Growing security concerns have prompted the Jewish community in Berlin to implement a protective measure: publishing only the first letter of community members' surnames, rather than their full family names, in birthday announcements in the local community newspaper, according to a report in Bild. The community's monthly journal "Jewish Berlin" traditionally includes a section for "mazel tov" wishes to members over 65 and announcements of children's bar and bat mitzvah celebrations.

The publication recently added an explanatory note to the section: "Dear community members, in light of current anti-Israel and antisemitic incidents, we are now printing only birthday and bar/bat mitzvah names with abbreviated surnames as a precautionary security measure."

Speaking with Bild, Ilan Kiesling, spokesman for the Jewish community in Berlin, explained that this decision was implemented shortly after October 7, stemming from heightened security concerns for community members. Kiesling emphasized that this precautionary step aims to "minimize the potential for hostile actions against our community members," citing specific concerns about Hamas supporter demonstrations in Berlin's streets and the dramatic increase in antisemitic attacks following the October 7 massacre.

In a show of solidarity, Germans wearing kippot participated in a demonstration supporting the Jewish community in Berlin. Ahmed Mansour, an expert on radical Islam based in Germany, commented on the community's decision to withhold full names from public view, telling Bild: "An increasing number of Jews in this country fear being publicly identified as Jewish and subsequently attacked. This represents more than just a tragedy – it signifies a fundamental failure. A failure of our political system, our society, and those who claim that 'never again' amounts to more than empty rhetoric."

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The Irish entrant for the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest, 31-year-old Bambie Thug, undoubtedly showed a special interest in Israel, being one of the most outspoken anti-Israel participants in this year's contest. The non-binary singer took an aggressive anti-Israel stance, including calls to remove Israel from the competition, wearing a keffiyeh, smuggling a watermelon-shaped plushie to the grand final, and attempting to go on stage with the word "ceasefire" written on their face. Such dedication has definitely sparked our interest in the self-described "goth gremlin goblin witch" according to The Sunday Times. Here's everything you should know. 

Thug, originally named Bambie Ray Robinson, was born in Macroom, County Cork, Ireland to a Swedish father and an Irish mother. They took great pride in being half-Swedish during their time in Malmo, Sweden. Would knowledge of the origins of their last name foster the same sense of pride?

According to the "Find My Past" website, Robinson is thought to be most often a patronymic surname that originated in England, but in some cases, it can be an anglicization of some Jewish names like Rubenstein and Rabinowitz. Coincidence? In an interview on the "Upgrade Sounds" YouTube show, they stated they have been practicing witchcraft from an early age, it being their "saving grace." They added they are using words as spells, "retraining speech to ensure you're not calling in anything you don't want." This might explain their "top six, minus one" remark in praising the singers who reached the first six places, ignoring Israel's Eden Golan. Unfortunately for them, Israel is still in 5th place. Extra practice might be in order, it seems. 

The singer has gone from practicing ballet in Ireland and studying musical theater in London to the world stage of Eurovision with "Doomsday Blue", an unconventional and startling blend that fuses elements of witchcraft and primordial screaming. Their unparalleled musical genre "ouija pop" also consists of metaphorical elements and underlying meanings, as their "radio-friendly, vulgar" hit song "Kawasaki" is essentially about a sexual act performed on a man. 

Thug's distinctive musical style and persona aim to convey strong and clear artistic messages that are meant to resonate throughout the world – whether in a song, a hex, or a pagan ritual. However, given the darkness and hardships surrounding the whole world, the last thing we need are demons.

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The pro-Palestinian group Students for Justice for Palestine (SJP) issued a provocative call for UC Santa Cruz to boycott both Israeli and Jewish community organizations, listing "demands" posted on social media.

Under its push for a "complete academic boycott," SJP demands that the California university "Cut ties UC-wide with all Zionist organizations – including study abroad programs, fellowships, seminars, research collaborations, and universities. Cut ties with the Hellen Diller Foundation, Koret Foundation, Israel Institute, and Hillel International."

