Yad Vashem Our friends at Yad Vashem are announcing this English language broadcast of the 2013 Erev Yom HaShoah (Holocaust memorial) service: The National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) network http://nrb.org/ in partnership with the Christian Friends of Yad Vashem http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/about/friends/christian/index.asp will for the first time ever be broadcasting the Erev Yom HaShoah (Eve of the Holocaust Memorial Day) state ceremony from Yad Vashem, Jerusalem. The event took place on April 7, 2013 and will be broadcast with an English translation during the month of July. The broadcast is a historic event since this is the first time our friends in the USA will be able to watch the program in this manner. Note that there is also an online watching opportunity for our international friends. (more…)
New anti-Semitic cartoon attacking Israel. Photo: “Süddeutsche Zeitung.” Winston Churchill famously quipped of Russia: “It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” Twenty-first century Germany is, instead, a question mark—especially regarding its relationship to the present and future of anti-Israel, anti-Jewish hatreds. Simon Wiesenthal Center Associate Dean Rabbi Abraham Cooper cites a new cartoon (belatedly apologized for) in Germany’s largest mass-circulation daily, the Munich-based “Süddeutsche Zeitung,” depicting Israel as “a ravenous Moloch” as classic anti-Semitism “grotesquely beyond the pale of legitimate criticism.” Let’s put this cartoon in context: First, the good news: • The Bundestag has voted overwhelmingly for a resolution vowing to support the fight against anti-Semitism as well as Germany’s special relationship with Israel. It mentioned Israel-related anti-Semitism, but with no recommendations to combat Muslim extremists. The emphasis was on better education against prejudice, without concrete actions except aid to Action Reconciliation Service for Peace, which supports Holocaust survivors. (more…)