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Friday April 25, 2008

Shorts: World

Belarusians denied Holocaust day

Belarusian Jews have been rebuffed in their efforts to establish a national Holocaust day.

“Officials tell us that there is no need for a national day of memory because there are several international Holocaust days,” said Leonid Levin, the head of the Union of Belarusian Jewish Public Associations and Communities.

Approximately 800,000 Jews perished in Belarus during World War II. — jta

Anti-Israel magazine circulates in Australia

An Australian Jewish community leader blasted a new Islamist magazine that describes Israel as “illegal and illegitimate.”

New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies Chief Executive Vic Alhadeff said the Idialogue: An Islamic Ideological Viewpoint was “an outrage in terms of the vicious language it uses to denigrate Israel.”

The first edition of the Idialogue, a 42-page glossy quarterly publication sold on Sydney university campuses this month, has a map of Israel on the front cover with the words “Muslim land — not for sale” printed across it.

Inside it reprints a 1935 fatwa warning against the sale of land to Zionists in Palestine as well as an article on the Palestinian conflict, saying “the holiest of Islamic lands is in the hands of the unholiest — the illegal and illegitimate state of Israel.”

Members of the hard-line Islamist organization Hizb-ut Tahrir, which is banned in much of Europe but not in Britain or Australia, reportedly are writing and producing the magazine. — jta

Bronze plaques stolen from Terezin

Hundreds of bronze plaques were stolen from the cemetery at the former Terezin concentration camp.

Officials from the Terezin memorial and museum said last week’s theft of 327 plaques containing the names of Holocaust victims had more to do with the bronze rather than any political statements.

The officials added that security at the site north of Prague is lacking because of financial problems. Restoring the plaques with a cheaper resin material to discourage thieves would cost $64,000, they said. — jta

French agency marks milestone

France’s central Jewish agency marked its 200th anniversary last week.

The celebration for Le Consistoire at the Great Synagogue of Victory Square, the central synagogue of Paris, featured a speech by Prime Minister Francois Fillon — the first time a standing prime minister spoke officially in a synagogue.

“There is nothing in the future of France that should worry the Jews of this country,” Fillon told a crowd of several hundred that included community notables, leaders of the Catholic and Protestant churches, the Muslim rector and members of the Jewish community. “We are constructing our future together.”

Le Consistoire, created by Napoleon to administer France’s Jewish community, is the oldest and largest Jewish institution in Europe. — jta

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