Weekly roundup of world briefs

Ohio GOP Congressman posts Nazi health card in attack on DC vaccine mandate

By Ron Kampeas

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Warren Davidson, a Republican Congressman from Ohio, posted a photo of a Nazi-era health pass and compared Washington, D.C.’s vaccine mandate to the Nazis’ dehumanization of Jews in urging local residents not to comply.

Jewish groups and Jewish Democrats blasted Davidson for the comparison, which appeared in a tweet commenting on new vaccine instructions shared by Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser.

“This has been done before,” Davidson said Wednesday on Twitter, posting a Nazi-era health pass that appears to be from a website selling Nazi memorabilia and has been circulating on the internet among anti-vaccine activists. He added the hashtag “#DoNotComply.”

Starting Saturday, anyone 12 and older will need to show proof of at least one vaccine shot before entering D.C. restaurants and other indoor venues.

“Let’s recall that the Nazis dehumanized Jewish people before segregating them, segregated them before imprisoning them, imprisoned them before enslaving them, and enslaved them before massacring them,” Davidson tweeted.

Davidson was the latest Republican to liken vaccine mandates and public health measures to Nazi-era regulations, a practice condemned by Jewish and Holocaust remembrance groups.

“In what is becoming a disturbing trend, @WarrenDavidson is the latest elected official to exploit the Holocaust by making immoral and offensive comparisons between vaccine mandates and this dark period of history,” the American Jewish Committee said on Twitter. “Congressman, you must remove this shameful post and apologize.’

Ohio State Rep. Casey Weinstein, a Democrat in that state legislature’s Jewish caucus, pleaded with Davidson to retract the tweet. “Congressman, a vaccine requirement meant to PROTECT lives is NOT the same thing as the systematic GENOCIDAL MURDER of 6,000,000 Jews,” he said on Twitter.

Jewish groups rally for victims of deadly Bronx fire

By Andrew Silow-Carroll

(New York Jewish Week via JTA) — New York’s Jewish community is rallying for victims and first responders after the city’s deadliest fire in 30 years.

Nineteen people, including nine children, were killed in the blaze in the Bronx, which raged through a 19-story high rise on East 181st Street, which was home to a large African immigrant community. Firefighters found victims on nearly every floor.

In the hours after the fire, the Masbia network of kosher food pantries set up a relief tent near the scene of the tragedy, serving food to survivors and responders.

Masbia also teamed up with Boro Park Shomrim, the Jewish neighborhood patrol in Brooklyn, to purchase and distribute emergency supplies, beverages and snacks. (Masbia is collecting donations here.)

SAR Academy, the Jewish day school in Riverdale, announced it is is raising funds to help the victims. The Riverdale Jewish Center is also accepting monetary donations, and drop-off boxes will be available at the synagogue on 3700 Independence Ave.

UJA-Federation of New York tweeted, “Our hearts ache for the victims of this horrific tragedy and their loved ones. We’re in touch with government officials and our partner agencies in the Bronx to assist in any way possible.”

The Jewish Community Relations Council of NY issued a statement, saying it is in “active discussion about how to best help the victims with this trauma,” and noting that many of the victims were Muslims.

Yad Vashem partners with genealogy database to boost access to Holocaust records

(JNS) — New York City’s Museum of Jewish Heritage–A Living Memorial to the Holocaust and its genealogy affiliate JewishGen has announced a new partnership with Yad Vashem that will enable the public to gain more access to genealogical records.

“By making available these precious records via JewishGen, the broader Jewish community can more easily research names of family and friends who were murdered during the Holocaust,” said Museum of Jewish Heritage president and CEO Jack Kliger. “The agreement facilitates access to the resources of our museum and Yad Vashem, two of the most prestigious Holocaust memorial institutions in the world.”

The partnership will allow researchers to access Yad Vashem’s Pages of Testimony when doing a genealogical search on the JewishGen website, which is the largest online resource for Jewish genealogy and includes nearly 3.8 million Holocaust records.

JewishGen executive director Avraham Groll said that “this common access to data from both institutions will directly benefit researchers by increasing the likelihood that they will find useful information.”

In the 1950s, Yad Vashem began collecting the Pages of Testimony, in which the public can memorialize family members and friends killed in the Holocaust. They contain names, biographical details and photos of those killed in the Holocaust. To date, Yad Vashem has gathered some 2.7 million such pages.

Alexander Avram, director of Yad Vashem’s Hall of Names, said: “More than 1 million Holocaust victims have yet to be memorialized at Yad Vashem. It is our expectation that by widening the exposure of our endeavor through JewishGen, the genealogical community will be able to play an important role in helping us add a large number of Pages of Testimony in the years to come.”

