European Jews are breathing a sigh of relief after Corbyn lost’

December 16, 2019

Chief of European Jewish Association celebrates Corbyn’s election defeat. ‘This election wasn’t about right vs left, it was right vs wrong.’
With the results of the UK’s general election Thursday pointing to a decisive victory for the Conservative Party and Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the Chairman of the Brussels-based European Jewish Association said that Jews across the continent would be breathing a collective sigh of relief at the defeat of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party.
Rabbi Menachem Margolin, chief of the European Jewish Association, which represents hundreds of Jewish communities across the continent, said Jewish opposition to Corbyn was not partisan.
“I want to be clear that we are a non-partisan organisation. We have no political affiliation. Nor do we endorse or advocate for the UK Conservative Party,” said Rabbi Margolin.
“The potential election of Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister for us and the vast majority of Jews was not a story of left or right, but about what is right and what is wrong.”
“The election to the highest elected office in the United Kingdom of an avowed Israel hater whose approach to eradicating antisemitism was anodyne and recalcitrant at best, would have been a devastating signal not only to British Jewry, but to Jews everywhere.”
“We fully agree with the Chief Rabbi’s assessment that he is wholly unfit for office. It appears that a majority of the British electorate are of a similar opinion.”
“This morning – as Jews across Europe wake up to the news coming out of the United Kingdom – we will be collectively breathing a sigh of relief.”
With 648 out of 650 races called for Britain’s Parliament, the Conservatives have won 363 seats, compared to just 203 for Labour, giving the Conservatives a wide majority.
Labour chairman Jeremy Corbyn announced that following his party’s defeat, he would be stepping down as party leader before the next general election.
The article was published on Arutz 7

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Der geplante Verkauf von Gegenständen aus dem früheren Besitz ranghoher Nazis hat für Kritik europäischer Juden gesorgt

Der geplante Verkauf von Gegenständen aus dem früheren Besitz ranghoher Nationalsozialisten hat für Kritik europäischer Juden gesorgt. »Der Verkauf dieser Gegenstände ist eine Abscheulichkeit«, schrieben der Vorsitzende der Europäischen Jüdischen Vereinigung (EJA) mit Sitz in Brüssel, Rabbiner Menachem Margolin, und Vertreter jüdischer Gemeinden und der Zivilgesellschaft in einem am Donnerstag veröffentlichten Brief. Darin fordern sie das auf Militaria spezialisierte amerikanische Auktionshaus »Alexander Historical Auctions« auf, die Auktion abzusagen.

WEHRMACHT Zu den an der für den 29. Juli geplanten Auktion angebotenen Gegenständen gehören demnach unter anderem eine goldene Uhr Hitlers, Toilettenpapier der Wehrmacht sowie Besteck und Sektgläser hochrangiger Nationalsozialisten. Es handele sich nicht um das erste Mal, dass das Auktionshaus vergleichbare Objekte zum Verkauf anbiete.

Nazi-Artefakte gehörten in Museen oder an höhere Bildungseinrichtungen, so die Forderung. Die jetzt angebotenen Objekte hätten jedoch zum überwiegenden Teil »geringen bis keinen historischen Wert«, so Margolin in dem Brief weiter. Die Motivation der Käufer lasse sich entsprechend »nur infrage stellen«. kna

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Sites where Germans killed Jews are dedicated in Poland

The Polish witnesses of the German crime in Wojslawice lived for decades with the memories of their Jewish neighbors executed in 1942. They remembered a meadow that flowed with blood, a child who cried out for water from underneath a pile of bodies, arms and legs that still moved days after the execution.
 

