Outrage of the day: new Holocaust is ‘the only possible moral position’, says EU-based Muslim group | 10.31.2005

Source: Coalition Against Global Extremism

They’re based Antwerp, Belgium and also have a branch in the Netherlands. It is just as ironic as it is painful to see that these two countries, which 60 years ago fought against Nazism with courage astoundingly disproportionate to their size, today have become Europe’s biggest bases of a new generation of Nazis: the Islamofascists.

The president of the Arab-European League (AEL), Dyab Abou Jahjah, says the statement made by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Israel is “intellectually defendable.” “The commentaries of the Iranian president that the Zionist entity (Israel) will be wiped out of the map may not be the smartest move in a strategic moment when Iran is trying to resist efforts by the US to isolate it. Nevertheless, the foundation of Mr.
Ahmadinejad’s reasoning is intellectually defendable, and despite the fact that his regime is no perfect example of political morality, I argue that his position on this matter is the only possible moral one,” wrote Abou Jahjah in an article published on the AEL’s website.

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Opening ceremony of the Catholic Synod of Bishops - Vatican II - in October 1962. The declaration was presented at the end of the session in 1965. (Haaretz archive)

Haaretz
Forty years of revolution

By David Rosen

On October 28, 1965, a declaration was published by the Catholic Synod of Bishops (known as Vatican II) that changed in a revolutionary way the attitude of the Catholic Church towards the Jewish people, Judaism and ultimately the state of Israel. This declaration is known by the name taken from the two Latin words with which it begins: “Nostra Aetate,” which means “In our time.”

To appreciate the dimension of the change, it must be noted that the historical approach of Christianity, almost from its very beginnings, had been that because the Jews had failed by not recognizing the person whom Christianity had declared to be the Messiah, and were also responsible for the death of Jesus, their Temple was destroyed, they were expelled from their land and they were condemned to wander the earth until the end of days.

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Humanitarian Aid Foundation Grants Help Holocaust Survivors

HAF Grants Fund Community Service Organizations That Provide Direct Aid to War Victims

Although 60 years have passed, for elderly war victims the wounds of World War II live on in the struggles of their everyday existences. The Humanitarian Aid Foundation (HAF), an organization with a mission to provide assistance to victims of atrocities, has announced grants to eight family and community service agencies that provide much needed aid to the dwindling number of indigent Holocaust survivors who reside in their communities.

The Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago is one of the agencies in receipt of HAF awards of $10-$25,000. HAF funds will support in-home care and community-based services.

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Courage in the face of adversity
By Kate Sullivan Foley/ Correspondent
Friday, October 28, 2005

Fighting to survive and make a life even in the face of tragedy is an educational lesson for all people.

Two local teenagers and their classmates have been working on a school project to deliver that lesson in an incredibly personal and powerful way.

The L’Chaim (which means “To Life” in Hebrew) Project is in its fifth year at the Solomon Schechter Day School in Stoughton.

Created by the Head of School, Jane Taubenfeld Cohen, the widely acclaimed and emulated project honors the lives and triumphant spirit of Holocaust survivors.

Through the program, middle school students interview survivors and document their amazing stories in writing and video.

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A town apologizes to Jews for post-Holocaust attack

By Eric Johnson, dpa
Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa)
10/28/2005

Topolcany, Slovakia (dpa) - Set against the monumental backdrop of the Holocaust, the account of an autumn 1945 attack on Jews in this quiet Slovak town could easily have been forgotten as a minor footnote.

But this week an unusual apology to Slovakia’s Jews from Topolcany leaders enriched the 60-year-old saga and ensured its survival as a special chapter of Holocaust history.

Topolcany Mayor Pavol Seges led a delegation that, at a town hall ceremony, read a formal letter of apology for an organized pogram against local Jews who had just returned from concentration camps after the end of World War II.

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Vatican celebrates outreach to Jews

By NICOLE WINFIELD
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

ROME — Pope Benedict XVI marked the 40th anniversary of a landmark Vatican document on relations with Jews by calling Thursday for a renewed commitment for Catholics and Jews to deepen their bonds and work for the good of all humanity.

Benedict issued a message that was read out during a commemoration of the “Nostra Aetate” document of the Second Vatican Council, in which the Catholic Church deplored anti-Semitism and repudiated the “deicide” charge that blamed Jews as a people for Christ’s death.

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Canadian Jewish News

The N.Y. Times downplayed the Holocaust

By SHELDON KIRSHNER

America’s greatest daily newspaper, The New York Times, fell short of the mark in its coverage of the Holocaust and the events leading up to it. This is not exactly hot-off-the-press news. The critique has been bruited about for many years. But with the publication of Laurel Leff’s Buried by The Times (Cambridge University Press), an impassioned first-class work of research, no one will ever doubt its veracity.

Leff, a former reporter and editor, argues that the Times basically treated the persecution and murder of European Jews as a secondary story, never giving it the continuous attention or prominent play it deserved.

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10/27/2005 9:00:00 AM Email this article • Print this article
Their silent cries ‹ report focuses on child survivors
by Leah Goldstein
Israel Press Service

From the Nazi perspective, Jewish children were not only useless as slave laborers, but also represented the threat of Jewish continuity. The fate of some 1.5 million Jewish children under Nazi rule, therefore, was automatic death. Yet, miraculously, some children managed to escape the Nazis and go into hiding. Some took assumed names with the help of non-Jewish caretakers; others hid with their parents in camps, ghettos or forests.

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Making film brings home reality of Holocaust
Unionville High teachers honoured

Oct 27, 2005
Caroline Grech, Staff Writer

It wasn’t until Daniella Chai, Daniel Birnbaum and Jackie Dunham stood inside a cattle car at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington last month, that they understood the terror survivors experienced.

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Stories of Loss, Survival, and Living Memory
Holocaust Survivor Comes to Speak at Goucher
By Matt Simon
Published: Wednesday, October 26, 2005

WBAL-TV 11 recently aired a commercial-free special entitled, “Survivors Among Us.” The program was an hour-long tribute to Holocaust survivors who call the Baltimore area home. On Tuesday, October 25, the Goucher community had the opportunity to view an encore presentation of the feature in Buchner Hall. In addition, a question-and-answer session with reporter Deborah Weiner and survivor Leo Bretholz followed the program.

The Quindecim went to press before the event actually took place on campus. However, through intensive interviews with two of the survivors featured in the program, The Quindecim has details of the program’s content, and even some information that may have been left out. Weiner is a member of WBAL-TV’s special projects unit. She has done in-depth and investigative reports for the station, bringing her experience from ABC News. She is also the program developer. On WBAL-TV’s website Weiner explains, “When you see an Auschwitz survivor smile, or even dance, it just seems bigger than just about anything else.” Bretholz is one of the many survivors to be highlighted in the program. He was on the run for seven years from the Nazis, with almost too many miraculous escapes to count. “Every moment, every day that ended was a plus,” Bretholz told The Quindecim. “And you hoped that the one you wake up to in the morning was better than the one that just ended.”

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