By the late 1940s, Iraq was home to 180,000 Jews, of whom 90,000 lived in Baghdad, the capital. It was an ancient community whose origins could be traced back two millenniums. But by 1951, Iraq was virtually bereft of Jews, with only 6,000 still remaining in the country. What happened? The simple answer: Israel. The […]
Spain has revealed both sides of its face in recent weeks. Insular, intolerant Spain reared its ugly head when 18,000 Spaniards posted nearly 18,000 antisemitic comments after Maccabi Tel Aviv defeated Real Madrid by a margin of 98-86 in the final game of the Euroleague basketball championship. Enlightened Spain surfaced when Spanish Interior Minister Jorge […]
Last month, the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, broke important historical ground by describing the Holocaust as “the most heinous crime to have occurred against humanity in the modern era.” Shortly afterwards, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif declared that he would not permit Iran’s reputation, such as it is, to be sullied […]
In 1913, in the most sensational trial of its kind until then, Menachem Mendel Beilis, a 39-year-old Jewish factory manager in Kiev, went on trial for ritual murder, a crime dredged from the twisted fantasies of Russian reactionaries. An international cause celebre, the trial confirmed once and for all that Czar Nicholas II’s autocratic regime […]
In 1878, a master brewer in the eastern German city of Erfurt named Johann Andreas Topf founded Topf & Sons, a respectable company that would become the world’s leading manufacturer of malting equipment for the beer industry. Thirty six years later, Topf diversified its operations, introducing a line of crematorium furnaces. The new product would […]
Cornelius Gurlitt, the reclusive German art collector whose father acquired a treasure trove of 19th and 20th century European master works under questionable circumstances during the Nazi era, passed away in Munich on May 5. He was 81 and had been suffering from a heart ailment. Gurlitt’s death closes a chapter in the history of […]
The Conference of Major American Jewish Organizations, a New York City-based umbrella group with 50 member organizations, made an egregious mistake on April 30 by denying membership to J Street, a dovish pro-Israel advocacy organization that has been critical of some of Israel’s policies. The Conference voted to reject J Street’s application by a margin […]
Donald Sterling, the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, has been exposed as a blatant racist, and now he has reaped the whirlwind. Having made disparaging and disgraceful remarks about African Americas, he has been banned for life from NBA games, practices and business discussions and fined $2.5 million. “We stand together in condemning Mr. […]
Jan Karski, born a century ago this month, was a member of the Polish resistance movement during World War II and wrote a searing expose of Nazi crimes in German-occupied Poland. Published in the United States in 1944, when the Jewish community in Poland had already been virtually decimated, Courier from Poland: The Story of a […]
Russia, and perhaps Ukraine, have cynically manipulated antisemitism for opportunistic political ends. It’s a disgusting practice, enough to make one’s stomach turn, and it should cease immediately. Antisemitism, an age-old phenomenon deeply ingrained in Russia and Ukraine, reared its ugly head as an issue after Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, was driven out of office […]