Founded in 1923, Hillel has grown into the largest and most inclusive Jewish campus organization with nearly 1000 sites on campuses worldwide. Hillel provides kosher Shabbat meals on campus, Tikkun Olam environmental projects, and academic scholarships for Jewish students.

The Bay Area Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) wrote on X, "Three of the four organizations cited in the academic boycott demand by encampment activists at UCSC are Jewish charities and communal groups. They are pillars of the Jewish community."

Congressman Ritchie Torres wrote on X, "We are supposed to pretend, for the sake of political correctness, that SJP is simply criticizing the Israeli government rather than targeting Jews. Attacking Jewish institutions, however, is not criticism. It's antisemitism."

Students for Justice in Palestine is demanding a boycott of Hillel, a Jewish institution.

We are supposed to pretend, for the sake of political correctness, that SJP is simply criticizing the Israeli government rather than targeting Jews.

Attacking Jewish institutions,… pic.twitter.com/oKSsRl7jt8

— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) May 4, 2024

Dovid Bashevkin, director of education for NCSY, the youth movement of the Orthodox Union, posted on X, "Protestors calling for the removal of Hillel on college campuses is antisemitic. Full stop."

The SJP post also called for the university to divest from weapons manufacturing companies, to "end the targeted repression and policing of pro-Palestinian advocacy on campus" and to "sever all ties" with the Santa Cruz Police Department. It also demanded that the university call for a ceasefire in Gaza and "an end to the Israeli presence and genocide in Palestine."

Israel and its supporters have branded many of the anti-war protests sweeping US university campuses in recent weeks as antisemitic, while Israel's critics say it uses those allegations to silence opposition.

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A Brazilian journalist working for one of the country's largest broadcasters apologized Wednesday for having previously said that the only way his country could match Germany's wealth is by killing its Jews.

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Jose Carlos Bernardi, who works for the right-leaning Jovem Pan radio and television station, made the remarks on Tuesday during a piece on former Brazilian President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva's visit to Germany.

"If we kill a gazillion Jews and appropriate their economic power, then Brazil will get rich," Bernardi said. "That's what happened with Germany after the war."

The comment drew outrage from Jewish groups and leaders, who accused Bernardi of inciting violence against the Jews and perpetuating antisemitic stereotypes.

"I apologize for my unfortunate remarks," Bernardi said in a statement, adding that he intended to highlight the injustice done to the Jews by Germany rather than incite more violence against them.

CONIB, an umbrella organization of Brazil's Jewish communities, said in a statement that Bernandi's comments caused "distress and pain to many Jews."

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President Isaac Herzog addressed the international gathering on Wednesday marking 80 years since the Babi Yar massacre in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Sept. 29-30, 1941 – one of the most infamous Nazi mass slaughters of the Holocaust.

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Speaking alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and other leaders, Herzog took part in inaugurating the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center.

The BYHMC is being established to commemorate the stories of the 2.5 million Jews of Eastern Europe, including 1.5 million from Ukraine alone, who were murdered and buried in mass graves near their homes by the Nazis and their Ukrainian collaborators.

Nearly 34,000 Jews were killed within 48 hours in Babi Yar, a ravine in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, when the city was under Nazi occupation in 1941. SS troops carried out the massacre with local collaborators.

In his speech, Herzog recited the Yizkor, the Jewish memorial prayer for the dead: "There is an ancient Jewish prayer called Yizkor. In the Jewish calendar, we usually recite Yizkor – the prayer to elevate the souls of the departed – be they relatives, or people whose deaths had national significance – on the most sacred dates and festivals for our people."

"This past month, we marked several of these occasions. With your permission, as President of the State of Israel, the state of the Jewish People, I would like to recite the Yizkor prayer, for the elevation of the souls of our brothers and sisters. Babies, children, women, men, and the elderly. Shot, massacred, and murdered in cold blood here, a place that became the biggest mass grave on European soil, in the valley of death of Babi Yar. In the most terrible tragedy to befall the Jewish People and the family of humanity, at mankind's darkest hour: the Holocaust. There was nobody to recite the Yizkor prayer for them.

