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Spotify Says It's Removing Playlists that Glorify Hitler | | | | |
| |  | | | | Times of Israel | | | Following a query by The Times of Israel, Spotify has said it has removed hate content, including numerous user-generated music playlists that glorified Adolf Hitler, ridiculed Holocaust victims, and featured hate symbols. Much of the inflammatory content included numerous playlists that called for killing of the Jews, mocked Holocaust victim Anne Frank, and made light of the Auschwitz death camp. The dozens of Spotify playlists are created by users and don't necessarily have antisemitic content beyond the title and art, but they are searchable and available across the platform for any of the service's over 200 million subscribers worldwide. "We take this topic very seriously. Content [artists and music] listed by the BPjM in Germany [Germany's Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons] is proactively removed from our service...Other potentially hateful or objectionable content that is flagged by users or others but not on the BPjM list is handled on a case-by-case basis," said Spotify in their statement. | | | | Read More | | Read More | | |
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 | | CJN | | Toronto District School Board Plans Wide-Ranging Holocaust Commemoration The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) is preparing for Liberation75, which is billed as a "global gathering of Holocaust survivors, descendants, educators and friends," and is set to take place at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre from May 31 to June 2. As a participating sponsor of Liberation75, the TDSB's Jewish heritage committee is planning a series of programs to mark the the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. "I am so proud of Jewish heritage committee initiatives that provide opportunities for students and staff to learn about Holocaust and genocide prevention education in our continued efforts to combat antisemitism and all forms of hate," said TDSB Ward 8 trustee Shelley Laskin.UJA Federation of Greater Toronto is proud to be a participating organization for Liberation 75. Read More... | | |
 | | Times of Israel | | Israel's Unlikely Olympic Baseball Team Dreams Big for Japan The players on Israel's official baseball team are working to get Israelis of all ages interested in the sport, by building a new baseball field "of dreams" in Beit Shemesh. Team Israel, which is made up of mainly US Jews who are getting citizenship, recently qualified for one of just six Olympic spots and is headed to the Tokyo Games this summer. Read More... | | |
 | | CJN | | | Halifax Welcomes Stranded El Al Passengers on Shabbat After an El Al flight was forced to make an emergency landing in Halifax late Thursday evening, many of the passengers were left scrambling for Shabbat plans. The Halifax Jewish community welcomed them with extraordinary hospitality, providing accommodations and Shabbat meals for the weekend. Read More... | | |
 | | JTA | | Former Ottawa Professor Sues Canada for Extraditing Him to France Over Synagogue Bombing Hassan Diab, a former Canadian university professor, is suing the Canadian government for extraditing him to France in 2014 for alleged involvement in the deadly 1980 bombing of a Paris synagogue. Hassan Diab, a Lebanon native who became a Canadian citizen in 1993, was sent back to France six years after a lengthy extradition process. French authorities alleged that Diab was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and took part in the attack of a synagogue on Rue Copernic that killed four people and injured 40.
