The number of politically motivated crimes rose to record levels in Germany last year and include a 15% rise in anti-Semitic offenses.
The annual report by the Federal Criminal Police Office released on May 4 showed an 8.54% increase over 2019, to 44,692 crimes, German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said.
Within that total, the number of antisemitic crimes reported to police across the country rose to 2,351 from 2,032. The vast majority — 85 % — fell into the categories of incitement to hate, insults and propaganda, including Holocaust denial and glorification of Nazi ideology.
The president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, called the news “absolutely alarming and evidence of Germany’s failure” to deal with the problem. According to the German media, Schuster said that anti-Jewish harassment is found “everywhere, on the street and on the internet.”
Several NGOs noted that many cases are not reported to police.
“A large darkfield study by the criminal investigation unit of the state of Lower Saxony [in the former West Germany] in 2017 showed that only 12% of hate crimes are reported overall,” Alexander Rasumny, a spokesperson for the Berlin-based Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Anti-Semitism, or RIAS, which monitors and analyzes anti-Semitism, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in a phone interview.
Rasumny said the state’s criminal investigations department is preparing a follow-up study.
Statistics on politically motivated crimes were first singled out starting in 2001.
Violent crimes with a political motivation jumped by 18.82% over the previous year. There were 11 murders in this category – nine in a right-wing extremist attack in February 2020 on a shisha bar in the city of Hanau.
Right-wing extremism remains Germany’s largest domestic security threat, Seehofer said. The report found that 23,604 crimes were linked to right-wing perpetrators, an increase of 5.6%, while crimes linked to left-wing political ideologies rose 11.4%, to 10,971.
Read the complete article at: Sun Sentinel
Also Read: Oregon Holocaust Memorial defaced with anti-Semitic symbols
The walls of the Oregon Holocaust Memorial in Southwest Portland were vandalized with swastika symbols and other anti-Semitic messages this weekend.
There have been no arrests. There is no suspect information at this time.
The graffiti has since been removed, but Oregon Jewish Museum Director Judy Margles said defacing the memorial is an act of “symbolic violence.”
“To use Nazi symbols to deface a memorial dedicated to the millions who were murdered during the holocaust re-capitulates the hatred that drove the original genocide,” she wrote in an emailed statement to KOIN 6 News. “It is an act of symbolic violence against the very idea that inspired the memorial.”
Marc Blattner, President of the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland said, “Alongside this narrative of achievement and opportunity, there is also a history — far older than the Nation itself — of racism, bigotry, and other forms of injustice. This includes the scourge of anti-Semitism. In recent years, Jewish Americans have increasingly been the target of white nationalism and the anti-Semitic violence it fuels.”
Portland police responded to a report of the vandalism at about 8:44 a.m. on Sunday, May 2. Officers arrived to find swastikas and other graffiti spray painted on the memorial. As officers investigated they found similar graffiti on street signs and concrete barriers in the neighborhood.
Anyone with information about this case, including any video which may contain evidence, is asked to e-mail [email protected] and reference case 21-117659.
Anonymous tips can be sent through Crime Stoppers. Crime Stoppers of Oregon offers cash rewards of up to $2,500 cash for information, reported to Crime Stoppers, that leads to an arrest in any unsolved felony crime and tipsters can remain anonymous
Source: Portland Tribune
Also Read: Holocaust survivor Fritzie Fritzshall, Cardinal Blase Cupich share hate speech concerns
AAP leaders are speaking out against racism targeting people who are Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) and urging pediatricians to take action.
The AAP Board of Directors Executive Committee and Board Committee on Equity penned the perspective piece “Immunizing Against Hate: Overcoming Asian American and Pacific Islander Racism,” which was published today in Pediatrics and lays out members’ concerns about the toll racism is taking on children and their families.