"May God remember the souls of our brethren, Children of Israel, victims of the Holocaust and its heroes, the souls of the six million of Israel who were killed, murdered, suffocated, and buried alive and the holy communities destroyed for the sanctification of the Name. May God remember their binding, with the binding of all of Israel's other martyrs and heroes since time immemorial, and may he bind their souls up in the bond of life. Those gentle and beloved in their lives; in their deaths, not separated. May they rest in peace, and may we say Amen."

Herzog continued: "I come here as the President of the State of Israel, the nation-state of the Jewish People. I come here from Jerusalem, our eternal capital. In the heart of Jerusalem, in the Israeli Parliament – the Knesset – on the government floor is a painting by the painter Joseph Kuzkovsky, who was born in Ukraine and studied art in Kyiv. "Led to the Slaughter – Babi Yar" is its name."

"It shows men, women, and children, walking in silence, in deathly darkness, the jackboots of the Nazi devil and local police officers pointing their weapons at them, setting sharp-fanged dogs on them.

"In the middle of the painting – which nobody who has ever seen it, even once, can ever forget – is a woman, holding in one hand her young daughter, and in the other clutching her baby to her chest. Surrounded by parents and children, brothers and sisters, all together, on their way to their terrifying death. Here, in the heart of darkness.

"Thousands of times have I walked up those stairs, and time and again, I paused and looked at the picture. I felt a pinch in my heart, appalled by the atrocity. I thought about how at the end of that walk, these Jews were stripped naked, thrown into this valley of death, and massacred in a hail of bullets, here at Babi Yar.

"Every time leaders from around the world visited, I showed them this picture and told them the story of the massacre at Babi Yar. A chapter that must be studied till the last generation.

"There was no colder or more awful act of murder, no more murderous representation of the "Holocaust by bullets," than the Baby Yar Massacre.

"There is no escaping the terrible thought that the sun rose over this valley. The birds chirped. The forest was quiet. And the butchers – they butchered.

"For two days, the machine guns of the Nazis' death squads and, alas, also local collaborators mowed down tens of thousands of the Jews of Kyiv and the region. Whole families were erased," Herzog said.

"Let us make no mistake: Even in the present, Holocaust denial is still alive and kicking. Antisemitism still exists. Just in the past day, we all heard of another ugly manifestation of antisemitism at the Auschwitz extermination camp in the form of antisemitic graffiti that disgraces the memory of the people killed at this terrible death camp. We, world leaders, must vigorously condemn the slightest hint of this phenomenon and fight it with all our might," the Israeli president added.

Last year, a number of memorials, including synagogue prayer space, were installed as part of the construction of a massive, innovative museum complex across the whole Babi Yar area. The establishment of the center is being overseen by public figures and leaders from around the world, headed by Natan Sharansky, the chairman of the supervisory board of the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center.

"Babi Yar is the biggest mass grave of the Holocaust ... the most quickly filled mass grave," said Sharansky.

"It's hard to breathe at this place – thousands of children took their last breath here," Zelenskyy said. "It's hard to stand here – thousands of bullets knocked people down here in Babi Yar. The earth was trembling from the convulsions of people who were still alive and trying to get out."

"For us Germans, there can only be one response: never again!" Steinmeier said.

The center also revealed the initial 159 names of hundreds of Nazi troops who took part in the massacre.

"Despite confessions, evidence and testimonies being submitted as late as the 1960s by some of the Nazi soldiers who carried out the murders, only a few of those involved ever faced justice for their heinous crimes," it said.

"They were between 20 and 60 years old," the memorial center said. "They were educated and uneducated, they included engineers and teachers, drivers and salespeople. Some were married and some were not. The vast majority of them returned to live a normal life after the war. They testified at trial and were found not guilty, except for very few commanders, not the soldiers who carried out the horrific massacre."

Father Patrick Desbois, head of the center's academic council, said some of the 159 Nazi troops named "were shooters. Others extracted the Jews from their homes. Others took their belongings and their luggage. Others armed the weapons while others were serving sandwiches, tea and vodkas to the shooters. All of them are guilty."

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The three presidents on Wednesday attended the opening of a new memorial – the "Crystal Crying Wall" created by conceptual artist Marina Abramovic. Within six months, the first museum space will be unveiled.