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 | | Israel Hayom | | Suspect in Hanukkah Machete Attack to Face Federal Hate Crime Charges Grafton Thomas, the man accused of attacking at least five people at the home of a rabbi during a Hanukkah celebration is due to face federal hate crime charges in White Plains, New York. Federal prosecutors have said Thomas targeted his victims because of their Jewish faith. In a criminal complaint filed last month, they cited journals they seized from his home containing references to Adolf Hitler, Nazi culture, and the Black Hebrew Israelites movement, identified by experts in extremism as an anti-Jewish hate group. Read More... | | |
 | | JTA | | | Brooklyn Nets Warm Up in 'No Place For Hate' Shirts with Anti-Defamation League Logo Following numerous antisemitic attacks in Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Nets are standing up against hate. The basketball team showed their support by wearing shirts that read "No Place for Hate" in warm ups on Sunday night. "No Place for Hate" is the Anti-Defamation League's (ADL) education program for combating bias, bullying, and hatred in public schools. Read More... | | |
 | | JNS | | | Photo Exhibit at Ben-Gurion Airport Brings Jewish State's Story to Life A photo exhibit titled "One to Ninety" has opened at Ben-Gurion International Airport, depicting the story of Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI), a partner of UJA Federation, as it celebrates its 90th anniversary. Since its establishment nine decades ago, JAFI has stood at critical junctures in the history of the Jewish people and the State of Israel. The exhibition presents a series of photographs and personal stories that represent those activities, connecting the personal to the collective and linking the Jewish past to its common future. Read More... | | |
 | | Times of Israel | | Egypt Unveils Historic Alexandria Synagogue After Three-Year Renovation Egypt has unveiled a newly renovated 14th-century synagogue in Alexandria as part of a push to market the country's rich cultural heritage. The Eliyahu Hanavi Synagogue was built in its current form in 1850 by an Italian architect on top of the original edifice dating back to 1354; the original building was badly damaged during Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion of Egypt in 1798. Egypt's Jewish community dates back millennia, numbered around 80,000 in the 1940s, but today stands at fewer than 20 people. Magda Haroun, one of the leaders of the dwindling Egyptian Jewish community in Cairo, sees the Eliyahu Hanavi Synagogue renovation as "recognition of Egypt's Jews who were neglected for over sixty years...It is recognition that we have always been here and that we have contributed to a lot of things just like any other Egyptian." Read More... | | |
 | | Times of Israel | | The 'Virtual' Future of Holocaust Education is Already Here Some designers of virtual reality (VR) are pushing the boundaries by recreating aspects of the Holocaust so users can "experience" those dark years with VR headsets. With increasingly fewer survivors around to give in-person testimony, VR designers are preparing for the day when eye-witnesses to the Holocaust will no longer be among us. Hoping to avoid some criticism, in contrast to the "in your shoes" approach, "AuschwitzVR"will be a non-participatory "walk-through" of reconstructed parts of the camp. Read More... | | |
 | | Tablet | | The British Jews Who Want to Go Back to Germany With open antisemitism in Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party, and Brexit looming, some British Jews are applying for passports to Germany and other European countries their parents fled. British Jewry has found itself in a situation unprecedented in modern times: caught between the threats of an institutionally antisemitic Labour Party, and the loss of their European identity and rights with Brexit. Some British Jews, who are are the descendants of those smuggled out of Germany as part of the Kindertransport, are in the process of filing their application with the German Embassy to reinstate German citizenship for the descendants of individuals who had it stripped from them by Nazi edict, in order to escape the concerns of British Jewry once and for all. Read More... | | |
 | | JTA | | How The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Aims to Represent Jews On Screen The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is keeping audiences hooked in its third season, as it expands the world of Midge Maisel. The series comes at a time of increasing awareness and discussion about how minorities — especially Jews, during this period of rising antisemitism — are portrayed on screen. Read More... | | |
 | | Times of Israel | | | Jerusalem Issues Rare Critique of Ukraine's Glorification of Holocaust Deniers The Israeli Foreign Ministry engaged in a rare rebuke of a foreign country for Holocaust revisionism, issuing a statement condemning Ukraine for its "public glorification" of Holocaust collaborators and "antisemitic ideologists." The statement, which was tweeted out from the official ministry Twitter account, came in response to a Ukrainian diplomat's demand that Jerusalem stay out of "internal issues of Ukrainian politics." Jerusalem asserted that preserving Holocaust memory and fighting antisemitism "are not an internal matter of any country," but rather "essential obligations and responsibilities of every Israeli diplomat." Read More... | | |
