Naples rabbi boycotts Yusuf concert
The chief rabbi of Naples decided not to attend a concert by Yusuf Islam, the former Cat Stevens.
Rabbi Pierpaolo Punturello, who was supposed to attend, announced just before the concert that he had changed his mind.
“I prefer not to be there because there are too many doubts regarding Yusuf’s democratic profile,” Punturello said. The rabbi said that 10 years ago, the singer financed an Islamic fundamentalist group, “and I am not aware that there have been changes since then.” — jta
Anti-Semitic attackers visit Anne Frank house
Ten Belgians convicted of an anti-Semitic attack visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. In the November attack, the 10 youths of Turkish descent threw stones and shouted anti-Semitic slogans at a group of Chassidic teens visiting Beringen, in eastern Belgium.
Sentenced to 30 hours of community service, the youths were also invited to the Anne Frank House by Belgian Cabinet Minister Peter Vanvelthoven, who accompanied them on the visit. Vanvelthoven stated that he hoped “to encourage these youths to respect the Jewish people.”
Ahmet Koc, a member of Vanvelthoven’s personal Cabinet and a board member of the Turkish Union of Belgium, accompanied the group as well, saying the incident had been simply “a misunderstanding.”
Laura Abrahams, a press officer of Vanvelthoven’s office, said the Anne Frank House had been chosen over more local sites in Belgium because “it is easier for the perpetrators to identify with a young girl in their age group than with millions of victims.” — jta
Film identifies Ireland as Nazi haven
Ireland knowingly gave safe haven to some of the Nazi regime’s most notorious criminals and collaborators, according to a new film.
“Ireland’s Nazis,’’ a television documentary produced by Irish state broadcaster RTE, focuses on a dozen Nazis who found refuge in Ireland.
Among the refugees was Andrija Artukovic, the Croatian interior minister in whose concentration camps 1 million people died. Artukovic lived in a suburb of Dublin from 1947 to 1948. His past was unknown to his neighbors, but the Irish government kept a file on him, historian Cathal O’Shannon, the documentary’s maker, told the Sunday Times.
O’Shannon estimates 100 to 200 Nazis passed through or stayed in Ireland after the end of the war. Only 60 Jewish refugees were admitted to Ireland from 1933 to 1946, the time of their greatest need under Nazi persecution. — jta
Group sues Iran conference participants
The Forum of Jewish Organizations in Antwerp filed suit against participants in a recent Holocaust-denial conference in Tehran. The Belgian lawsuit includes anyone who gave a speech questioning the Holocaust at the conference sponsored last month by the Iranian Foreign Ministry.
Holocaust denial is illegal in Belgium and is punishable by up to one year in jail and a $3,000 fine.
The purpose of the lawsuit is to cause legal problems for attendees who might want to visit Belgium, according to a Forum source. The rabbinate in Antwerp issued a declaration against conference participants and urged that the few Jewish attendees of the conference — mostly members of the fringe Neturei Karta group — be banned from Antwerp synagogues. — jta
Russian Jewish office vandalized
A Jewish community center in Ulyanovsk, Russia, was vandalized. The AEN news agency reported that earlier this month vandals threw a bottle through a second-floor window of the Jewish center in the Volga region city, shattering the glass in one office.
A leaflet with anti-Semitic threats was posted near the entrance to the center and anti-Semitic graffiti was painted on the building, local Jews reported.
The Ulyanovsk center has been vandalized before and was stormed by a group of extremist nationalists in 2003 and 2004. No one was injured in either incident. — jta
Jewish center opens in St. Petersburg
A new Jewish educational center opened in Russia’s second-largest city.
The Maor center in St. Petersburg includes a Jewish day school and kindergarten, and will host communal programs for various age groups.
The center, which contains a prayer hall and kosher kitchen, opened in a municipal building that had been vacant for several years after it was damaged in a fire.
The Chabad-led Federation of Jewish Communities arranged a long-term lease of the building and renovated it with multimillion-dollar grants from the Edmond Safra Foundation and the Ohr Avner Foundation headed by the FJC president, Lev Leviev. — jta
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California