French Official Celebrates His Birthday With A Swastika Cake
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
A French city official recently turned 40, and in his honor was given a cake decorated with a swastika, Israel National News reported.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center reposted the photo of Montpelier councillor Djamel Boumaaz’s cake: white with a graham-cracker-like bottom layer, candied-cherry border and a swastika drawn in the center with black icing. The caption read: “I spent a beautiful day with my family, music, food in the home of my SS friend, then my birthday cake arrived, a gift from my SS friend.” The post was removed.
Is this to be the fate of #FrenchJewry trapped between #Neonazis and #FarRight Extremists? @djamelboumaazhttps://t.co/c4BPrCXHgq pic.twitter.com/xTucs3z7Ll
— SimonWiesenthalCntr (@simonwiesenthal) July 25, 2019
Boumaaz, a former member of France’s far-right National Front party, has reportedly been fined in the past for making inverted Nazi salutes. And in 2016, he wrote that his Twitter account was “forbidden to dogs and Jews” and also denied the Holocaust on the platform, according to Israel National News.
Alyssa Fisher is a writer at the Forward. Email her at [email protected], or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher
Why I became the Forward’s editor-in-chief
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
, editor-in-chiefSupport our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
