BRITISH Jews are facing a wave of anti-Semitic attacks prompted by Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Synagogues have been daubed with graffiti, Jewish leaders have had hate-mail and ordinary people have been subjected to insults and vandalism.

On Thursday an all-party parliamentary inquiry will state that anti-Semitic violence has become endemic in Britain, both on the streets and university campuses. The report will call for urgent action from the Government, the police and educational establishments.

Mark Gardner, of the Community Security Trust, said: “In July, when the conflict in Lebanon began, we received reports of 92 incidents, which was the third-worst month since records began in 1984.� In 2000 the monthly average was between 10 and 30 incidents.

The former minister Denis MacShane, who chaired the parliamentary inquiry, said: “These figures confirm the evidence given to us that anti-Semitic attacks are a very real problem.�

The Board of Deputies of British Jews submitted evidence to the inquiry that anti-Semitism in Britain was at its worst level.

The July incidents “were more dispersed than usual�, Mr Gardner said. “It is usually a small number responsible for a large number of attacks, but these were very widespread across the country and included graffiti attacks on synagogues in Edinburgh and Glasgow.�

The attackers, when visible, are from across society, he said. “When it’s verbal abuse, it’s just ordinary people in the street, from middle-class women to working-class men. All colours and backgrounds. We hardly ever see incidents involving the classic neo-Nazi skinhead. Muslims are over-represented.�

In hate-mail to senior Jewish figures, ordinary Jewish people were being blamed for the deaths of Lebanese civilians. “There are also references to the Holocaust, saying that Hitler should have wiped out the Jews.�

Mr Gardner said that the rise in attacks reflected increased hostility to Israel and Jews in the media and across society: “The number of anti-Semitic attacks reflects the mood music around Jews and Israel.�

There have been several attacks in Golders Green and Hampstead Garden Suburb in North London, where there is a large Jewish population. La Maison du Café in Golders Green Road was targeted two weeks ago by two young men who threw chairs at the restaurant, punched workers and threatened to kill the owner, Ruth Cohen, with a knife.

Ms Cohen, 34, said: “They asked if it was a Jewish restaurant. They said they were going to kill me and called me a ‘dirty Jew’, a ‘stinking Jew’. One of them had a knife. A colleague came out. They started punching him and throwing chairs.�

In Hampstead Garden Suburb, swastikas and the words “Kill all Jews� and “Allah� were daubed on the house and car of Justin Stebbing. Dr Stebbing, who works at a hospital, said: “I felt violated. It’s horrible.�

Jon Benjamin, of the Board of Deputies, said: “The problem is the spin that Israel is an irredeemably evil regime, and we are concerned that it may become common currency to connect British Jews with this.�

The Association of Chief Police Officers said: “Our National Community Tension Team are alert to recent incidents. We are working with the CST. We are strongly encouraging reporting of incidents.�

to see the GSI newsletter click HERE.

Submitted by Rene Lichtman of WFJCSHC

Rabbi Arnie, as we all affectionately call him, is copied on this message. Rabbi Arnie is a 2G, Rabbi of Congregation Shir Tikvah. His mother Edith is one of our local child survivors.

A Prayer for the Children

 

We know and pray for children

who put chocolate fingers on everything, sneak popsicles before supper,

who love to be tickled, who stomp in puddles and ruin their new pants,

who can never find their shoes.

 

And we remember and pray for the children ,

who couldn’t bound down the street in a new pair of shoes,

who couldn’t go outside to play,

who trembled, alone, in their dark hiding places.

 

We know and pray for children

who bring us sticky kisses and fistfulls of dandelions,

who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money.

 

And we remember and pray for the children

who never got dessert, who had no safe blanket to drag behind them,

who watched their parents watch them suffer,

who couldn’t find any bread to steal, who didn’t have rooms to clean up,

and whose monsters were real.

 

We know and pray for children

who spend their allowance before Tuesday,

who throw tantrums in the grocery stores and pick at their food, who like ghost stories,

who shove dirty clothes under the bed, and never rinse out the tub,

who get visits from the tooth fairy, who squirm in shul and scream in the phone,

whose tears we sometimes laugh at, and whose smiles can make us cry.

