Free Republic

Israeli officials reacted on Thursday evening to Denmark’s decision to ban kosher slaughter as of next week. Rabbi David Lau, Israel’s Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi, said that kosher slaughter remains the only humane way to prevent animal suffering. “I will speak to the Danish ambassador to Israel and other Danish government officials, and if indeed this serious decision has been made, we will demand that it be reversed,” said Rabbi Lau. The decision to ban kosher slaughter, he added, “seriously hurts the Jewish religion and Jews in Denmark.” …

A Russian Member of Parliament (MP) burst out in an anti-Semitic tirade last Thursday, attacking other Russian lawmakers as “Jews” responsible for the 1917 Communist revolution and the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Oleg Bolychev, an MP from the ruling United Russia party, called his opponents “Jews, mired in opposition,” during a debate at the regional parliament in Kaliningrad, reports AFP. “At the start of the 1990s, foreign spies were infiltrated into our government who oversaw the destruction of our state,” claimed Bolychev. “You destroyed our country in 1917 and you destroyed our country in 1991.” …

Passengers aboard a Belgian train from Namur to Brussels were stunned to hear an unusual message on the train’s PA system: “Ladies and gentlemen, we are approaching Auschwitz. All Jews are requested to disembark and take a short shower.” […] TV station RTL reported that the unidentified passenger hijacked the PA system at 5 pm, peak time. He made his anti-Semitic remarks in French, according to the station. …

Martin Schulz, who is visiting Israel to give a speech in the Knesset, wasn't eager to discuss settlements with reporters. Anti-Semitism has been a constant in Europe, and that hasn't changed irrespective of what goes on in the Middle East, the president of the European Parliament, who is in Israel to deliver a speech to the Knesset later Wednesday, told The Jerusalem Post. "Anti-Semitism always existed in Europe," said EU Parliament chief Martin Schulz. "I thought that after World War II we were stronger in fighting such demons in politics. This is a deception. Nothing disappeared, all the prejudice is...

A speech in Knesset Wednesday given by the head of the European Union Parliament caused outrage, and ultimately sparked a walk-out. Several MKs expressed upset as EU parliament president Martin Schulz, who spoke in German, repeated as fact Palestinian Authority claims of Israeli discrimination regarding allocation of water in Judea and Samaria, and of a “blockade” on Gaza. Schulz condemned Israeli “settlements” east of the 1949 armistice line as “an obstacle to peace,” and claimed, “The blockade of Gaza creates despair and extremism.” …

It keeps getting easier to ditch the soda can. When Coca-Cola said this week that it would let people make its drinks at home using a beverage machine, it became the latest company to take advantage of a growing trend: People turning to flavored drops or at-home carbonation machines that do away with the need to haul home bulky cans and bottles from the supermarket. […] Options that do away with cans and bottles are faring far better. Revenue for the Americas region at SodaStream, which makes at-home carbonation machines, surged 88 percent in 2012 from the previous year, the...

The French anti-Semitic comic Dieudonné was acquitted Friday on charges related to a video in which he calls for the release of a self-styled Islamist serving life for the kidnap and murder of a Jewish phone salesman, AFP reported. The controversial performer, who has a string of convictions for anti-Semitic hate speech, was cleared of defamation and illegally defending a convicted criminal because the judge ruled that it had not been proven that Dieudonné was behind the distribution of the video. As a result, the court could not consider the content of his remarks, the judge added in a ruling...

Anti-Israel musician Roger Waters proved this week that he supports freedom of speech, but only as long as it is his opinion that is presented. Waters published a post on his Facebook page in which he attacked actress Scarlett Johansson and Canadian musician Neil Young for their refusal to boycott Israel. […] Ben Red, who hosts a daily music program on Kol Yisrael radio station 88FM, responded to Waters in a polite post. […] Red’s response to Waters received almost 3,000 “likes” from other Facebook users and was widely quoted in both the Israeli and international media. It was at...

“Last year, not one Israeli was killed by a Palestinian from the West Bank,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told guests at a Munich conference on Saturday, according to a U.S. State Department transcript. His comments, however, came just days after Israel’s Shin Bet security service detailed the Israeli deaths from terror attacks originating in the territory in 2013. In April, Shin Bet said, “One Israeli was killed (April 30) in a stabbing attack at Tapuah Junction (Samaria). The perpetrator, a Palestinian, resident of Shuka, Tul Karem, stabbed the Israeli, and then kidnapped his weapon and opened fire on...

A high-ranking official in German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s bureau met with representatives of the radical, anti-Zionist Neturei Karta haredi group on International Holocaust Day last week. The official met with four members of the group in Berlin when they were protesting the existence of the State of Israel and the Zionist exploitation of the Holocaust for political reasons. Ynet revealed that the official is a department head in the chancellor’s bureau, and against convention met with them openly. Members of Neturei Karta confirmed that the purpose of the meeting was to make it clear to the Germans that Zionism doesn’t...

