Right-Wing Extremist Murders Surged In 2018: ADL

January 23, 2019 By Aiden Pink

Murders at the hand of extremists were up 35% in 2018, with right-wing extremists responsible for more deaths than any other year in more than two decades, the Anti-Defamation League reported Wednesday.

The ADL’s Center on Extremism tracked 50 extremism-related murders last year, according to the new edition of its Murder and Extremism Report. All of them were conducted by right-wing extremists (one perpetrator also had alleged ties to Islamist extremism). That number made 2018 the deadliest year for right-wing extremists since the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, which killed 171.

The 2018 death toll was the fourth-highest overall regardless of category since 1970. The last four years have comprised four of the six deadliest years for extremist killings in that timeframe.

Among the murders tracked in the ADL’s analysis were the mass shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which killed 17; Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha Synagogue in Pittsburgh, which killed 11; and a Waffle House in Nashville. All of the suspects in those cases had expressed support online for far-right ideologies.

“The white supremacist attack in Pittsburgh should serve as a wake-up call to everyone about the deadly consequences of hateful rhetoric,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement. “It’s time for our nation’s leaders to appropriately recognize the severity of the threat and to devote the necessary resources to address the scourge of right-wing extremism.”

The study also found that over the last 10 years, around three-quarters of extremism-related killings were conducted by right-wing extremists, with only a quarter conducted by Islamist extremists.

Contact Aiden Pink at pink@forward.com or on Twitter, @aidenpink

News

Jewish Gravestones Used As Stairs Removed From Lithuanian Church

January 23, 2019 By Aiden Pink

A Lithuanian church has removed the Jewish gravestones that had been serving as stairs and returned them to the cemetery where they likely originated from, an organization representing Lithuanian Jewry announced Monday.

The Protestant Evangelical Church in Vilnius had been converted by the Soviet regime to a movie theater in 1957 as part of a anti-religious purge. A few years later, the Uzupis Jewish cemetery was razed to make a quarry, and headstones found their way into construction sites around the city, including to help form a 30-foot-long staircase.

The Lithuanian Jewish community has worked for years to return the headstones to the cemetery, which began to be repaired after the fall of Communism. The removal of the staircase “represents a victory in the Lithuanian Jewish Community’s long-term efforts to insure respect for the dead and the Jewish legacy in Lithuania,” the Lithuanian Jewish Community said in a statement.

In 2013, Lithuania’s chief rabbi urged the church, which had returned to become a house of worship, to remove the gravestones. The country “has many places built out of Jewish headstones,” Rabbi Chaim Burshtein told JTA. “I think the authorities and the Jewish community need to perform thorough research and correct at least this historic wrong.”

Contact Aiden Pink at pink@forward.com or on Twitter, @aidenpink

News

Ben Shapiro’s Advertisers Pull Out Over ‘Baby Hitler’ Remarks

January 23, 2019 By Alyssa Fisher

Three companies have ceased advertising on Ben Shapiro’s podcast after the conservative commentator said that “no pro-life person on earth would kill baby Hitler,” reasoning that “baby Hitler was a baby,” The Wrap reported.

Saucy, a Los Angeles-based alcohol-delivery company, was the latest company to say it would no longer advertise on the popular podcast, after Shapiro created a bizarre scenario about abortion and Adolf Hitler on it during the annual pro-life rally, March for Life, on Friday.

Quip, a Brooklyn-based subscription toothbrush company, pulled its advertising Friday.

“Following one of our ads being read in a venue we did not endorse, we have chosen to discontinue our advertising relationship with this show,” the company said in a statement. “We are also taking steps to ensure all of our advertising partners are aligned with our oral health mission and values.”

The meditation app Calm followed on Saturday, explaining that it does “not align with this message.”

The backlash came as the ardent pro-life supporter argued against killing “baby Hitler.”

“The argument, I guess here, would you kill baby Hitler?” he said. “And the truth is that no pro-life person on earth would kill baby Hitler. Because baby Hitler wasn’t Hitler — adult Hitler was Hitler. Baby Hitler was a baby.”

Ben Shapiro at March for Life: “The truth is no pro-life person would kill baby Hitler. Baby Hitler was a baby.” pic.twitter.com/PPgQcbWSrq— jordan (@JordanUhl) January 18, 2019

Alyssa Fisher is a news writer at the Forward. Email her at fisher@forward.com, or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher

Food

A Canadian Inmate Was Denied Kosher Food Because Her Background Looks Christian

January 23, 2019 By Shira Feder

Hayden Patterson, an inmate at the Surrey Pretrial centre, has filed a complaint about being denied the kosher food she requested, claiming she has identified as Jewish since she was fifteen. Lawyers for the centre argue that her background looks Christian.

“She could not point to a single connection to the Jewish community prior to her incarceration,” Surrey Pretrial lawyers wrote in the application to dismiss Patterson’s complaint, as reported by News1130.

Tribunal member Devyn Cousineau disagrees with Surrey Pretrial’s lawyers, believing it to be a gatekeeping decision, and worthy of a hearing. A member of the BC Human Rights Tribunal will hear her out.

Patterson arrived at the Centre in 2014, requesting a gluten-free, wheat-free diet, calling it “a life or death matter,” as per the filing. In August 2016, Patterson filed a request for kosher food. Prison believe the fact that Patterson waited two years to request kosher food makes her request illegitimate. Patterson’s birth mother is not Jewish, her adoptive parents are Christian, and she has a history of rejecting vegetarian meals.

The kosher approval process in Canadian prisons relies on a chaplain’s interviewing the inmate about their faith. If the chaplain can verify via a rabbi or a synagogue that the inmate was a practicing Jew, the request is approved.

Shira Feder is a writer. She’s at feder@forward.com and @shirafeder

News

EU Gave Nearly $5.7 Million To NGOs That Promote Israel Boycotts

January 23, 2019 By Marcy Oster

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The European Union gave nearly $5.7 million to organizations that promote boycotts against Israel in 2017 and 2018, a new Israeli government report found.

The money has gone to at least 10 nongovernmental organizations, including one based in Gaza, according to the report titled “The Money Trail: 2nd Edition,” released Wednesday by the Strategic Affairs Ministry.

The funding was provided by the European Union to the organizations in 2017 and multi-year funding beginning in 2018, for which full data has not been released by the EU. The report comes after a first report by the Strategic Affairs Ministry, released in May, on EU funding for 2016.

The report notes that it does not cover all EU funding to “anti-Israel boycott organizations,” but focuses on the financial support to 10 NGOs active in promoting boycotts of Israel. It asserts that the funding to the 10 NGOs is being used to promote boycotts against Israel even if it was granted for other projects due to “insufficient oversight.”

The report called on the EU to stop funding organizations that promote a boycott of Israel and to ensure full transparency of granted funds.

The EU responded that it does not support nor fund boycotts against Israel. It added, however, “Simply because an organization or individual is related to the BDS movement does not mean that this entity is involved in incitement to commit illegal acts, nor that it renders itself ineligible for EU funding.” It also said that the EU “stands firm in protecting freedom of expression.”

Recommend this article

Thank you!

Sign up for our Newsletters

Thank you!

Sign up for our Newsletters

Thank you!