"We are going to give the real faces to the Holocaust, whether it's the faces of the victims, of the executors or those who were helping to save Jews," Sharansky said.

He noted that while some Ukrainians collaborated with the Nazi killers, at least 2,600 Ukrainian families were hiding Jews at the risk of their own lives.

"So we are going to recover the names of victims, and we are recovering more and more names of victims, the names of those who were saving Jews and the names of collaborators," he said.

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A European Union report on the Palestinian Authority's education system examined textbooks that were never taught in PA schools, Israel Hayom has ascertained.

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The EU study, which was conducted by the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research in Germany, examined 156 textbooks that were received by the EU and represent around one-half of all PA textbooks. The study was concluded in 2020 and was to be published shortly after, but then the EU sought to include another 18 textbooks in the study, claiming they were being taught in Palestinian schools in that school year. Although adding new material to a study after it has been completed deviates from customary practice, the Georg Eckert Institute incorporated the new content into its research but issued a full disclosure that the 18 textbooks in question were added belatedly. In its footnotes on four of the textbooks, researchers noted they had been unable to locate the books in the PA education system's digital library. "The version the PA received from the EU was not online," they said.

That the textbooks were forced into the study after it had already been completed, the very fact that they were received from the EU, and their absence from the official PA portal, raised the question of whether they were being used at all in PA schools. The surprising answer: They were not being used. The Georg Eckert Institute, responding to Israel Hayom's inquiry on the matter, said: "At the request of the EU, 18 textbooks for the 2020-2021 school year were analyzed after the first part of the study was completed (partially), before their introduction in [PA] schools." In other words, the EU and the Georg Eckert Institute treated the textbooks as if they were being taught in Palestinian schools, prior to the fact.

Marcus Sheff, the CEO of IMPACT-se, an international research and policy institute that analyzes school textbooks throughout the world and has a proven track record of examining PA textbooks, told Israel Hayom in the wake of the revelation that "there's no reason for textbooks that never saw the light of day to be included in a report on textbooks that are actually being taught. Using these 'ghost books' raised many questions about the credibility of the findings, and it appears there was an attempt to shoot the arrow and then run to mark the target."

It should be noted that the belated chapter of the study, which analyzed the 18 new textbooks, concluded that the Palestinians were trying to reduce incitement and antisemitism in their schools – a conclusion that allows them to continue receiving funding from the EU for their education system.

Chief Operating Officer of IMPACT-se Arik Agassi added that the study's findings also contradict themselves. According to Agassi, the Palestinian textbooks don't meet the criteria established by UNESCO, which the Georg Eckert Institute essentially concedes.

"In the body of the study, it was stated several times that 'antisemitism and glorification of violence exist' in relation to Jews and Israel and that this content was 'incompatible with UNESCO's criteria.' But these findings were obscured in the report's conclusions and were especially absent from the executive summary. The Georg Eckert Institute is aware of this contradiction and in the FAQ section, which it published last week, it essentially admitted there's an issue here. Indeed, our conclusion, as an organization that has researched Palestinian textbooks for many years, is that they don't meet UNESCO's standards," said Agassi.

The EU said in a statement: "The educational reform [that began] in the Palestinian Authority in 2016-2017 is part of an ongoing process. Due to delays in the research, the EU asked the Georg Eckert Institute to include a survey of the textbooks that would be published in 2020. At the time of the report's completion, 15 out of 18 of the textbooks that were analyzed were online, as detailed in the report."

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Argentinian journalist Julio López recently discovered a Spanish-speaking hate network by creating a computer program that scans websites for hate speech. A journalist and hacker by trade, López originally sought to search for groups like QAnon, wondering if there were similar groups in Argentina. His study unexpectedly uncovered a secret network of alt-right, Nazi groups in Latin America that perpetuate conspiracy theories related to Jews.

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"I found out there are groups like QAnon in Argentina – there are many – and they're large and have done a tremendous job" infiltrating the web, López told Jewish News Syndicate. After creating computer code utilizing terminology that is considered hate speech, his program scanned thousands of sites, exposing a "breeding ground" for hate that he says is experiencing a "boom."

