A crime of unspeakable proportions took place in a wooded ravine on the outskirts of Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, 79 years ago today and yesterday. At Babi Yar, or Babyn Yar, the Nazis murdered 33,371 Jewish men, women and children in one of the biggest single mass killings of the Holocaust. It was carried […]
Six months ago, the Conference of Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, otherwise known as the Claims Conference — a sponsor of Holocaust education programs and a coordinator of restitution payments to survivors — conducted a survey to gauge the level of Holocaust knowledge among Americans from age 18 to 39. One thousand respondents from all […]
German Chancellor Angela Merkel struck a balanced tone recently when she hailed the emergence of a vibrant Jewish community in postwar Germany, but denounced the uptick in racism and antisemitism in her country. Celebrating the 7oth anniversary of the founding of the Central Council of Jews, Germany’s leading Jewish organization, Merkel made two major points. […]
Numerous Jewish-owned properties in central and eastern Europe that were expropriated by the Nazis and Communist governments have yet to be returned to their rightful owners, as a recent U.S. State Department report lamentably confirms. Contrary to the Terezin Declaration, a non-binding document signed by 47 countries in 2009, Holocaust survivors and their heirs are […]
Smoked salmon. Latkes. Corned beef. Dill Pickle. Matzah ball soup. Gefilte fish. Kugel. Tzimmes. Challah bread. Hamantaschen. The wonders and flavors of traditional Jewish food seem infinite. Yivo, the Institute for Jewish Research, would agree with that statement. It’s currently presenting a seven-week online educational course in Ashkenazic cuisine, and, due to the coronavirus pandemic, […]
A contagion as insidious and widespread as the coronavirus has infected three African-American celebrities — the entertainer Nick Cannon, the athlete DeSean Jackson and the rapper Ice Cube. On social media, they have disseminated toxic tropes that could easily be construed as antisemitic. One can safely assume that some of their followers have bought into their […]
Hans Georg Calmeyer, a German national, was posthumously recognized as a Righteous Gentile by Yad Vashem in 1992. But 28 years on, Yad Vashem’s decision to honor him as a savior of Jews during the Holocaust has been sharply called into question. Hans Knoop, a reputable Jewish journalist from Holland who unmasked the Dutch war […]
Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York City, has been accused of blaming the Jewish community for flouting social distancing regulations during the current coronavirus pandemic. This is a patently unfair accusation. Last month, de Blasio personally supervised the dispersal of a large, tightly packed ultra-Orthodox funeral procession in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood. Two thousand […]
Lamentably, 2019 will go down in history as a sobering year, judging by the number of known antisemitic incidents reported in the United States by the Anti-Defamation League. The ADL recorded 2,107 incidents of assault, harassment and vandalism, an increase of 12 percent over 2018. It was the worst tally since the ADL began tracking […]
Last year, following his announcement that the wartime papers of Pope Pius XII would be released, Pope Francis declared, “The Church is not afraid of history.” Maybe it should be. One of the most controversial pontiffs of the 20th century, Pope Pius XII led the Roman Catholic Church from 1939 until 1958. During World War […]