Over 25,000 people view European Jewish Association Online Holocaust Memorial Day Event

The European Jewish Association and partners the European Jewish Community Centre held their annual Rosh Hashanah celebration in the European Parliament.

Hosted by MEP Jose Ramon Bauza Diaz, our theme was a celebration of Sephardic culture and its contribution.

Amongst the Special Guests at the European Parliament were David Hatchwell, the Founder of the Fundacion HispanoJudia, H.E Haim Regev, Israel’s Ambassador to the EU and Nato, and Katharina von Schnurbein, the EU’s Co-ordinator for Combatting Antisemitism and Fostering Jewish Life.

With MEPs, Diplomats and many friends and supporters in attendance, the evening was a great success.

The joint NGOs’ call discloses that in recent remarks given by a senior Facebook representative,  the company “does not have a policy aimed at combatting online antisemitism”, sparking the coalition to urge Facebook to “join the ranks of the historians, advocates, activists, lawmakers, and leaders who compiled the IHRA working definition” and “take responsibility and move toward removing the scourge of antisemitism from today’s most important online public square.”
In an unprecedented joint letter, a coalition of 124 non-profit organizations from around the world have urged Facebook to adopt the widely recognized International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism to fight hate speech on the social media platform.
The letter, which was sent to Facebook’s board and senior management on Friday, follows mounting public pressure urging Facebook to effectively act against hate speech and dangerous disinformation.
The joint NGOs’ call discloses that in recent remarks given by a senior Facebook representative,  the company “does not have a policy aimed at combating online antisemitism”, sparking the coalition to urge Facebook to “join the ranks of the historians, advocates, activists, lawmakers, and leaders who compiled the IHRA working definition” and “take responsibility and move toward removing the scourge of antisemitism from today’s most important online public square.”
In July, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, stated that “Facebook has to get better at finding and removing hateful content.” The joint call by the global coalition of NGOs emphasizes  that antisemitism and effective policies to address it, must be part of Facebook’s decision-making process to tackle hate speech.
Parallel to a surge in violent and murderous attacks against Jewish communities in recent years, online antisemitism has grown exponentially, with social media platforms serving as primary bullying arenas for the world’s oldest hatred. The coalition letter cites studies that “Jews overwhelmingly report that online antisemitism is the most acute form of Jew-hatred they experience.”
So far, nearly 40 countries have already endorsed or adopted the IHRA working definition in some official capacity, either through their membership in the IHRA or independently.
In the US, the definition of antisemitism is clear: The IHRA working definition has been adopted by the State Department, and a recent Presidential Executive Order on Combatting Anti-Semitism instructs the Department of Education to consider the IHRA definition when evaluating Title VI Civil Rights Act complaints of discrimination.
The signatories decision to focus on Facebook stemmed from the social media giant’s recent announcement that it would be revising its policies on hate speech and disinformation. The coalition’s decision was also based on a recognition that Facebook, as the leading social media platform, can set the standard for the social media industry in the fight against online hate. If, and when, Facebook adopts an effective and comprehensive policy to combat online hate speech and antisemitism, other social media platforms such as Twitter and TikTok are likely to follow suit.
Irwin Cotler, the Chair of Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights in Canada, one of the signatories to the letter, stated :”Antisemitism is the oldest, most enduring, most toxic, and most lethal of hatreds – the canary in the minefield of global evil. The IHRA definition is the strongest and most definitive normative framework we have for monitoring and combating antisemitism on a governmental, parliamentary, law-enforcement, and civil society level. Its adoption is as timely as it is necessary.”
Rabbi Menachem Margolin, Chairman of the European Jewish Association, a signatory to the letter said: ”With more people than China and over a third of the entire global population with accounts, Facebook is a world of its own. Its power and reach are immense. With such great power should come great responsibility. That social media platforms have become hotbeds of hate and antisemitism is undeniable. So too is a lack of responsible action from the company to tackle it. Signing up to the IHRA definition would be an important step and a visible commitment from Facebook that there is no place, in the virtual, just as the real world, for the virus of antisemitism to thrive unchecked and unfettered.”
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the Associate Dean and Director Global Social Action Agenda of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, one of the signatories to the letter, noted that ”during the unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic and social dislocation following George Floyd’s murder, extremists, including antisemites, leverage the unmatched marketing power of social media to mainstream hate, conspiracy theories and lone wolf terrorism.” ”Facebook must take the lead in the struggle to degrade the mainstreaming of antisemitism via social media. The IHRA definition of antisemitism provides Facebook with a straightforward definition of history’s oldest hate.”
Prof. Dina Porat, who is one of the authors of the IHRA working definition of antisemitism stressed that the definition has become ”a yard stick, a declaration of values.”
”Those who join its adoption are committed to the countering of antisemitism, and of other parallel evils. It is high time that the major social networks, Facebook first and foremost, use the IHRA definition as a criteria to identify antisemitic expressions, and uproot them immediately, thus exercising their responsibility to help create a world better than the one we are living in.”
The article was published on EJP

