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Friday January 26, 2007

Shorts: World

Swiss admit to Israel-Syria mediation

Switzerland confirmed that it had been mediating secret efforts to launch Israeli-Syrian peace talks. Swiss President and Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey said that top emissaries from her government were currently in Damascus.

She refused to elaborate, but the disclosure appeared to confirm a Ha’aretz report earlier this month that a European country had mediated two years of unofficial talks between a retired Israeli diplomat and a Syrian American businessman about how the two countries could resume peace talks that were cut off in 2000.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert dismissed the contacts as unauthorized, while the Syrian government called the Ha’aretz report baseless. — jta

Israeli official missing in Paris

An Israeli security official went missing in Paris. French authorities said they were searching for David Dahan, head of Israel’s Defense Ministry Mission to Europe, after he went missing from his home.

Notes left at the property suggested Dahan, who disappeared Monday, Jan. 22, may have been considering suicide, police sources said. — jta

Jewish Agency employee murdered in Russia

An employee of the Jewish Agency for Israel was murdered in Russia. Konstantin Borovko, 25, died of injuries from a severe beating. He was attacked as he left a nightclub in Vladivostok in Russia’s Far East early in the morning of Saturday, Jan. 20, the Jewish Agency said, quoting local police.

Borovko also had a journalism job with a local television station. Police said the murder was not related to his religion or either of his jobs.

Borovko, a native of Khabarovsk, in the Russian Far East, immigrated to Israel in 2002. He returned to Russia after a few years because of family circumstances, JAFI said. He had various responsibilities at the local JAFI office, first as a youth coordinator and later as an event coordinator. — jta

Book compares Holocaust, apartheid

A new South African book compares elements of the Holocaust and apartheid. “The Holocaust and Apartheid: a comparison of human rights abuses” aims to foster “a better cultural understanding between the divergent members of our South African community,” author Juliette Peires said.

Comparing the conditions under which blacks and Jews lived under the respective systems, Peires finds similarities between Nazi Germany in its initial years and apartheid South Africa.

She points out, however, that while blacks were “exploited, humiliated and treated as second-class citizens, there was no attempt to impose anything like a Final Solution.”

The book also demonstrates how both groups were targeted for discrimination through legislation. “They were both really terrible events and one doesn’t want to minimize either of them,” Peires said. — jta

Stadium renamed for Jewish soccer star

A Berlin stadium was renamed after a German Jewish soccer star who died in Auschwitz. In ceremonies on Sunday, Jan. 21, the Am Eichkamp stadium in former West Berlin was dedicated to Julius Hirsch.

The decision was prompted by an incident in April 2006 when Jewish Maccabi athletes from four countries took part in the European Maccabi Football Trophy there. The Berlin Maccabi team had wanted their home stadium to be named for Hirsch, but local sport associations opposed the idea, saying Hirsch had nothing to do with the location and in fact never played in Berlin.

Hirsch, a star player early in the 20th century, was a member of the 1912 German Olympic team in Stockholm. After the Nazis came to power in 1933, his athletic feats were erased from the record books. Hirsch was killed in 1943. — jta

Anti-Semitic attacks up in Argentina

Anti-Semitic attacks increased during the past year in Argentina. DAIA, an Argentine Jewish political umbrella group, released a study stating that 540 cases of anti-Semitism were reported in 2006.

That’s 32 percent higher than in 2005, when 376 attacks were reported. — jta

Argentine policeman fired over swastika

An Argentine police officer was fired for wearing a swastika on his jacket.

A recent photo in Argentina’s Clarin newspaper showed Leonardo Gatto, 27, a police officer in the small town of Norberto de la Riestra in Buenos Aires province, with a swastika on his jacket. Gatto was taking part in a photo session for the newspaper about motorcycle fans.

Asked by a reporter about the swastika, Gatto said it was “something usual for motorbike riders in the postwar period,” adding that he doesn’t wear it while on police duty. — jta

French politician fined for Holocaust denial

Far-right French politician Bruno Gollnisch was convicted of Holocaust denial.

Gollnisch, deputy head of Jean-Marie LePen’s National Front Party in France and a member of the European Parliament, was fined $6,450 and given a three-month suspended sentence for questioning in 2004 how many Jews died in the Holocaust and whether the Nazis had gas chambers in concentration camps.

He was also ordered to pay $71,200 to those who filed suit against him, including the nongovernmental organization SOS Racism. He was suspended from his university teaching job in Lyon for five years because of his comments.

Gollnisch called the court verdict “repressive” and plans to appeal. Earlier this week, he became head of a new far-right caucus in the European Parliament. — jta

Budapest ghetto liberation marked

Hungarian Jews commemorated the 62nd anniversary of the liberation of the Budapest ghetto.

Mayor Gabor Demszky and Economy Minister Janos Koka were among those who marked the anniversary Jan. 18 at the Dohany Street Synagogue, Europe’s largest.

In 1945, Soviet troops liberated some 70,000 Jews from the ghetto, where starvation and disease was rampant. Half of the city’s 200,000 Jews died during the Holocaust, many killed by Hungary’s own fascist party, the Arrow Cross. — jta

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