Weekly roundup of world briefs

Suspected oil spill may be worst in Israel’s history

By Ron Kampeas

(JTA) — Israel closed its Mediterranean beaches to deal with what its officials say may be the worst oil spill in the country’s history.

The Israel Nature and Parks Authority on Sunday called the suspected spill one of the “greatest ecological disasters to afflict Israel since the founding of the state.” It said that 170 out of 190 kilometers of coastline, or 105 out of 118 miles, have been affected by the spill. The consequences will be felt for years, its statement said.

Thousands of volunteers are cleaning tar off the beaches and animals, including birds and turtles, have been found covered with tar. The Israeli army said it would also send soldiers to help with the cleanup.

It’s not clear what ship is responsible for the spill, which is believed to have occurred around Feb. 11 some 20 miles from shore.

“We are making every effort to find those responsible for the disaster,” Gila Gamliel, Israel’s environment minister, said on Twitter.

Netanyahu: Equatorial Guinea plans to move embassy to Jerusalem

By Ron Kampeas

(JTA) — Equatorial Guinea is the latest country that plans to move its embassy to Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

The pledge came in a conversation Friday with the oil-rich African nation’s president, Teodoro Mbasogo, Netanyahu’s office said.

Netanyahu has throughout his 11 years in continuous leadership pressed for greater Israeli engagement with Africa. Netanyahu “noted that Israel is continuing to deepen its cooperation with African countries and said that Israel is returning to Africa and Africa is returning to Israel in a big way,” his office’s statement said.

The United States and Guatemala have moved their embassies to Jerusalem since 2018, and about half a dozen other countries have pledged to do so as part of a diplomatic initiative launched by former President Donald Trump.

A handful of nations had embassies in Jerusalem until the early 1980s; most keep embassies in Tel Aviv, not recognizing Israel’s claim to the city until its status is resolved in a peace deal with the Palestinians.

US deports 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard back to Germany

By Philissa Cramer

(JTA) – A year after an immigration judge ordered him deported to Germany because of his work as a Nazi guard, Friedrich Karl Berger is back in his native country.

Berger, 95, served at a subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp system near Hamburg, where an immigration court in early 2020 found that Jews and others had been held in “atrocious” conditions. He entered the United States from Canada in 1959 and lived for many years in Tennessee, receiving a pension throughout from Germany for his military service.

Last year, a judge ordered Berger removed under a 1978 law, known as the Holtzman Amendment, that bars anyone who participated in Nazi-sponsored persecution from entering or living in the United States. An appeals board upheld the decision in November 2020.

“This case shows that the passage even of many decades will not deter the [U.S. Department of Justice] from pursuing justice on behalf of the victims of Nazi crimes,” Acting Attorney General Monty Wilkinson said in a statement.

Berger’s deportation comes as the window closes to prosecute individual perpetrators of the Holocaust. He was 19 when he was assigned to guard prisoners shortly before the camp was liberated by Allied forces. Earlier this month, Germany announced that it would try a 95-year-old woman who, also at 19, had served as the secretary to a concentration camp commander for her role in the murder of 10,000 Jews.

Orthodox Amazon sellers say they’re squeezed by new 6-day-a-week shipping requirement

By Ron Kampeas

(JTA) — A change in requirements for participating in a select Amazon delivery program is posing potentially insurmountable challenges for Orthodox sellers.

As of Feb. 1, Amazon businesses that deliver from non-Amazon warehouses through Amazon Prime, a subscription service that includes free two-day delivery, must agree to fulfill orders six days a week.

The sellers may choose Saturday or Sunday delivery to fulfill their six-day-a-week commitment, but shipping carriers like FedEx and UPS offer limited or no pickup on Sundays. Observant Jews do not do business on the Jewish Sabbath, from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday.

Orthodox sellers make up a disproportionate share of third-party sellers, according to a 2019 Buzzfeed report that explored the connections between Amazon’s marketplace and Orthodox communities.

The Free Beacon, a politically conservative website, on Friday reported that the new policy is driving out businesses run by observant Jews, citing group chats it had reviewed.

Amazon told the Free Beacon that Prime sellers had more than five months’ advance notice of the policy to come up with accommodations and that it had dedicated staff to assist the businesses. The Free Beacon said it had heard from Orthodox businesses that Amazon was unresponsive.

StandWithUs, a pro-Israel non-profit, has proposed to Amazon that it allow sellers to turn off their Amazon Prime badge during Shabbat, meaning that shoppers would not be promised quick shipping during that time.

‘I’m Jewish now’: Rapper Azealia Banks ignites social media storm with wedding announcement

By Gabe Friedman

(JTA) — Incendiary rapper Azealia Banks announced her engagement to artist Ryder Ripps by posting a photo on Instagram of a ring with a menorah on it and writing “I’m Jewish now. MAZEL TOV BITCHES!” in the caption.