We must fight for a better world, against anti-Semitism, against hatred of any kind against anyone, minority or religion, we can do it, you can do it, and your children and grandchildren, declared 87-year-old Gideon Lev, a survivor of the Terezin ghetto, on the occasion of a conference organized by the European Jewish Association (EJA), in Prague and Terezin, before the commemoration, on Friday, of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Rabbi Menachem Margolin, the president of the EJA, declared, during a meeting with journalists, that “every place has a different message”, and “the main message of Terezin for us is ‘fake news’, the fact that the Nazis tried to claim that they treated the Jews in a very good way”.

This fake news helped them to be praised by many people, instead of being attacked and arrested and Terezin released. Since today we are faced with a lot of ‘fake news’, which is one of the things that allows anti-Semites to incite, it is important for us to address this in particular, added Menachem Margolin.

The director of the British organization Labour Against Anti-Semitism, Alex Hearn, spoke at the EJA conference about how fake news about Jews represents a pattern as old as anti-Semitism itself. Hearn pointed out that anti-Semitism goes beyond political lines and is used by people to gain power or feel powerful. He also spoke about contemporary anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and the role of social media in their dissemination.

There are so many things that the Jews are accused of, including the fact that they do not play a role in this horrible war between Russia and Ukraine, said Menachem Margolin.

Truth is no longer based on scientific facts, but on viral news and social media. Things happen faster. We have to fight against fake news that pops up quickly on our phones. Macron himself has been presented as a puppet of the Jews because he is a former banker and he has money. Fake news uses the same stereotypes against Jews, again and again. We have to fight against all fake news. If we don’t fight it, it spreads, and it spreads very quickly, said French parliamentarian Prisca Thevenot, spokeswoman for the Renaissance party of President Emmanuel Macron.

We have to understand that social media works extremely fast. It is not enough to make laws to keep up with the technological challenges, we have to be quick to ban hate speech on social media, said the Austrian parliamentarian David Stogmuller.

As far as he is concerned, the Portuguese parliamentarian Alexandre Poco emphasized the importance of education in combating anti-Semitism.

Although our problems may not be as great as those of other countries, we must continue to invest in education. A proactive attitude continues to be necessary. We have strong ties with Jewish communities. We continue to promote Jewish life, even though we are a Catholic country, he said during the conference.

If we allow the enemies of democracy to shout, then we risk the end of democracy. The anti-Semites must be made to feel that they have no chance and that they will be made to pay the consequences, warned Sigmount Königsberg, commissioner for anti-Semitism for the Jewish community in Berlin.

For his part, Joel Mergui, the president of the Paris Consistory, which has led “the largest Jewish community in Europe for 20 years”, said that he decided to encourage the members of this community to continue living on the Old Continent as long as they had decision-makers with them in the fight against anti-Semitism and radical Islam.

From your words and actions we will have the certainty that we have a future in Europe, he conveyed to the officials present at the conference.

Coming from Israel especially for the events of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day in the Czech Republic, Gideon Lev is, at almost 88 years old, not only a page of living history, but also a very lucid mind.

The man, born in 1935, in Karlovy Vary, told the participants in English, German and Czech about the events he experienced when he was still a child, many of which left an indelible impression on him.

When the Nazis occupied the Czech Republic, it was the end for the Jews in the country. The Jews couldn’t stay out at night, they couldn’t have radios, and pretty soon they were all moved to Terezin, which was called a ‘relocation camp’. But it was far from that. They put us in crowded barracks, there was no space, the children and women could only see their fathers and husbands from the window, walking in silence, Gideon Lev said.

“Arbeit macht frei” is one of the most cynical Nazi atrocities. In reality, you are free when you are dead, he pointed out, referring to the words in large letters placed at the entrance to Nazi concentration camps.

“Vernichtung durch Arbeit”: destruction through work, that’s what the Nazis wanted, he added.

We must fight for a better world, against anti-Semitism, against hatred of any kind against anyone, minority or religion, we can do it, you can do it, and your children and grandchildren. And that’s what we must do, pleaded the survivor of the Terezin ghetto.