“Addressing the pervasive and harmful impact of structural and interpersonal racism on child health is at the heart of the AAP’s Equity Agenda, the goal of which is to assure equitable systems of care that promote optimal health for all children,” said Wendy S. Davis, M.D., FAAP, chair of the Board Committee on Equity. “As we followed the news and heard from our Asian American members about their own suffering and that of their patients, remaining silent was simply not an option. This statement evolved as we sought multiple channels through which we could support our colleagues and the children and families in our care.”
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, then-AAP President Sara “Sally” H. Goza, M.D., FAAP, warned about the threat of Asian American racism. Those fears have been borne out over the past year with surging rates of discrimination.
Hate crimes against Asian Americans rose nearly 150% in 2020, according to a study of police department statistics from 16 U.S. cities. Stop AAPI Hate has documented nearly 3,800 instances of discrimination against people of AAPI descent since March 2020, including verbal harassment, physical assault and online harassment.
In addition to enduring racism during the pandemic, people who are Asian, Black and other minority ethnicities are at greater risk of becoming severely ill from COVID-19.
“The alarming statistics and the trauma behind them illustrate that America is again waging a battle against two pandemics: COVID-19 and racism,” AAP board members wrote.
Read the complete article at: AAP News
Also Read: Ex-Yankees ace Masahiro Tanaka returned to Japan amid fear of anti-Asian racism in U.S., report says
A string of New York City progressive activists, Jewish advocacy groups and political candidates echoed on Monday calls to scale back the increased police protection of Jewish sites instituted after a series of violent assaults.
In the latest in a series of attacks against Jewish institutions in the Bronx borough of New York, the Riverdale Jewish Center (RJC) was targeted by a stone-throwing assailant in the early hours of Monday morning, sustaining damage to windows.
The attack was the seventh incident in recent days — following similar incidents at nearby Jewish institutions, including Chabad of Riverdale, Young Israel of Riverdale and the Conservative Synagogue Adath Israel of Riverdale — and the third time the RJC itself was targeted, despite an increased police presence in the area.
The RJC was first targeted by the assailant on Thursday night, when thrown rocks smashed the synagogue’s glass doors, and then again on Saturday night along with the three other Jewish institutions.
In response to the increased police protection of Jewish sites in the area, Sasha Parsley Kesler, the Special Projects Manager to the Chief of Staff at NYC Department of Social Services, issued a lengthy Twitter thread that questioned the use of enhanced security for the Jewish community.
While she says she was was pained by the violence and noted the long history of attacks on Jewish institutions, she said, “I am also [imagining] another way to respond to this violence, one that does not invite further militarized policing of our streets & communities.”
“I understand the gut reaction in white Jewish communities to look to police as our protectors,” she went on. “And we all know that more policing does not make us ALL safer. Riverdale is a diverse community — I do not want the attempts to secure my safety to threaten that of others.”
Read the complete article at: The Jewish Voices
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NY Progressives NY Progressives
California has witnessed a 40% increase in antisemitic hate incidents over the past five years despite a 12% decrease in such incidents in 2020, according to an annual report released by the Anti-Defamation League.
The national organization released its “2020 ADL Audit of Antisemitic Incidents” Tuesday, April 27, the second anniversary of a shooting at the Chabad of Poway, where a self-proclaimed white supremacist fired shots inside the synagogue on the last day of the Jewish Passover holiday, killing one and wounding three others, including the rabbi.
The ADL’s report found antisemitic incidents trending high nationwide and in California despite coronavirus-related lockdowns in 2020. While antisemitic incidents declined nationally by 4% in 2020 after hitting an all-time high in 2019, last year was the third-highest year for incidents against American Jews since ADL started tracking such events in 1979.
For the first time since 2017, no antisemitic fatalities were reported last year in the United States. While the pandemic may have driven down acts of vandalism and assault, which declined 18% and 49% respectively, incidents of antisemitic harassment, particularly over video-conferencing platforms such as Zoom, increased 10% in 2020.
California, which was third in the nation for the highest number of antisemitic incidents next to New York and New Jersey, also reported the fourth-highest total of antisemitic incidents ever statewide in 2020 since 1998.