In the years that followed, those who had seen the crime shared their knowledge with their children, warning them to stay away from the spot behind the Orthodox church where some 60 Jews, among them 20 children, were murdered on that October day.
“When I was a young boy I was running around these meadows but the elders were saying: ‘please do not run there because there are buried people, buried Jews,’” said Marian Lackowski, a retired police officer whose late mother witnessed the execution in the small town in eastern Poland.
Born after the war, Lackowski has devoted years to ensuring that the victims receive a dignified burial, a mission he finally fulfilled Thursday as he gathered with Jewish and Christian clergy, the mayor, schoolchildren and other members of the town.
Beginning at the town hall, the group walked solemnly down a hill to the execution site, their silence broken only by roosters and barking dogs. After they arrived at the spot, church bells rang out from the town’s Catholic church and a trumpet called at noon. Jewish and Christian prayers were recited and mourners lit candles and placed stones in the Jewish tradition at a new memorial erected over the bones. “May their souls have a share in eternal life,” it reads.
The mass grave site in Wojslawice is tragically not unique. During the German occupation of Poland during World War II, the Germans imprisoned Jews in ghettoes and murdered them in death camps including Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor. But they also shot them in fields and forests near their homes, leaving behind mass graves across Poland, many of which have only come to light in recent years.
 Read More:
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/bkrav99ry

Israeli minister, UN chief agree to combat antisemitism online

Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel and UN Secretary-General António Guterres met in New York on Friday and agreed to join forces to combat hate speech, incitement and antisemitism online.
Hendel, who arrived in New York after a three-day visit to Washington DC, shared with Guterres news of the committee that he has decided to establish to review the status of social media networks in Israel and whether they can be defined as media organizations, thereby giving the courts the ability to hold them accountable for content that they publish.
“We are in a war for the truth and in stopping incitement and hate speech,” Hendel said. “Israel will be a pioneer in this battle.”
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After Holocaust law, Poland moves to ban kosher slaughter

The lower house of the Polish parliament is expected to vote this week on a new bill on animal welfare, which includes restrictions on Jewish slaughter and kosher meat exports that could affect many of Europe’s Jewish communities as well as meat prices in Israel.
After the controversy created by the law banning people from accusing Poland of Holocaust atrocities committed by the Nazis, the country’s ruling party has submitted a new bill restricting kosher slaughter and threatening anyone who violates the restrictions with up to four years in prison.
The new restrictions are included in a 48-page general bill on animal welfare, which the lower house of the Polish parliament is expected to vote on this week.
The restrictions include a ban on exporting kosher meat from Poland, which is expected to affect many of Europe’s Jewish communities, as well as meat exports to Israel. Some of Israel’s supermarket chains import and sell kosher meat from Poland, increasing the competition in the Israeli meat market. A drop in meat exports from Poland could lead to a hike in meat prices in Israel.
The bill also seeks to ban slaughter when the animals are in an “unnatural state”—in other words, when the animal isn’t standing on all four feet, making a kosher Jewish slaughter practically impossible. According to European Jewish Association (EJA) Chairman Rabbi Menachem Margolin, “Kashrut laws forbid to apply any pressure on the knife to protect the animal from unnecessary pain. Preventing this pressure is impossible when the animal is standing with its head leaning heavily on the knife.”
Vowing to fight the new bill, Margolin called on the Israeli government to stipulate an amendment of the slaughter law as part of an agreement between the two governments.
“These restrictions on kosher slaughter are in complete contradiction to the principle of freedom of religion of the European Union,” the rabbi said. “The situation in Poland is unacceptable. I call on the government in Poland to avoid enacting this shameful law and to take into account that the Jewish people’s faith in the Polish leadership is deteriorating. I can’t imagine what the next stage will be after the Holocaust law and imposing restrictions on kosher slaughter in the country.
According to Rabbi Margolin, the new restrictions will make it impossible to perform a kosher slaughter in Poland. “There are people who have invested a lot of money in building kosher factories and slaughter houses, and now this shocking law comes along and puts an end to it. There is an unclear desire here to exclusively harm kosher slaughter and limit kosher meat exports. They are failing to explain the logic of the law. Populism and nationalism are skyrocketing and creating wars with the Jews for political purposes.”
The Polish parliament banned kosher slaughter in 2013, but the decision was struck down by the constitutional court. The judges accepted an EJA petition and ruled that the Polish law contradicted the principle of freedom of religion.
The Article was published on Ynet website

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