Some social media users took issue with the proclamation, implying that Banks could not assume a Jewish identity by marrying a Jewish person or that wearing a symbol of Judaism was disrespectful. Banks — who is known for getting into feuds with public figures on Twitter — shot back.

Here’s one representative exchange, which ends with Banks declaring, “I’m a jewcy diva now.”

In another exchange, Banks likened her connection to Judaism to the gender identity of transgender people, in an analogy that some decried as transphobic.

Banks is no stranger to controversy. In 2016, during one of her high profile Twitter rants, she directed racial epithets at Pakistani-English pop star Zayn Malik and lost her slot at a U.K. music festival.

Ripps is a 34-year-old art director and conceptual artist who has not made a Jewish identity part of his public persona. His father Rodney, also an artist, once showed some of his art in an exhibit at New York City’s Jewish Museum on “Jewish Themes.”

Sacha Baron Cohen says his days of disguise pranks are over

By Gabe Friedman

(JTA) — Sacha Baron Cohen says his days of dressing up as characters such as Borat Sagdiyev, the anti-Semitic Kazakh journalist that made the Jewish actor a star, are behind him.

He said he has been sued and nearly arrested over the course of filming his movies and shows, most of which involve a disguised Cohen tricking the people around him into saying or doing absurd things.

“At some point, your luck runs out. And so I never wanted to do this stuff again,” he told NPR’s Terry Gross on Monday.

While filming the sequel to the massively popular 2006 “Borat” film last year, he said he feared for his life when told that he should wear a bulletproof vest to a gun rally because there was a chance he could get shot.

“I was very aware that once the crowd realized that I was a fake, that it could turn really ugly and it could be really dangerous,” he added.

In one lawsuit involving “Borat 2,” the daughter of a Holocaust survivor who was featured in the film but who died before it debuted sued Cohen, claimed that her mother was “horrified” that he tricked her into appearing in a comedy. In the movie, the survivor, Judith Dim Evans, tells part of her Holocaust story and helps point out Borat’s misplaced anti-Semitism.

Another prominent lawsuit Cohen faced in 2020 came from Roy Moore, the disgraced former candidate for Senate in Alabama who appeared in Cohen’s Showtime series “Who is America?” Cohen, disguised as an Israeli terrorism expert, demonstrates what he calls a pedophile-detecting device that beeps when it comes near Moore — who was accused of sexually harassing or assaulting multiple women.

Long afraid to show his face much in public, Cohen has made more regular media appearances in recent years. In 2019, he spoke at an Anti-Defamation League conference and called social media “the greatest propaganda machine in history.” He has since singled out Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg as an enabler of Holocaust denial and other forms of anti-Semitism online in multiple interviews.

CPAC cancels speaker who said Judaism is a ‘complete lie’

By Ben Sales

(JTA) — CPAC, the conservative political conference, has canceled the appearance of a speaker who has made several derogatory comments about Jews on social media.

Young Pharaoh, an online commentator and promoter of conspiracy theories, was set to speak on a panel at CPAC, which is being held in Florida at the end of the month. The conference is traditionally a gathering of leading Republican and conservative officials and figures, and will include former President Donald Trump this year, along with other politicians.

But Young Pharaoh has been removed from the program following a report by Media Matters, a liberal media watchdog, calling attention to Young Pharaoh’s anti-Semitic tweets. He has called Judaism a “complete lie,” referred to “thieving Jews” and said Israeli Jews commit pedophilia online.

“All the #censorship & #pedophilia ON #socialmedia is being done by #Israeli #Jews!!,” he wrote. “All #YouTube, #Twitter, #Facebook, & #Instagram are all owned or controlled directly by them!!”

He has also promoted conspiracy theories including QAnon, the pro-Trump conspiracy theory with anti-Semitic roots.

Following the Media Matters report, CPAC tweeted that a speaker with “reprehensible views” had been removed from the conference program. Young Pharaoh no longer appears on the CPAC website.

“We have just learned that someone we invited to CPAC has expressed reprehensible views that have no home with our conference or our organization,” CPAC tweeted. “The individual will not be participating at our conference.”

The theme of this year’s CPAC is “America Uncanceled.”

Brooklyn auction house suspends sale of stolen 19th-century document

By Cnaan Liphshiz

(JTA) — An auction house in New York suspended the sale of a document that a Jewish community in Romania said had been stolen from it.

Kestenbaum & Company, a Brooklyn firm that has specialized in the care of rare Judaic material culture for 25 years, on Wednesday pulled off its catalog what the Jewish Community of Cluj says is a 19th-century ledger from its Jewish burial society.

