News

Quakers cancel conspiracy theorist booking

BY ADAM MOSES

Campaign Against Antisemitism has welcomed Quakers in Britain cancelling a booking for academic David Miller at Edinburgh Quaker Meeting House earlier this week.

Miller was due to speak on Tuesday at a Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign event titled ‘Solidarity with academics under attack: free speech on Palestine’. But Quakers announced on Twitter that it was cancelling the event and have dissociated itself from the controversial speaker.

They noted, “After further consideration this booking at Edinburgh Quaker Meeting House has been cancelled. Quakers in Britain believe that all forms of racism, including antisemitism, are barriers to building a just and peaceful world.”

CAA said it was “revealing” Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign consider Miller an “appropriate” speaker.

CAA have kept the Jewish community informed of Miller’s comments in relation to Jews, anti-Semitism and Zionism.

They have previously stated that Miller’s conspiratorial obsession with Zionism and Israel’s ‘nefarious worldwide agenda’ are reminiscent of some of the worst ideologies in history.

CAA have exposed Miller being behind former MP Chris Williamson’s Resistance Movement.

He has also accused Labour Party leader Keir Starmer of taking “Zionist money” and talked of a “witch hunt” against Labour members accused of antisemitism.

Miller was dismissed by the University of Bristol over comments made about Jewish students, a month after CAA started legal proceedings on behalf of students.

“He is a conspiracy theorist with a history of controversy relating to Jewish students,” said a CAA spokesman.

Miller has asserted that “Zionism is racism”, called “to end Zionism as a functioning ideology of the world” and accused the Bristol’s Jewish Society of being part of a worldwide Zionist conspiracy.

He has also portrayed the International Definition of Antisemitism as an attack on free speech and accused the Israeli Government of engaging in an “all-out attack” on the global Left as part of an “attempt by the Israelis to impose their will all over the world”.

Israel population heads for 10million

BY LILLY JOSEPH

Israel's population has reached 9,593,000 according to the Central Bureau of Statistics annual report published just before Rosh Hashanah.

The figure is more than 10-fold compared to the State of Israel’s independence. There were 806,000 residents in 1948. The population reached one million within a year and had trebled by 1958.

Israel’s population is expected to reach 10 million by the end of 2024, 15 million by late 2048 and 20 million by 2065.

According to the CBS, the Israeli population grew by 187,000 (about 2%) in the past 12 months. There were 7.07m Jewish residents, 2.03m Arabs (about 21%), and a combination of other religions and unaffiliated people.

Aside from 177,000 births, 49,000 made Aliyah and 2,000 Israelis returned from living abroad.

Israel is the 100th most populous country in the world. This does not include 250,000 illegal foreign workers and African migrants living in Israel.

Israel’s population is considered to be young compared to Western countries. An Israeli male’s life expectancy is just over 80 years, a female approaching 85.

CBS data showed that 45.3% of Jews defined themselves as secular, 19.2% marginally observant, 13.9% partially religious, 10.7% religious and 10% are ultra-Orthodox. And 89.3% of Israelis are satisfied with their lives. The report also found that 70.4% of Jews are satisfied with their economic situation, 74% of Israelis live in cities, 15% in local councils, 10.4% in regional council areas. According to reports, most immigrants have come from Russia, Ukraine, France, the United States and Ukraine. Around 3.3 million people have immigrated to Israel since 1948, 45% since 1990.

Rising anti-Semitism in France has seen a spike in recent years.

In 2020, 78% of the Jewish population were ‘Sabras’ (born in Israel) compared to 35% in 1948.

Over half of the Jewish population are Israeli-born to at least one Israeli-born parent.

Rabin rally days before elections “Terminate” hatred says Arnie

BY LILLY JOSEPH

Israel’s Labor Party is heading a rally in memory of former party leader and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin three days before the country goes to the polls on November 1.

The "We are fighting for his way" rally will be held on October 29 at Jerusalem's Zion Square. It will also mark the 100th anniversary of Rabin’s birth.

Rabin was murdered after a peace rally on November 5 1995 by right-wing extremist Yigal Amir.

Last year’s rally did not take place for the first time since his assassination. Rabin is the only prime minister of Israel to be assassinated.

Transportation Minister Merav Michaeli said that Rabin's memorial rally would remember the “terrible murder” that was the result of “incitement to violence against Rabin and the courageous policies he pursued”.

The Labor Party will continue to campaign on issues Rabin gave priority, noted Labor leader Michaeli.

“We will follow its path in defence of democracy and the State of Israel, and will fight with all its might against the incitement to hatred and racism,” she said.

Yaya Fink, former CEO of Darkenou, is organising the rally, and added, “There is a duty to speak out against incitement to hatred in the name of democracy at a time when activists are using extreme violence against pro-democracy protestors.

Yitzhak Rabin z”l

PHOTO: WIKIMEDIA

“Twenty-seven years ago, the leader of the opposition (Benjamin Netanyahu) stood on the balcony and witnessed the incitement that led to Rabin's murder. Today, he stands aside and witnesses yet another dangerous incitement.

“Our civic duty, as well as our historical duty, is to remember, not to forget, and above all to ensure that the extremists do not manage to harm our democracy once again.”