 

We remember and pray for the children

whose nightmares came in the daytime,

who would eat anything, who couldn’t see a dentist,

who were separated from their family, who weren’t spoiled by anybody,

who went to bed hungry and cried themselves to sleep.

 

We pray for children who like to be carried, and for those who had to be carried,

for those who gave up and those who did not give up.

For those who grab the hand of those kind enough to offer it,

And for those who found no hand to grab.

For all these precious children, O G-d, we remember and we pray.

by Ina J. Hughs (adapted)

Maltz Museum wins Telly Awards

The Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage recently received two Telly Awards, the premier award honoring the finest video and film productions.

The museum is the only cultural institution in Northeast Ohio to receive the highest honor, a Silver Telly Award. It was awarded to the Museum’s “Holocaust Survivorsâ€? film. Part of the “World Destroyedâ€? exhibition, the film features Cleveland-area Holocaust survivors, their children and grandchildren discussing the ongoing impact of the Holocaust in their lives. “Holocaust Survivorsâ€? includes music composed by Ernest Bloch, a former director of the Cleveland Institute of Music.

A second film, “To Be Jewish in the New Millennium,â€? which asks the question “Will there be Jews in the year 3000?â€? was honored with a Bronze Telly. This film examines Jewish religion, practices and culture in the 21st century and features interviews with local members of the Jewish community. Cleveland-based Telos Productions Inc. produced both films.

To read an extremely provocative article on Arab antisemitism click here:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/753971.html

from the Pine Journal In Cloquet, Minnesota

Our Neighbors…. Nathan Johnson
The Holocaust will not be forgotten by this Esko graduate
Wendy Johnson
The Pine Journal
Last Updated: Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006 01:17:34 PM

“The door of Hell has been opened – and we looked in.�
That was what teacher Nathan Johnson scratched in his journal one day during his recent five-day visit to Washington, D.C., where he met with survivors of the Holocaust.
“That’s what it felt like,� he reflected, “because we were seeing these people who have walked through experiences that can’t otherwise be described and they were sharing them with us.�
Johnson was one of six teachers selected from throughout the United States by the Holland and Knight Charitable Foundation to visit Washington, D.C., meet with Holocaust survivors and study the event that literally changed the world and all who are in it….
Johnson was born in Esko and still lives there yet today. He graduated from Esko High School in 1991 and then went to the University of Wisconsin-Superior.
“At first, I decided I was going to be a teacher, but that changed,� he admitted. “I was in pre-law for a while, and then political science for a while. I was all over the place. I had taken all my general eds and didn’t want to drop out of school, so I decided to take classes I thought were interesting and that I would enjoy. I ended up with five history classes and a speech class!�   MORE.

Sydney Morning Herald
A Chilean man has claimed a 17th century art work on display at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) may have been looted from his grandfather by Nazis. It emerged  today that the family of famous Jewish collector Max Emden approached the NGV in 2004 to question whether the painting, Lady with a Fan, could have been stolen by Nazis after he fled Germany in the 1920s.
Mr Emden lived in Switzerland at the beginning of World War II, but later settled in Chile, where his heirs now live.
The NGV’s website has listed the painting as one of 24 of questionable provenance, and shows it was bought by Max Emden in 1913. There is a gap in its history until it was acquired from the Wildenstein art dealers in London for the NGV in 1945.
The New York Times newspaper has linked the Wildenstein dealers to artworks purchased from Nazis.
In 2003, a French court found in favour of the author of the book, The Lost Museum: The Nazi Conspiracy to Steal the World’s Greatest Works of Art, who was being sued by the Wildenstein family, the New York Times reported.
Lady with a Fan was painted by Dutch artist Gerard ter Borch in about 1660. Deputy director of the NGV, Tony Elwood, today said the artwork, worth about $100,000, may have been taken to Switzerland by Mr Emden. He said there were no records yet found that indicated where the Wildensteins purchased the painting.
Mr Elwood said the grandson of Mr Emden had not made an official claim for the artwork, but only queried whether it may have been illegally confiscated by Nazis.
The NGV was the first gallery in Australia to list works that had questionable history, and would return any artwork determined to have been looted by Nazis, Mr Elwood said.