“The handwritten register has great value as a historical document, covering over 50 years of the history of the Orthodox Jewish Community, right from the year of the founding of the Society in 1836, but it is also a valuable art object, due to its exceptional aesthetic presentation,” the Jewish community wrote in a statement published Monday.

The ledger disappeared during the Holocaust and therefore is “stolen property,” the letter said.

The World Jewish Restitution Organization also said it had asked the auction, which was scheduled to begin Thursday, not to go through.

“Any item that passes through our hands is subject to detailed investigation in this regard,” a Kestenbaum spokesperson told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in an email. “Consequently, in respect to recently acquired information, Lot 33 has been withdrawn from our Judaica auction scheduled for Thursday February 18th.”

Jon Ossoff, Shira Haas and Doja Cat make Time’s 100 emerging leaders list

By Gabe Friedman

(JTA) — The Jewish stars Jon Ossoff, Shira Haas and Doja Cat were named to the Time100 Next list, Time magazine’s annual list of “100 emerging leaders who are shaping the future.”

Ossoff, the millennial who was sworn into Congress with multiple totems of his heritage, helped Democrats regain control of the Senate along with fellow Georgian Raphael Warnock. Read about his Black-Jewish partnership with Warnock here, and his Jewish background here.

“Witnessing the recent election of Jon Ossoff to the U.S. Senate from Georgia, I saw a moment of recompense and redemption for Black and Jewish Americans in the South, and the U.S. as a whole,” Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter Bernice wrote in her text for the Time list.

Haas earned global acclaim last year for her performance in “Unorthodox,” a Netflix series loosely based on Deborah Feldman’s memoir about leaving her Hasidic community in Brooklyn. Feldman wrote on Haas for Time.

“[W]hen Shira Haas played Esty in ‘Unorthodox’ … I could see she had a reverence and respect for the material,” Feldman said.

Doja Cat is a wildly popular Grammy-nominated rapper born to a Jewish mother and non-Jewish South African father. Her blurb was written by Lil Nas X, the artist known for blending country and rap on his recordbreaking song “Old Town Road.”

“She’s an inspiration to me, and I can’t wait to see what she does next,” he wrote.

Zach Banner and other Black athletes hold online panel about fighting anti-Semitism

By Gabe Friedman

(JTA) — Prominent Black athletes Zach Banner, Josh Bell and Alysha Clark came together with the rabbi of Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue for a panel about fighting anti-Semitism on Wednesday night.

Banner, an offensive lineman for the Pittsburgh Steelers, has been outspoken about anti-Semitism spread by athletes, including fellow NFLer DeSean Jackson last year.

“We preach to identify to the Black and brown people in the city of Pittsburgh. But you can’t do that by turning off the light on Squirrel Hill, Shady Side and other Jewish communities that we have,” Banner said at the panel.

Banner said that Bell, formerly a first baseman for the Pittsburgh Pirates and now a member of the Washington Nationals, first inspired him to become more involved in social issues. Bell said at the panel that the 2018 Tree of Life shooting, which killed 11 worshippers, “opened up my eyes to what’s really going [on].”

“And then this past year, with [the deaths of] Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, specifically that incident in New York in Central Park, just realizing that they’re one in the same, that hatred is one in the same,” Bell said. “That idea that one person is less than the next because of history or because of skin color or because of religion, I think that that is something that we all need to educate ourselves on.”

Clark, a WNBA star who has won multiple championships on different teams, is Black and Jewish. Also joining the panel was the director of the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh, Lauren Bairnsfather.

After Jackson shared anti-Semitic language by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan on social media last summer, an array of Black public figures spoke out about anti-Semitism in the Black community, including former athletes and commentators.

Earlier this month, 170 Black and Jewish entertainment industry leaders formed a Black-Jewish Entertainment Alliance.

Howie Mandel, Bob Saget and other celebrities to read the Purim story for charity

By Gabe Friedman

(JTA) — A slew of Jewish comedians are teaming up for a Purim event to raise money for the Met Council, a Jewish charity fighting poverty in New York City.

Howie Mandel, Bob Saget, Jeff Garlin, Susie Essman, Jeff Ross, Judy Gold and more will perform an online Purim spiel, or comic reading of the holiday’s biblical story, on Monday. It will be broadcast here at 8 p.m. eastern time.

Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, a puppet character voiced by Jewish comedian Robert Smigel, will join the festivities as well. So will the famed non-Jewish standup comedian Russell Peters and the non-comedian Bari Weiss, the former New York Times opinion editor known for her writings about anti-Semitism.

“The story of Purim is a story of perseverance and hope — just what we need during these dark Covid times,” said Met Council CEO David Greenfield.

The Purim holiday, which commemorates the saving of the Jews of ancient Persia from the murderous Haman and King Ahasuerus, has traditionally been observed with riotous celebration. Part of the fun is the spiel, a humorous retelling of the holiday story.