Arthur Topham, a notorious Canadian antisemite, is playing fast and loose with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Canada’s bill of rights. Topham, convicted last November of willfully promoting hatred against Jews through his vile website, RadicalPress.com, is using the Charter to challenge the constitutional legality of Canadian hate crime laws. What a cynical and […]
Category: Jewish Affairs
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Chinese Jews In Kaifeng
I was surprised to read recently that China has cracked down on the minuscule Jewish community of Kaifeng. Historically, China has been a haven for Jews and one of the very few countries that has been free of antisemitism. As part of President Xi Jinping’s campaign against unapproved religious faiths and foreign influence, the Chinese […]
Sadly enough, Israel seems to be the only country in the world where a pre-modern Orthodox rabbinate, in collusion with the government, delegitimizes the Conservative and Reform streams of Judaism. It’s not only scandalous and shameful, but bound to widen the already growing rift between Israel and the Diaspora. In recent years, the government of […]
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Ukraine’s Crooked Path
Ukraine, subjugated and brutalized by communism and fascism, seceded from the Soviet Union in 1991 and finally achieved its independence and freedom. But since then, in its attempts to break with its past as a servile Soviet republic and embrace a modern European identity, Ukraine has embarked on a crooked path and taken to whitewashing its […]
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Poland’s National Obligation
Seventy one years have elapsed since the end of World War II, yet Poland still labors under a dubious distinction. It’s the only country in the former Soviet bloc that has not enacted restitution legislation that would enable Polish Jews and their heirs to reclaim personal properties they lost during the Holocaust and the Communist […]
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Hatred On Display
Police in the Canadian city of London, Ontario, are now in the midst of ascertaining whether an antisemitic article published in an Arabic-language community newspaper recently promoted or incited hatred against Jews, or was simply a manifestation of free speech. In its June/July edition, Al Saraha, distributed in the city’s Middle Eastern grocery stores and […]
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Rewriting History In Poland
As Poles wrestle with the extremely complex legacy of the Holocaust in Poland, where three million Polish Jews perished in six short years, a cabinet minister in Poland’s government has suggested that historical accounts of the 1941 pogrom in the town of Jedwabne may be nothing more than “very biased opinions.” As reported by the […]
The death of Nobel Prize laureate Elie Wiesel recently signified not only the passing of a distinguished novelist but the passing of another Holocaust survivor. Six million European Jews perished during the Holocaust, a meticulously organized and unprecedented campaign of genocide conceived by the Nazi regime and implemented by Germany and its allies and accomplices […]
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The Worst Pogrom In Postwar Europe
Seventy years ago this month, Poland was shaken by the worst pogrom in postwar Europe. In an outburst of antisemitic violence, 42 Polish Jews were killed by a mob in the southeastern city of Kielce, touching off the departure of tens of thousands of Jews from Poland and staining Poland’s international image. This week, Poles […]
Donald Trump’s suitability as a candidate for the highest office in the land has been called into question yet again. Trump, whose bluster and demagoguery have manifested themselves time and time again during this divisive U.S. presidential campaign, posted an inflammatory image on Twitter recently that brings to mind classical antisemitic tropes about Jews. In […]