Printer Friendly

Email to A Friend

Friday April 27, 2007

Shorts: U.S.

Group calls for probe of Calif. professor

A watchdog group called for a probe of a California professor whose anti-Semitic writings have long provided fodder for white supremacists.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the Southern Poverty Law Center released its report this week on Kevin MacDonald, a tenured psychology professor at California State University, Long Beach, who testified on Holocaust denier David Irving’s behalf in his failed 2000 defamation lawsuit against historian Deborah Lipstadt.

The center said MacDonald’s trilogy of books on the Jewish people argues that although they are “normally a tiny minority in their host countries, Jews, like viruses, destabilize their host societies to their benefit” by pushing “for liberal policies, like immigration and diversity, with the intent of weakening the power of the majority that rules them.”

The center called for the university to check what MacDonald is teaching in the classroom. The center’s deputy director Heidi Beirich, who wrote the report, said, “Our primary intent is not to get rid of Kevin MacDonald but to show the world who he is, what he is doing.” MacDonald said that not all instances of anti-Semitism are “irrational,” but added, “I have never talked about Jews in my courses.” — jta

Coke may settle suit by Egyptian Jew

The Zionist Organization of America canceled a planned protest at a Coca-Cola shareholders’ meeting after the company agreed to discuss settling claims that its Egyptian operations benefited from the seizure of Jewish property.

A Coca-Cola senior vice president contacted ZOA President Morton Klein last week asking what could be done to head off the protest. Klein consented to call off the protest if Coke would discuss a settlement of the issue and allow Len Getz, a former ZOA national vice president and Coca-Cola shareholder, to raise the issue with other shareholders.

Coca-Cola has sought to avoid a trial in a lawsuit brought by the Bigio family, Egyptian Jews living in Canada, who claim that property seized by state authorities in the 1960s is being used by the company’s Egyptian bottler. Coke said it does not own the property in question and has moved to try the case in Egypt. The U.S. Supreme Court denied that request last month, clearing the path for the lawsuit to proceed. In March, the ZOA called for a boycott of Coke, alleging it profited from an anti-Semitic campaign. — jta

Al Jazeera English now playing on YouTube

Al Jazeera English clips from its news programs available on YouTube, the popular video-sharing site.

Content from al Jazeera English will include a variety of segments, adding 10 to 15 new clips each week. The new global broadcaster also plans to release Web-only programming, starting with Political Bytes, a global conversation hosted by U.N. correspondent Mark Seddon, which will ask the YouTube community to carry on the conversation and add video contributions.

Al Jazeera English is an offshoot of al Jazeera, a 24/7 Arabic television channel based in Doha, Qatar. In the U.S., the English-language programs are only available through subscription satellite TV.

News clips can be viewed at www.youtube.com/aljazeeraenglish.

Hadassah head to lead Conference of Presidents

June Walker, national president of Hadassah, was tapped to chair the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

The conference’s nominating committee named Walker to succeed Harold Tanner, beginning June 1. Walker “has been a longtime leader and is highly conversant in the issues facing the Conference of Presidents. She is well known in the U.S., Israel, and Jewish communities abroad,” Tanner said in a statement released by the group. The nomination will be voted on by the conference’s 50 member organizations. — jta

Poet’s letters donated to YIVO

A Toronto widow has donated a cache of about 50 personal letters from Yiddish writer Chaim Grade to the Manhattan-based YIVO Institute.

Sally Eisner, who with her late husband Leon Eisner was a close friend to the author and helped arrange his many visits to Toronto, said the letters were handwritten in Yiddish and covered a variety of subjects.

Leo Greenbaum, an archivist at YIVO, said the letters were an “important donation” that would long be relevant to scholars of Grade’s novels and poetry. Grade, who lived from 1910-1982, is considered by many to have been the great Yiddish writer. His novel-memoir, “My Mother’s Sabbath Days,” is a stark evocation of Holocaust and Stalinist Europe. The Encyclopedia Judaica calls him the “national Jewish poet.” — jta

Kansas exhibit depicts Slovak Jews during WWII

An exhibit showing the Holocaust story of Slovak Jews is opening at a Jewish community center in Kansas.

“The Tragedy of Slovak Jews” at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City displays a large collection of photographs and artifacts of the 60,000 Slovak Jews deported to concentration camps during World War II.

Slovakia, under the leadership of fascist leader Jozef Tiso, was the only country that paid the Nazis to deport its Jewish citizens. More than 80,000 Slovak Jews were killed during the Holocaust from a prewar population of 90,000.

The exhibit was displayed starting in 2005 at the national Czech and Slovak Museum and Library in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It previously was on view at the Auschwitz Museum in Poland. — jta

New Mexico buys $5 million in bonds

New Mexico purchased $5 million in Israel Bonds. Gov. Bill Richardson announced the purchase Monday, April 23, saying that the economies of New Mexico and Israel are similar and that New Mexico is committed to strengthening trade with the Jewish state.

“Israel Bonds are a proven financial investment that we are proud to include in our portfolio,” Richardson said. “I am pleased that this purchase will help Israel move forward with important economic projects that will better the lives of its citizens.”

Israel Bonds President and CEO Joshua Matza said New Mexico’s “investment highlights the strong principles shared by the American people and the people of Israel — freedom, democratic values and the determination to surmount every challenge.” — jta

Campaign targets campus anti-Semitism

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights launched a campaign against campus anti-Semitism. The campaign will distribute postcards, e-cards and posters to students through a network of Jewish groups.

The image of a swastika scratched into tree bark above a “NO” is accompanied by a declaration, “Silence is an ally of hate,” and the campaign’s Web site, www.usccr.gov/campusanti-semitism.html.

The site informs students how they can address anti-Semitic incidents while also apprising them of First Amendment protections for hate speech. — jta

Did you find this article interesting? Subscribe to our FREE newsletter and you'll be notified each week when "J." goes online. We'll tell you about the most important stories of the week and give you a link to each one.

This page contains a BETA version of Amazon contextual links. They are marked by the dashed underline.  Your purchases support our site. At times they point to items which are not related to the actual link. Please alert us by email if you discover objectionable links.