Category Archives: Judaism

First-hand stories shed new light on Nazi death marches

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Wiener Holocaust Library in London has gathered testimonies and photographs of forced evacuations at end of second world war

First-hand accounts from survivors of Nazi death marches, which formed a last ruthless chapter of the genocide, are to go on display with testimonies translated into English for the first time.

During the death marches, tens of thousands of people died on roadsides of exhaustion, shot for failing to keep up, or murdered in seemingly random massacres as the Nazis moved people from concentration camps before liberation by the allies, leaving a trail of blood across Europe.

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The Guardian view on intercommunal violence in Israel: a dangerous development with deep roots | Editorial

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Political rhetoric has cultivated hatred. Both Palestinian and Jewish citizens are paying the price

The horror unfolding in the Middle East is both old and new. There is a terrible familiarity to the destruction the Israeli state is raining down upon Gaza, and the lethal missiles fired from the Strip by Palestinian militants. Three wars and numerous battles have taught everyone what to expect: indifference to civilian lives on both sides. Already 119 Palestinians are dead, including 27 children, while eight Israelis are dead, including one child. The Israeli military describes its approach this time as a “higher tempo and intensity of attacks”, while Hamas is using “heavy rockets” to target heavily populated areas, including Tel Aviv. The risk of escalation into a full war remains. Israel has called up thousands of reservists.

The unexpected and chilling development has been the outbreak of intercommunal violence, with the last few days seeing mob attacks upon both Palestinian citizens of Israel and Jews, and destruction including the torching of synagogues and smashing up of Arab-owned businesses. Ultranationalists, brought by a social media callout explicitly threatening violence, were filmed chanting “Death to Arabs”. An Arab motorist was lynched in the same Tel Aviv suburb, while in the city of Tamra, a Jewish man was stabbed in the neck. The prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has described such incidents as the biggest threat to Israel, while its president, Reuven Rivlin, said that “a civil war [would] be a danger to our existence, more than all the dangers we have from the outside”.

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‘I seek a kind person’: the Guardian ad that saved my Jewish father from the Nazis

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In 1938, there was a surge of classified ads in this newspaper as parents – including my grandparents – scrambled to get their children out of the Reich. What became of the families?

On Wednesday 3 August 1938, a short advertisement appeared on the second page of the Manchester Guardian, under the title “Tuition”.

“I seek a kind person who will educate my intelligent Boy, aged 11, Viennese of good family,” the advert said, under the name Borger, giving the address of an apartment on Hintzerstrasse, in Vienna’s third district.

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British man who died in crush at Israeli festival is named as Moshe Bergman

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Bergman, 24, had been in Israel to train as a rabbi before dying at Mount Meron

A British man who died in a crowd crush at a Jewish festival in Israel has been named as Moshe Bergman.

The 24-year-old from Salford, Manchester, had been in the country to train to be a rabbi in Jerusalem. He had been living in the city for two years and had married 18 months ago.

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At least 10 children and teens among dead in crush at festival in Israel

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Partial list records 45 deaths at ultra-Orthodox event as identification of bodies continues

At least 10 children and teenagers were among 45 ultra-Orthodox Jews killed in a crush at a religious festival in northern Israel, according to a partial list of names published on Saturday as the identification of victims in Israel’s deadliest civilian disaster continued.

Four Americans, a Canadian and a man from Argentina were also among those killed. Two families each lost two children. The youngest victim was nine years old.

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Dead Sea scroll fragments and ‘world’s oldest basket’ found in desert cave

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Six-millennia-old skeleton of child also unearthed during dig in Judean Desert by Israeli archeologists

Israeli archaeologists have unearthed two dozen Dead Sea scroll fragments from a remote cave in the Judean Desert, the first discovery of such Jewish religious texts in more than half a century.

“For the first time in approximately 60 years, archaeological excavations have uncovered fragments of a biblical scroll,” the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said in a statement.