Although he is 87 years old and seems far from the age when someone would start a career as an influencer on Tik Tok, Gideon Lev has, for a year, had an account on this very popular network especially among young people, fueled with the help of a Hollywood content creator, Julie Gray. Two years ago, she wrote a book called “The True Adventures of Gideon Lev”, then thought of making him a Tik Tok account to promote sales. The effect was far beyond expectations.

We now have 414,000 followers, of which 62% are under the age of 34 and 67% are women. In the last 60 days, we have 2 million views, 80,000 comments, 200,000 likes and 4,000 reshares. These are really big numbers. He has an impact on the largest social network in the world. (…) In my experience, young people want to learn about the Holocaust. Fighting anti-Semitism on social media is a huge opportunity. But we have to organize, we need better digital security, centralized shared resources. And we need to make better content, said Julie Gray.

Emma Gunsberger, head of the Czech Union of Jewish Students, claims that there are currently over 4,000 Jews in the Czech Republic.

The problem is that the associations are mainly in the big cities and the Jewish heritage in the smaller towns in the country is largely lost. In every small village you can find an old Jewish cemetery, a synagogue, but the community no longer lives there. If there is someone with Jewish ancestry there, they are usually completely detached from their Jewish identity. So Jewish life is mainly in the big cities and mainly here in Prague, she told AGERPRES.

However, where there are Jewish communities, the number of members is increasing.

The community is growing in Prague because we have Jewish schools, where Jewish children can go and do secular studies like in any normal school, but also Jewish and Hebrew studies. Through these schools we bring back Jewish customs and rituals in Jewish families, she explained.

Emma admits that in the Czech Republic anti-Semitism still exists, but usually “it’s just verbal abuse, it’s not violent”.

There is anti-Semitism, but it’s mainly from uneducated people who don’t know who Jews are and have never met one. It’s very different from the rest of Europe, she said.

It is very easy to put other things on the agenda of those who make decisions. We have to make sure that the problem of anti-Semitism will not be left aside because of other political issues, said Rabbi Menachem Margolin.

At the same time, he pleaded, more must be done so that countries like Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania, which had large Jewish communities, have a Jewish life.

https://www.stiripesurse.ro/terezin-ghetto-survivor-gideon-levwe-must-fight-for-a-better-worldagaist-hatred-of-any-kind_2763415.html

Der Londoner Fussballverein Chelsea FC ist mit dem diesjährigen King David Award gegen Antisemitismus ausgezeichnet worden. Der Club erhielt den Preis bereits am Dienstagabend im Vorfeld des Champions League Spiels gegen Juventus Turin im Londoner Stadion Stamford Bridge, wie die European Jewish Association (EJA) am Mittwoch mitteilte.
Massgeblich für die Auszeichnung war demnach die Kampagne „Nein zu Antisemitismus“, mit der der Verein seit 2018 für ein besseres Bewusstsein für Antisemitismus bei Spielern, Mitarbeitern und Fans beitrage. Das beinhalte auch die Zusammenarbeit mit internationalen und nationalen jüdischen Organisationen. Die Initiative geht auf den Clubeigentümer, den russisch-jüdischen Oligarchen Roman Abramowitsch, zurück.
Oberrabbiner Benjamin Jacobs, Oberrabbiner in den Niederlanden und Vorsitzender des Ausschusses zur Bekämpfung des Antisemitismus bei der European Jewish Association, sagte: „Das Chelsea-Modell sollte überall nachgeahmt werden. Wir wollen Ihnen Danke sagen. König David ist ein jüdischer Held. Chelsea ist jetzt ein Held für die jüdische Gemeinschaft. Wir sind stolz und erfreut, den König-David-Preis für das Jahr 2021 an den Fussballverein Chelsea zu verleihen, und wir danken Ihnen von ganzem Herzen für alles, was Sie getan haben.“
Die schlimmsten Beispiele antisemitischer Hetze fänden sich nicht selten in Fussballstadien, erklärte der EJA-Vorsitzende, Rabbi Menachem Margolin. Dagegen gehe Chelsea anders als viele andere jedoch aktiv vor. „Es ist wirklich beeindruckend, nicht nur die grosse Mühe zu sehen, die der Verein hier investiert, sondern auch den aufrichtigen Einsatz dafür, zuzuhören, zu handeln und so einen Unterschied zu machen“, so Margolin. Chelsea sei damit ein Vorbild „nicht nur für andere Fussballclubs, sondern für alle“.
https://www.audiatur-online.ch/2021/11/24/fussballclub-chelsea-mit-preis-gegen-antisemitismus-geehrt/