Two IDF officers killed in friendly-fire incident

By Lilach Shoval and JNS staff

(Israel Hayom via JNS) — Two Israel Defense Forces Commando Brigade officers were killed on Wednesday night in a friendly fire incident during a patrol near their base in the Jordan Valley, the IDF said on Thursday morning. IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi will personally oversee the investigation, the military said.

Maj. Ofek Aharon, 28, and Maj. Itamar Elharar, 26, both platoon commanders in the IDF’s Egoz special forces unit, identified a suspicious individual while on patrol near the Nabi Musa base, according to the military.

They initiated an arrest procedure, including firing into the air. Another officer in the area misidentified them as hostiles and opened fire, killing both.

IDF Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Ran Kochav told Army Radio that the military will task a senior officer to head the inquest into the incident, in addition to the routine investigation launched by the Military Police.

“This is a very sad morning,” said Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in a statement.

“I would like to send heartfelt condolences to the families of the two officers who were killed overnight in a tragic accident. The two commanders had dedicated their best years to the security of Israel and defending our homeland. The entire people of Israel mourns for them,” he said.

“The IDF is investigating the difficult incident and the necessary lessons will be learned. May their memories be blessed.”

This is an edited version of an article that first appeared in Israel Hayom.

Syrian surface-to-surface missile site exposed, ‘threatens most of Israel’

(JNS) — A fortified compound north of Palmyra in eastern Syria is equipped with medium-range and long-range surface-to-surface ballistic missiles, a new report by the Israeli Alma Research and Education Center said on Wednesday.

The site is in use by the radical Shi’ite axis led by Iran, said the report.

“In our estimation, the medium-range missiles are of the Fateh 110 type or Shahab 1 or Shahab 2, ranging from 300 kilometers to 500 kilometers (187 miles to 312 miles). The long-range missiles are Scud D (a Russian-made missile owned by Iran, the Syrian army and also by Hezbollah) or Zolfaghar (a long-range version of Fatah 110) that reach a range of up to 750 kilometers (468 miles),” assessed the Alma Center.

“It should be noted that Fatah 110 missiles (also called M600) constitute the main array of Hezbollah’s medium-range missiles and Hezbollah’s missile accuracy project focuses on them,” noted the report.

“The missiles mentioned above can threaten almost the entire territory of the State of Israel,” said the report, with ranges reaching as far south as Beersheva.

These missiles can also threaten U.S. military positions in northeast and southeast Syria.

The report identified the Palmyra area as a significant part of the land corridor within Syria used by the Iranian-Shi’ite axis, which has heavily deployed forces there.

It’s also highly likely “that air-defense systems (probably made in Iran) were installed to secure the land corridor in general and the surface-to-surface missiles stationed there in particular,” it said.

NYPD Hate Crimes Task Forces arrests suspect for attack on two Jewish men

(JNS) — Detectives with the New York City Police Department’s Hate Crimes Task Force arrested Suleiman Othman, a 27-year-old man from Staten Island, N.Y., on Tuesday, for assaulting a Jewish man in Brooklyn, N.Y., late last month.

Othman is being charged with third-degree assault, along with aggravated harassment and hate-crime charges.

Blake Zavadsky and Ilan Kaganovic, both 21, were standing outside a store in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn on Dec. 27 when two men started yelling at them and calling them “dirty Jews.”

According to police, Othman then struck Zavadsky in the face at least twice; Zavadsky was wearing a sweatshirt with the emblem of the Israel Defense Forces on it at the time.

Hamas: ‘IDF-trained dolphin’ equipped with ‘device’ is fishing for information

(JNS) — A representative from Hamas’s military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, made an extraordinary claim in a video this week, stating that the terrorist organization discovered a dolphin trained by the Israel Defense Forces to track Hamas naval forces, according to a report by I24 on Wednesday.

Citing the Jerusalem-based Al-Quds Arabic newspaper, the report noted the spokesperson as saying that the dolphin was also equipped with “a device” that was subsequently displayed later in the video.

It also stated that “dolphins have historically been used by the Russian and U.S. militaries to locate underwater mines.”

In 2015, Hamas claimed that it uncovered a “spy dolphin” that was allegedly carrying “surveillance equipment” placed on it by the Israeli military, the BBC reported at the time.

Hamas said at the time that its commandos noticed the dolphin making “suspicious movements” near their training zone before capturing the animal.