Last month, BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) activists slammed Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas for not joining in with them to boycott Israel—and on Monday, the PA revealed just how uninvolved it was in the BDS movement. According to a PA report, 70% of the PA’s imports were from Israel, with imports worth $3.5 billion entering the Authority from Israel. It should be noted that Israel generally does not restrict imports of consumer goods to the PA, and that Israeli goods compete on Palestinian store shelves with goods from Arab countries and Europe as well as from the PA. It is...

The Ant-Defamation League, one of American Jewry's most influential organizations, condemned an Israeli parliamentarian on Saturday who intimated that US Secretary of State John Kerry's peace policies are motivated by anti-Semitism. Bayit Yehudi MK Motti Yogev told Israel Radio on Thursday that Kerry is not a fair mediator in peace talks because he has "anti-Israel roots." "Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is acting under Kerry's obsessive pressure, which may have anti-Semitic undertones," Yogev told Israel Radio. "Kerry is not here to reach a compromise. He wants to decrease the Jewish presence in the Land of Israel and create a Palestinian state."

US Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday threatened Israel that a failure in the peace talks would lead to global boycotts and delegitimization of the Jewish state. The warning comes as no surprise to those familiar with reports earlier in the month, which revealed that Kerry is orchestrating the European boycotts against Israel. Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon responded to Kerry’s threats of boycotts, saying “we respect Secretary of State Kerry, but will not hold talks with a gun to our head. Friends don’t put ultimatums on the security of the state of Israel.” …

When the White House scribblers were putting the finishing touches on the State of the Union address, President Obama took a moment to commemorate memory. Monday was International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the 69th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the most notorious of Hitler's death camps. "Each year on this day," he said, "the world comes together to commemorate a barbaric crime unique in human history." But not quite the whole world. Anti-Semitism thrives in the Middle East, where certain politicians vie to see who can say the ugliest things about Jews, and such sentiment is surging in Europe. Bloody...

New York State Senate passed a bill on Tuesday that directly addressed the controversy surrounding the American Studies Association’s boycott of Israeli universities. […] The bill was sponsored by Democratic Senator Jeff Klein, and it passed with a wide margin of 56-4. […] The new legislation would prevent New York higher-ed institutions from paying membership fees to academic groups that boycott Israel and will no longer reimburse students or scholars for their travel expenses to conventions of groups that have voted to boycott the Jewish State. …

US actress Scarlett Johansson has quit as global ambassador for Oxfam after the aid group deemed the role "incompatible" with her promotion of an Israeli firm that has a factory in the occupied West Bank. Johansson, 29, appears in an advertisement for home drinks carbonation firm SodaStream, which is due to air during the US Super Bowl on Sunday. Urgent: Do You Approve Or Disapprove of President Obama's Job Performance? Vote Now in Urgent Poll It has already been seen more than 4.5 million times on the YouTube video-sharing website. The Hollywood star has worked for Oxfam since 2005 but...

It is nothing short of chilling. A video, taken on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, shows masses of French protesters marching down a Paris thoroughfare chanting openly anti-Semitic slogans and calling on Jews to get out of France. Chants include “Jews, France is not yours!” “Jews out of France“ and “The story of the gas chambers is bull***!” At one point, in a show of raw, seething hatred, the crowd simply spits out the word “Jew, Jew, Jew!” Many of the marchers can be seen giving the “quenelle” inverted Nazi salute popularized by anti-Semitic comedian Dieudonné. …

“I have often wondered what Jews or decent people could have done to push back against the anti-Semitic propaganda of 1930s Germany,” says my friend, Dr. Roberta Seid, the historian and scientific advisor of Stand With Us. Seid was describing an event at my alma-mater, UCLA, where the speaker, Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, was “on the road again with his anti-Israel show and its pack of bigotry and lies.” I wholeheartedly recommend Seid’s opinion piece, “A Speaker who Brings Hate.” It is a must reading for anyone who has never attended an anti-Israel...

Palestinians would kill Jewish Israelis left under their rule, Economy and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett said on Tuesday, continuing a campaign against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ostensible willingness to leave Israeli settlers under Palestinian rule under a future peace agreement. Bennett also outlined his own plan for the West Bank — which he has largely been mum about since joining Netanyahu’s government — under which Israel would annex most of the territories. “Do you know why? Why Jews cannot live under Palestinian rule? Do you know why? Why Palestinians can’t rule over Jews?” Bennett said in an address at the...

Minister of Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs Naftali Bennett (Jewish Home) is presenting to the government Sunday new statistics on anti-Semitism in Europe—and the results are revealing. […] An online survey conducted by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights revealed that in 2013, 23% of respondents refrained from attending Jewish events or religious services for fear of being attacked on their way there; 38% are afraid to wear religious symbols, like the yarmulke or kippah, in public; and 66% view anti-Semitism as having a major and constant impact on their lives. Worse, European Jews believe that their governments view anti-Semitism...