From Deutsche Welle
When the Berlin senate unexpectedly returned a Kirchner painting to the heirs of its original Jewish owner, critics protested that it’s not a World War II restitution case. The work is now awaiting auction at Christie’s.
Two elegant women, brightly dressed, walk along a crowded street. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner used this scene to capture the German capital in his painting “Berlin Street Scene” from 1913.
This painting is now the object of a fierce restitution dispute involving the Berlin state senate, a Berlin museum, the Ernst-Ludwig-Kirchner Archive and the heirs of the painting’s original Jewish owner.
It is currently scheduled to go under the hammer at Christie’s auction house in New York, where it could bring in between 14 and 19.5 million euros ($18 to 25 million). Such a selling price would make it the artist’s most expensive work.
Kirchner and painting owner rejected by Nazis
Kirchner, a master of German impressionism, created the work in the same year his artist group Die Brücke broke up. Many big-name impressionists — like Emil Nolde, Edvard Munch and Henri Matisse — were part of the group, whose name “The Bridge” symbolized the links its members sought to establish between artistic styles.
Kirchner and the other members of Die Brücke were denounced by the Nazis after Hitler came to power in 1933 because their work conflicted with the party’s rejection of modernity, particularly in art.
Now a flurry of controversy has arisen over whether the purchase of the painting from the Jewish family of the deceased original owner Alfred Hess in the early years of the Third Reich by a German art collector may have been forced because of anti-Semitism and the price set artificially low. If so, the work could qualify for restitution.
Painting returned to Hess heir
In late July, Berlin’s senate, which had been in possession of Kirchner’s 1913 painting, unexpectedly returned it to Hess’ heir in England. Though the move came as a surprise, secret negotiations had been underway for almost two years already.
Barbara Kisseler, Berlin’s state secretary of culture told the daily newspaper Frankfurt Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) that the masterpiece was returned because it had come to their attention that the Hess family had been unfairly treated during the Nazi dictatorship.
“Moral considerations” played a significant role in the decision, she said.
Shortly after the restitution of the piece was made public, the New York auction house Christie’s announced it had purchased the Kirchner work and planned to auction it on November 8.
Critics claim restitution not legitimate
In a joint statement, the Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Archive near Bern, the Brücke Museum and the Berlin auction house Villa Grisebach have publicly protested the return of the Kirchner painting, claiming it had been legally purchased.
They wrote that the Berlin senate had been “dilettantish” in dealing with “German museum property.”
Alfred Hess was an avid art collector and successful shoe factory owner, but plunged into insolvency during the global economic crisis in the late 1920’s. When he died in 1931 his family brought the Kirchner work to Switzerland.
In 1936 or 1937 — the exact date is unknown — the painting was sold to collector Carl Hagemann in Cologne, allegedly for a sum of 3,000 Reich marks, and brought to what was then Nazi Germany.
Until recently, the legitimacy of the sale had not been questioned.
The Berlin senate now contends that Carl Hagemann’s purchase price was either so low that it took advantage of the anti-Semitic policies of the Nazi regime, or that the money never made it into their hands at all.
“As in many similar cases, the family fortune mainly consisted of works of art, which were sold in order to make a living,” Wolfgang Henze, art historian and administrator of the Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Archive, wrote the Berlin senate, as reported by FAZ. “Fortunately, the Hess family managed in time to get their collection abroad.”
The open letter from the Kirchner Archive, the Brücke Museum and the Berlin auction house also pointed out that the Hess family sold paintings on a regular basis over an extended period of time, which could indicate they were not coerced into selling the “Berlin Street Scene.”
Christie’s had a part in the restitution
While it has not yet been firmly established if the transaction between Carl Hagemann and the Hess family in the mid-1930s was fair, Christie’s speedy acquisition of the painting has raised eyebrows.
Ludwig von Pufendorf, chairmen of the Brücke Museum board and Berlin’s former state culture secretary, told German radio broadcaster Deutschlandradio Kultur that Christie’s financed the entire restitution process.
Christoph Stölzl, another former state culture secretary in Berlin and the general director of the German Historical Museum for over 10 years, told the online news site netzeitung.de: “The Kirchner case sets a dangerous precedent for Germany’s cultural heritage in the classical modern field.”
He added that “the Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Archive estimates that the return of 80 to 100 paintings could be demanded” if the restitution of the Kirchner piece is not repealed.