 | | Israel Hayom | | | Israel's National Library to Share Oral Histories of Sephardi Jews The National Library of Israel has begun publishing oral histories from the Sephardi Voices initiative, the first digital collection that documents and preserves the life stories of Jews who lived in Arab and Islamic countries. In addition to sharing video and audio clips of interviews, the National Library will also be making photographs from the archive public. Dr. Yoel Finkelman, curator of the Judaica Collection at the National Library, said the library has signed an agreement to cooperate with Sephardi Voices because the project addresses "a very important subject that after a long time has started to be the focus of research, as well as growing public awareness." Read More... | | |
 | | JTA | | The Granddaughter of a Cambodian Princess Had a Bat Mitzvah The granddaughter of a Cambodian princess, Elior Koroghli, celebrated her bat mitzvah recently. The festivities reflected the various parts of her heritage. Elior wore both a traditional Cambodian costume and a sparkly bat mitzvah dress, she lit a menorah as the celebration took place during Hanukkah, performed a Persian-style candle-lighting ceremony, and played traditional Jewish, Persian and Cambodian songs on the piano, including Hava Nagila. This was the first Jewish celebration for the Cambodian royal family. Read More... | | |
 | | Forbes | | | How One Jewish Family Reclaimed Its Art Looted By The Nazis A homecoming nearly 80 years in the making was finally realized in September when Diego Gradis, a generation removed from his family's hasty exit from France, received a delivery of four small drawings at his home in the small Swiss town of Rolle. They were art pieces that had once hung in his great-grandfather's mansion in Paris, had been passed down to his grandmother and later stolen by Nazi occupiers during the war. The drawings had ended up in the private, largely hidden collection of a child of Hitler's art dealer. "Looting artwork does not just deprive a person of a belonging with a financial worth, it deprives a person of part of their identity," Gradis said. Read More... | | |
 | | JNS | | | Ukraine's First Kosher Bar Stays True to Its Roots The first kosher-certified bar in the former Soviet Union recently opened in Odessa, Ukraine. With Jewish music, a weekly Torah-study group, and homemade kugel served every Thursday, Kosher Bar is trying to stay true to its Jewish roots. "This is not just a bar, but a community institution. A wholesome place you and your friends can bring your kids after a simcha," said Kosher Bar co-owner David Roitman. Read More... | | |
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Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) | | |
| | CIJA Calls on City in Quebec to Rename Sites Bearing the Name of Man Who Restricted Land Sales to Jews |  | | | | Antisemitic and racist clauses restricting the sale of real estate plots to Jews and Blacks were widespread throughout North America in the 1950s. Such covenants have since been invalidated by a Supreme Court decision dating back to the 1950s.
CIJA resolutely condemns Louis Waegener's antisemitic comments justifying the discriminatory clause used by his father to prohibit the sale and rental of his land to Jews.
In light of these comments, CIJA calls on the City of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu to do the right thing and commit to renaming the street and park bearing the Waegener name. | | | | |
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| The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) is UJA Federation's advocacy agent. | | |
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| | Acquisition of the Month |  | | | | Edgar Levy shortly after his arrival to Canada, ca. 1921. OJA, Levy Family collection, 2019-12-3. | | | | In December 2019, Nancy Levy donated her family's papers to the OJA to preserve the Levy family's story for generations to come. Her donation consisted of material documenting the Cohn and Levy family and included cards, certificates, family trees, letters, an oral history transcript, passports, telegrams and a wonderful selection of photographs. Click here to learn more. | | | | |
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| |  | | | | | The Volunteer: International Holocaust Remembrance Day
Jan 21 | 7:30pm-9:30pm | | | | Join the Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau and International Holocaust Remembrance Day with New York Times bestselling author and Washington Post war reporter, Jack Fairweather, who brings to life the unknown story of Witold Pilecki – a story of survival, revenge, and betrayal in humankind's darkest hour. Click here to get tickets. | | | |  | | | Toronto Jewish Community Night at the Movies
February 9 | 7:00pm-10:00pm | | | | Are you in South Florida? Join us at the theatre for Toronto Jewish Community Night at the Movies. Soccer and basketball dominate sports culture in Israel. When the country's baseball team entered the 2017 World Baseball Classic for the first time, ESPN dubbed them the "Jamaican bobsled team" of the tournament and perhaps the biggest underdogs ever. The documentary follows Team Israel's surprising success in the World Baseball Classic with the ultimate goal of qualifying for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. This entertaining and moving story will inspire even the slightest baseball fan. Click here to learn more. | | |
Partner Events | | | | Jan 21 | The Antisemitism Toolbox Community members are welcome to attend an informational evening to learn more about how we can combat antisemitism together. Join UJA Community Security, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), and York Regional Police at The Antisemitism Toolbox, taking place at Chabad Romano Centre. Click here to register. | | | | Featured Events | | | | |
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