"The first one I found had a YouTube channel with 220,000 subscribers, 3,000 hours of video and over 24 million views," he explained. "They were recording on a TV studio to replicate regular media content." The channel, named "TLV1" posed as a legitimate Israel-based news site with the same name, violated YouTube community standards and was eventually taken down for inciting hate.

Conspiracy theories perpetuated, according to López, such as "theories like the Andean plan for Jews to merge a nation into Patagonia, and the idea of a new order governed by key positions that are occupied by Jews;" ideas about "a superior race and the male man as the center of the family;" as well as portraying Jews as "immigrants who steal jobs."

This particular YouTube channel, he explained, spanned multiple countries including Argentina, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico, Colombia and Spain, and had linked Facebook groups in order to reach the maximum number of people. It operated for three years before López's advocacy got YouTube to shut it down. "However, Facebook allowed their groups to stay open while YouTube banned them; therefore they still had the power to regroup," he said.

A second group that López found was "more militarized and had more than 80,000 subscribers, wore black and used Nazi fonts and icons … recruiting young people and nurturing them with these ideals. We also found hundreds and hundreds of Telegram channels and satellite groups on Facebook, just waiting to regroup and take action."

According to López, a self-proclaimed "tech geek who loves media and happened to end up with a microphone in front of me," his algorithm also uncovered hate speech in the network towards the LGBTQ community, women and reproductive rights, and other minorities, and calls to disobey the state.

López, who hosts the most-listened-to radio show in the country, "Lanata Sin Filtro," said Argentine media originally refused to broadcast his findings (which López said occurred out of fear of the sites losing financial partnerships with Facebook and Google) until pro-Israel NGO Fuente Latina secured him an interview on CNN Español and other major news networks.

'Hate is country-specific'

According to the founder of Fuente Latina, Leah Soibel, only after the story received international press did Argentinian media organizations begin to cover the story.

What López's network uncovered, said Soibel, is an "incredibly dangerous" trend that exists in the context of fatal antisemitic attacks within the Jewish communities of Latin America. Referring to the anniversary of the March 17, 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, that killed 29 people and injured more than 250, Soibel told JNS that "the scars are still real and fresh, and no one has been brought to justice."

"The proliferation of hate speech in Spanish is very real and needs to quickly be addressed," she said. "We know too well that what is published on these sites inevitably leads to someone acting on it."

Soibel commended López for his interest, which intrigued many, as López is not Jewish and even Jewish professionals were not aware of the "tightly knit network that expands to Spanish media in America" that he has exposed.

Uncovering the antisemitic "dark web," said Soibel, is vitally important in what she views as an "information gap" that has occurred during the pandemic, as journalists are not working from their normal production studios, and extremist outlets have sought to fill that void.

Once his study was disseminated in the media, López reported receiving death threats by the extremists that he exposed, with his picture circulating and being called a "Zionist pig."

He has also spoken out against inadequate responses by tech giants. "Facebook and Google don't have the adequate personnel to work on hate speech as compared to [those companies in] the United States," said López, whose efforts to flag content as racist and antisemitic proved unsuccessful on social-media websites.

His long-term goal is to educate social-media platforms such as Facebook that they must approach hate speech differently – not grouping all Spanish-speaking countries together, but understanding that hate speech is a separate phenomenon occurring in countries with different histories and cultures supporting it.

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"Facebook needs to recognize that Holocaust denial, while it is a serious European and American issue, is not the No. 1 form of verbal antisemitism in Latin America," said Soibel. "Each country has its own form of expressing hate. Hate groups are cultural; there is no one linguistic standard. Rather, hate is country-specific, and Facebook should assign a representative for each country to deal with such challenges."

López added that he hopes his study will help to uncover "one more piece in the puzzle that clears the confusion between freedom of expression and  hate crimes," as well as empower Jewish organizations to fight hate and collect enough evidence to "take these groups to court and generate a ruling."

"Hate is not simply stopped," he said. "Hate must be taken to court."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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