courtesy of FJO, via JTA)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

JTA \u2014 Austria and Poland condemned at UNESCO a Belgian carnival that featured an anti-Semitic float that included giant puppets<\/strong><\/span><\/a> of Orthodox Jews and a rat atop money bags, and the cultural body said it would consider stripping the festival of recognition.<\/span><\/p>\n

The unusual exchange about the March 3 carnival in Aalst occurred on Thursday at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Aalst carnival, one of Europe\u2019s flashiest, was added in 2010 to the list of heritage of humanity events of UNESCO, the United Nations body on culture.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Friday, UNESCO said it is considering possibly removing the recognition of the carnival.<\/span><\/p>\n

UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said Friday it\u2019s the agency\u2019s duty \u201cto be vigilant and uncompromising regarding such occurrences\u201d at the Aalst carnival.<\/span><\/p>\n

UNESCO representatives have decided to put the issue on the agenda of the next meeting of the committee that makes decisions on the cultural heritage list in December in Colombia. A removal decision would be a first since the 2003 convention that created the label.<\/span><\/p>\n

The 2019 edition featured a float whose creators said was about rising prices, with grimacing Haredi Jew figures amid money bags. One figures had a puppet rat on his jacket. Dancers dressed like Haredi Jews with rat puppets on their lapels danced on the float.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2013, a different group designed for the Aalst carnival a float resembling a Nazi railway wagon used to transport Jews to death camps.<\/span><\/p>\n

The people who designed the float, known as the FTP Group, marched near the float dressed as Nazi SS officers and ultra-Orthodox Jews. A poster on the wagon showed Flemish Belgian politicians dressed as Nazis and holding canisters labeled as containing Zyklon B, the poison used by the Nazis to exterminate Jews in gas chambers in the Holocaust. UNESCO condemned that display.<\/span><\/p>\n

The 2019 display sparked an outcry<\/strong><\/span><\/a>.<\/strong><\/span> A petition urging UNESCO to delist the event has received more than 15,000 signatures. Aalst mayor defended the display. Jewish groups\u2019 complaints over alleged incitement in the display are pending.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is unthinkable that such imagery is being paraded on European streets, 70 years after the Holocaust,\u201d a spokesperson from the Commission, which is the executive branch of the European Union, later told reporters.<\/span><\/p>\n

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