Rabin served in the War of Independence, was Chief of Staff in the Six Day War, Israel’s Ambassador to Washington, Prime Minister, Defense Minister and a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

BY ADAM MOSES

Terminator movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger visited Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp yesterday to help fight prejudice and hate, and said it was time to “terminate” hatred.

The Hollywood star was visiting Auschwitz for the first time as part of his work with the Auschwitz Jewish Centre Foundation. The former California governor was shown the barracks, watchtowers, gas chambers and train line where six million Jews were murdered by the Nazi regime during World War II.

Schwarzenegger, 75, told reporters, “All over the world there is still prejudice. We just have to make sure to educate people and to show them what is the outcome of this prejudice and hatred. Look at what happened in Auschwitz, in Birkenau and these places. Millions of Jews were killed for no reason, just because of stupidity and hatred.”

The movie icon met Holocaust survivor Lidia Maksymowicz, who as a 3-year-old child survived experiments from notorious Nazi doctor Josef Mengele.

“People like Lidia can help us to never stop telling that story about what happened here 80 years ago, this is a story that has to stay alive,” he said.

Before leaving, Schwarzenegger told visitors he would return, using his trademark strapline, “I’ll be back.” Schwarzenegger, 75, is from Austria and has spoken about his father, Gustav Schwarzenegger, who was a Nazi soldier during the war. Speaking alongside Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation Chairman Arnold Schwarzenegger visiting Simon Bergson, the son Auschwitz-Birkenau of Auschwitz survivors, Schwarzenegger said, “He was born after the Second World War to this wonderful Jewish family, and I was the son of a man who fought in the Nazi war and was a soldier. One generation later, here we are. We both fight prejudice and hatred and discrimination.” “Let’s fight prejudice together and let’s just terminate it once and for all.” Bergson said, “Arnold and I are living proof that within one generation hatred can be shifted entirely. Governor, thank you for joining us here today.” Schwarzenegger received the foundation’s inaugural “Fighting Hatred” award in June for his actions on social media. He couldn’t attend as he was filming but vowed to visit. Schwarzenegger and Bergson placed candles at the camp’s “Death Wall” where prisoners shot.

PHOTO: YOUTUBE

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29 SEPTEMBER 2022 SOUL to SOLE: Urgent preservation of the children’s shoes at Auschwitz

BY LEAH WAXLER

International March of the Living has partnered with the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation and Auschwitz Memorial to preserve 8,000 displayed shoes belonging to children in a global ‘SOUL to SOUL campaign.

Most of the children were murdered at the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz.

Immediate conservation is necessary as the shoes are in danger of disappearing as a historic documentation of the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime.

An initial donation from the Neishlos Foundation has enabled work to begin. The global initiative will support the ongoing project.

Auschwitz-Birkenau survivors Arie Pinsker and Bogdan Barnikowski were children at the camp and participated in a ceremony at the Conservation Laboratories at the Auschwitz Memorial.

Arie recalled how he lost his entire family in the gas chambers except for his older brother who saved his life. Of 1,000 children in his barrack enduring experiments, only four survived.

The conservation project will continue for two years. International MOTL said there was a moral obligation to preserve the shoes.

The organisation’s president Phyllis Greenberg Heideman said, “We see the conservation of the shoes of these innocent children as an eternal testimony to the brutality of the Nazi regime as well as a significant educational initiative.”

Foundation president Eitan Nieshlos is the grandson of Holocaust survivors. He said, “In so many cases, the tiny shoes left at Auschwitz are all that is left of young Jewish children murdered by the Nazis. By preserving these iconic shoes, we are preserving the memory of Jewish children who were the victims of perhaps the Nazis' most harrowing cruelty. It is our responsibility as the next generation to keep their memories alive and give them a voice from the darkness.” Memorial of childrens' shoes at Auschwitz-Birkenau PHOTO: WIKIMEDIA Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywinski, Auschwitz Memorial director, commented, “For many people one of the places that moves them most is the room where several thousand shoes belonging to the youngest victims are displayed. The murder of over 200,000 children at Auschwitz is impossible to comprehend. The contrast between the cruelty and callousness of the adult world is perhaps most vividly illustrated in Auschwitz precisely in the juxtaposition with the trusting, curious, innocent and defenceless children who were thrown into a world they could not understand. And this world is preserved in every single shoe. Only these shoes remained after so many children. That is why we must do everything to preserve them for as long as possible.”

Wojciech Soczewica, Auschwitz Foundation director general added, “The tiny shoes of the youngest victims of Auschwitz are a special symbol of the crimes perpetrated there. They require preservation, like all other personal items saved by the Museum's conservators, but they evoke a sense of even greater responsibility on the part of our generation to preserve them for the future.”

Among 1.3 million people deported to Auschwitz were 232,000 children up to the age of 18.

The largest numbers of children arrived at the camp in the second half of 1942. The majority were Jewish and immediately murdered on arrival.

When Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz in 1945, only about 500 children under 15 years of age were left in the camp, all suffering from diseases and malnutrition.

Information: www.motl.org/soultosole