In 2013, the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Manar television channel claimed that a bird employed by Israel to spy on targets in Lebanon had been captured on its territory.

Germany’s DW website stated that in 2010, unnamed Egyptian officials claimed that Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad, “trained sharks to attack tourists.”

Iran’s foreign minister and chief of Hamas meet in Qatar

(JNS) — Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian met with Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Doha on Tuesday.

According to a report published in Iran’s Mehr News Agency, the foreign minister said Tehran condemns “the child-killing Israeli regime” that the West supports.

Amir-Abdollahian also slammed Israel for what he said were “brutal crimes of the Zionist occupiers in Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.”

He also stressed Tehran’s complete support for the legitimate defense of the Palestinian people and resistance groups against “the occupation of the Zionist regime.”

Haniyeh thanked Iran for its support for the Palestinians and called for a united front of Islamic, Arab and other countries against Israel.

Top Iranian general: ‘The Saud clan are actually the Jews who fought Muhammad’

(MEMRI via JNS) — A senior Iranian general said last week that the House of Saud are actually the same Jews that once resisted Muhammad.

In an address aired by Iran’s Bushehr TV on Jan. 7, Gen. Alireza Tangsiri, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, said, “We cannot bear to see injustice in a Muslim country that is perpetrated by the Zionists and the seed of the Jews.”

“[We cannot bear to see] that Muslims are being slaughtered by people who call themselves Christians but are not,” he added.

“These are the very same Jews—and I’d better say Zionists—whose hearts have never aligned with Islam, and even with the Prophet in his time,” said Tangsiri.

“The grudge that the enemies harbored towards [former IRGC Quds Force commander] Hajj [Qassem] Soleimani resembles their grudge towards [Shi’ite religious figure] Imam Hussein in Karbala. It also resembles (the grudge) in the wars of Uhud and Khaybar, by Jews who are only Muslim by name. This grudge still exists. Are the Saud clan really Muslims? They are the same Jews who were in Arabia back then,” concluded Tangsiri.

This article was first published by the Middle East Media Research Institute. 

Neo-Nazi leader sentenced to 7 years in prison for distributing antisemitic flyers

By Shira Hanau

(JTA) — The leader of a Neo-Nazi group that distributed threatening antisemitic flyers to local Jewish residents, journalists and activists who tried to expose antisemitism in Seattle was sentenced to seven years in prison on Tuesday.

Kaleb Cole, a leader of the Neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen, was convicted on several counts, including interfering with a federally protected activity because of religion, mailing threatening communications and conspiring to commit offenses against the United States, according to Axios.

“The defendant led a multi-state plot by a neo-Nazi group to threaten and intimidate journalists and advocates who were doing important work to expose anti-Semitism around the country. The Justice Department will continue to investigate and prosecute these hateful acts,” Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, Atomwaffen is a Neo-Nazi group that was formed in 2016 and has already been connected to several murders as well as numerous antisemitic actions. The word “Atomwaffen” is German for atomic weapons and the group’s logo includes a Nazi Waffen SS symbol.

Cole created posters that read “you have been visited by your local Nazis” that were then distributed to local Jewish residents, journalists and activists in January 2020. The flyers also contained images, including one of a Molotov cocktail being lobbed at a house.

Some of the people targeted by the Atomwaffen flyers moved out of their homes or installed security systems after receiving the posters, according to the Justice Department

Two IDF officers killed in friendly-fire incident

By Lilach Shoval and JNS staff

(Israel Hayom via JNS) — Two Israel Defense Forces’ Commando Brigade officers were killed on Wednesday night in a friendly-fire incident during a patrol near their base in the Jordan Valley, the IDF said on Thursday morning. IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi will personally oversee the investigation, the military said.

Maj. Ofek Aharon, 28, and Maj. Itamar Elharar, 26—both platoon commanders in the IDF’s Egoz special forces unit—identified a suspicious individual while on patrol near the Nabi Musa base, according to the military.

They initiated an arrest procedure, including firing into the air. Another officer in the area misidentified them as hostiles and opened fire, killing both.

IDF Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Ran Kochav told Army Radio that the military will task a senior officer to head the inquest into the incident, in addition to the routine investigation launched by the Military Police.

“This is a very sad morning,” said Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in a statement.

“I would like to send heartfelt condolences to the families of the two officers who were killed overnight in a tragic accident. The two commanders had dedicated their best years to the security of Israel and defending our homeland. The entire people of Israel mourns for them,” he said.

“The IDF is investigating the difficult incident and the necessary lessons will be learned. May their memories be blessed.”

This is an edited version of an article that first appeared in Israel Hayom.