Despite some declines in the number of incidents, Jeffrey Abrams, ADL regional director in Los Angeles, said it’s important to not lose sight of the big picture, which shows that antisemitic incidents continue to trend high, even in a year when most people stayed home because of a global pandemic.
“We also saw this year so many incidents of antisemitic Zoombombing, where Zoom became the new battleground for hatred,” Abrams said, adding that synagogues and Jewish schools saw Shabbat services and Torah classes disrupted with displays of swastikas or Hitler’s name.
Read the complete article at: Daily Breeze
Also Read: Backlash against European Super League triggers wave of anti-Semitic hate online
He is a talented pastry chef who came to the US from China with his wife a couple of years ago to work in a New York restaurant. Now he is fighting for his life, the latest Asian to become a victim of violence in the city.
Yao Pan Ma, 61, lies in a coma in a Harlem Hospital after he was stomped on repeatedly in an East Harlem street in Manhattan on Friday night. His wife, Baozhen Chen, told their two children, who live in China, that their father may not survive.
“I told our children last night,” she told the New York Post on Sunday after visiting her husband, who suffered a cerebral contusion and facial fractures in the attack and is in a medically induced coma.
“They are very concerned about their father,” Chen said in Cantonese through an interpreter. “I am very worried my husband will not make it.”
Chen, 57, said her husband lost his job at a Chinese restaurant in Lower Manhattan in September, where he had assisted the chef and also worked as a dishwasher. The restaurant industry has been decimated by the coronavirus pandemic, so he began collecting cans for recycling to get by.
“My husband made fancy desserts in China,” said Chen. “We came here (from South China’s Guangdong province) for the job opportunity two years ago. He lost his job because of COVID-19. So he did whatever he could to help support and pay bills.
“He was not eligible for federal assistance,” his wife told the New York Daily News.
“He was just trying to help out the family. He had no bad intentions. He wouldn’t cause trouble with other people in his neighborhood,” Chen said.
Attack from behind
Read the complete article at: ECNS
Also Read: Ex-Yankees ace Masahiro Tanaka returned to Japan amid fear of anti-Asian racism in U.S., report says
another victim
Holocaust survivor Fritzie Fritzshall and her close friend Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich gathered at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Skokie Thursday to share a message about hate and prejudice.
April marks both genocide and Holocaust remembrance, and both Fritzshall and Cardinal Cupich said they want people to learn from the past as we take in all we’ve experienced over this past year and think about where we’re going.
Nearly, two years ago, Fritzshall shared her personal story at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where as a teenager she survived the horrors of the Nazi concentration camp during World War II. Now, she’s determined to speak out regarding where we are in this time of racial, religious and political self-evaluation.
“Are we getting any closer to where we should be?” Alan Krashesky asked.
“No, I think we’re further away,” she answered.
Fritzshall points to the attack on the U.S. Capitol, where one man wore a shirt proclaiming “Camp Auschwitz” as pictured in his federal criminal complaint.
“That made my stomach turn,” Fritzshall said. “Why do they have to still wear t-shirts about hatred and stuff like that? That’s what the Nazis did. That’s exactly what they did.”
“It was obscene! Obscene!” said Cardinal Cupich. “That kind of action should be totally condemned. It’s really repugnant.”
They emphasized people must fight back about other forms of language and labelling as well.
This week, in court documents, federal prosecutors alleged that Chicago Alderman Ed Burke was heard using anti-Semitic language while being secretly recorded.
“You don’t think other people have heard it? You don’t think it’s going to be repeated? It will, and this is how it starts, hatred like that,” said Fritzie Fritzshall.
Read the complete article at: ABC 7 Chicago
Also Read: Holocaust survivors bring their stories to social media to fight anti-Semitism
The mother of a Black sixth-grader filed a legal claim against the Palmdale School District Thursday over a racist rant directed at her son and his family by a teacher who failed to sign off Zoom following a student-teacher session.