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Could a former bar be one of Spain’s lost medieval synagogues?

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Work is under way to see whether an abandoned 14th-century building is part of the legacy of the country’s exiled Jews

The rambling, 14th-century building that sits off a narrow alley in the historic heart of Utrera, its patio walls furred with moss and its inner ones painted pugnacious shades of purple and orange, has led a long and varied existence.

Over the centuries, it has served the Andalucían city as a hospital, a home for abandoned children, a restaurant and, in its final incarnation, a bar.

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‘Is it OK to eat during online mass?’: how the faithful handle lockdown

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From streamed baptisms to the impossibility of hajj, it’s been a tricky time for religious people to stay observant. But many have some holy hacks

Well before places of worship were closed during the first lockdown, we hectored my father to remain indoors and stay safe. He rebelled. One frigid Sunday last March, through the silence of a sleeping household, he slunk down the hall and to the kitchen, careful not to rouse his house guests.

We don’t know if his plan was dependent on my siblings being hungover but, since this was the case, it worked a charm. A little after 9am, they were stirred from sleep by the tell-tale crunch of gravel as he spun slowly away to his local church. His intention: to defy the orders of his slovenly children and go to mass amid the coughs and handshakes of his fellow parishioners. We had witnessed one of the more unexpected struggles of lockdown life – the strange, rebellious instincts of God-fearing society, and the paradox of coming together in His name at a time when you must remain apart.

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The director who dared to suggest Jewish men don’t need rescuing by blond women

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The late film-maker Joan Micklin Silver exploded the cliches of modern romances. If only others would do the same

The director Joan Micklin Silver, who died last week, was – to use the kind of cliche she abhorred – a pioneer. She was a female director at a time when studio executives were more than comfortable with being openly sexist, telling Silver: “Women directors are one more problem we don’t need.”

She made distinctly Jewish movies, as opposed to the kind of Jewish-lite movies that were – and are still – Hollywood’s more usual style. Her two greatest films, Hester Street (1975), about a Jewish immigrant couple (Steven Keats and Carol Kane) on the Lower East Side in the 1890s, and the peerless 1988 romcom Crossing Delancey, about a modern young woman (Amy Irving) who is reluctantly fixed up with a pickle seller (Peter Riegert), are to When Harry Met Sally what the Netflix series Shtisel is to Seinfeld: Jewish as opposed to merely Jew-ish.

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Non-Christian faiths welcome Christmas easing of Covid rules

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Religious leaders pleased that Christians will not experience ‘same disappointment’ they did

Representatives of faiths that have been unable to gather for religious festivals this year because of the pandemic have welcomed the fact that Christians will not have to experience “the same disappointment and deflation” they did.

The Muslim festivals of Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, the Jewish holy days of Passover, Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish new year) and Yom Kippur, and Diwali festival of lights celebrated by Hindus, Sikhs and Jains were among those hit by lockdown restrictions, with people forbidden to worship together or join family and friends to mark the occasions. Easter was also affected last spring.

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Europe’s Jewish population has dropped 60% in last 50 years

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Soviet Union’s collapse may be responsible for exodus from eastern Europe

Europe has lost almost 60% of its Jewish population over the past 50 years, mainly as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union after which many Jews left eastern Europe as borders opened, a study shows.

Only about 9% of the global Jewish population now lives in Europe, compared with nearly 90% in the late 19th century – but similar to the proportion 1,000 years ago.

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Israeli politicians argue over Covid curbs on protests and prayers

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Sombre Yom Kippur provides only a temporary pause to debate about tighter lockdown

Israeli politicians are considering whether to tighten an already paralysing second coronavirus lockdown by bringing in controversial measures to limit people’s ability to protest and pray together.

Life in the country of 9 million ground to a halt on Sunday night and into Monday for Yom Kippur, the annual Jewish Day of Atonement when much of the country shuts down, with people fasting for 25 hours, TV and radio stations going silent, and large sections of secular society forgoing driving and turning off their phones.