In the video, the teacher can be heard disparaging the family and referring in a negative way to their ethnicity, according to the claim, which is a precursor to a lawsuit.
“The horrible comments the teacher made in the video are truly heartbreaking for a mother to hear and for her young son to hear,” said attorney John C. Taylor, who represents the claimant.
“It’s unthinkable that an educator would mock and belittle this family and there is no doubt that this incident has scarred them,” he said.
“All children are entitled to receive an educational experience free of discrimination and this video has demonstrated what minority students often face behind the scenes today.”
Read the complete article at: NBC Los Angeles
The mother of a Black sixth-grader filed a legal claim against the Palmdale School District Thursday over a racist rant directed at her son and his family by a teacher who failed to sign off Zoom following a student-teacher session. In the video, the teacher can be heard disparaging the family and referring in a negative way to their ethnicity, according to the claim, which is a precursor to a lawsuit. “The horrible comments the teacher made in the video are truly heartbreaking for a mother to hear and for her young son to hear,” said attorney John C. Taylor, who represents the claimant. “It’s unthinkable that an educator would mock and belittle this family and there is no doubt that this incident has scarred them,” he said. “All children are entitled to receive an educational experience free of discrimination and this video has demonstrated what minority students often face behind the scenes today.” Accuses Teacher Accuses Teacher Accuses Teacher Accuses Teacher
Beginning at 5 p.m., March 16, the first horrific news of the murders of four people and the wounding of a fifth at Young’s Asian Massage in Acworth, a city in Cherokee County northwest of Atlanta, was breaking news on local TV stations. That was quickly followed around 6:00 p.m. with details of another four women killed at the Gold Spa and the Aromatherapy Spa in the Buckhead area of Atlanta.
In total, six women of Asian descent, four of whom were Korean, and two white people, a man and a woman, were shot and killed. In addition, a Latinx man was wounded.
A 21-year-old, white, Cherokee County man, Robert Aaron Long was captured in south Georgia a few hours later and identified as the suspect in these mass murders.
Read the complete article at: Workers
Beginning at 5 p.m., March 16, the first horrific news of the murders of four people and the wounding of a fifth at Young’s Asian Massage in Acworth, a city in Cherokee County northwest of Atlanta, was breaking news on local TV stations. That was quickly followed around 6:00 p.m. with details of another four women killed at the Gold Spa and the Aromatherapy Spa in the Buckhead area of Atlanta. In total, six women of Asian descent, four of whom were Korean, and two white people, a man and a woman, were shot and killed. In addition, a Latinx man was wounded. A 21-year-old, white, Cherokee County man, Robert Aaron Long was captured in south Georgia a few hours later and identified as the suspect in these mass murders. In total, six women of Asian descent, four of whom were Korean, and two white people, a man and a woman, were shot and killed. In addition, a Latinx man was wounded. A 21-year-old, white, Cherokee County man, Robert Aaron Long was captured in south Georgia a few hours later and identified as the suspect in these mass murders.
A Jewish student at Tufts University who claims that he has been the subject months-long campaign of anti-Semitic intimidation, harassment and discrimination is calling on the university to intervene.
Max Price, a junior who is a member of the Tufts Community Union Judiciary (TCUJ), which is tasked with fact-checking student government legislation, has been outspoken against an SJP proposal to include its “Deadly Exchange Campaign” referendum in the student election ballot.
“Mr. Price has been subjected to anti-Semitic harassment targeting him on the basis of his ethnic and ancestral Jewish identity,” stated a letter written by Price’s lawyers to Tufts University president Anthony Monaco, Tufts general counsel Mary Jeka and Tufts provost Nadine Aubry.
The referendum blames Israel and American Jewish supporters of Israel for fueling what they call “racist conduct” by law enforcement in the United States and seeks to link Israel to white supremacy and police brutality.
Read the complete article at: Cleveland Jewish News