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Outdoor worship, short services: ways to mark Yom Kippur during Covid

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Coronavirus bans have forced Jewish communities to adapt and innovate as the year’s high holy days draw near

Rochelle Shorrick’s freezer would normally be filled well in advance with meals for extended family and friends over the Jewish high holy days of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, and Yom Kippur, the day of atonement.

Usually she bakes a honey cake to signify a sweet new year, and pops some extra dishes in the freezer in case of last-minute guests. She looks forward to several visits to her local synagogue in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, with her husband and three children – especially the service which precedes 25 hours of fasting and prayer on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.

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Faith leaders join forces to warn of Uighur ‘genocide’

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Statement signed by Rowan Williams, bishops, imams and rabbis says Chinese Muslim minority faces ‘human tragedy’

Rowan Williams, the former archbishop of Canterbury, is among more than 70 faith leaders publicly declaring that the Uighurs are facing “one of the most egregious human tragedies since the Holocaust”, and that those responsible for the persecution of the Chinese Muslim minority must be held accountable.

The incarceration of at least a million Uighurs and other Muslims in prison camps, where they are reported to face starvation, torture, murder, sexual violence, slave labour and forced organ extraction, is a potential genocide, say the clerics.

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Untold stories of Jewish resistance revealed in London Holocaust exhibition

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Diaries and manuscripts turn spotlight on little-known acts of endurance and bravery

From quiet acts of bravery, to overt acts of rebellion, Jewish resistance to the Holocaust took many forms, yet research shows they remain largely unacknowledged in traditional UK teachings about the genocide.

A new exhibition, drawing on thousands of previously unseen documents and manuscripts, is placing some of the little-known personal stories of heroism, active armed resistance, and rescue networks in the extermination camps and ghettos at the forefront.

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Thessaloniki’s Jews: ‘We can’t let this be forgotten; if it’s forgotten, it will die’

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New centre in Greek city will be lifeline for small community, mostly descendants of Iberian exiles

Five centuries after they were expelled from Spain and eight decades after they were almost annihilated in the Holocaust, the small community of Sephardic Jews that lives on in the Greek city of Thessaloniki is looking to its past to help safeguard its future.

On Tuesday, Thessaloniki’s Jewish community signed a deal with the Spanish government’s Instituto Cervantes to create a small centre where people will be taught modern Spanish while also learning about Sephardic culture and the exiles’ still-spoken language, Ladino.

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Chief rabbi accuses Facebook and Twitter of complicity in antisemitism

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Ephraim Mirvis joins 48-hour boycott after grime musician Wiley’s antisemitic tirade

The UK’s chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, has accused Facebook and Twitter of complicity in antisemitism through inaction as he urged both platforms to do more to tackle hate speech after an antisemitic tirade last week from the grime musician Wiley.

In a letter to the technology companies’ chief executives, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Jack Dorsey of Twitter, Mirvis said “the woeful lack of responsible leadership … cannot be allowed to stand.

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Police investigate grime artist Wiley’s antisemitic tweets

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Rapper temporarily banned from Twitter and dropped by management firm after tirade

Police are investigating after the grime artist Wiley posted a tirade of antisemitic comments on Twitter and Instagram.

The musician has been dropped by his management company and temporarily banned from posting on Twitter after a series of social media posts were made on accounts belonging to him on Friday and Saturday.

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Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jews ‘least stressed’ by Covid-19, says study

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Despite being hardest hit by the pandemic, the country’s most devout community score highest in a happiness survey

Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel have been happier and less stressed during the Covid-19 pandemic than others, including secular Jews, according to new research.

A study of the Israeli Jewish population by Tel Aviv University found levels of resilience were higher in ultra-Orthodox communities than other groups, despite this group being disproportionately affected by the disease in terms of both health and economic factors.

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