Journalist who vandalized Warsaw Ghetto wall is teaching British teachers about antisemitism
(JTA) — A journalist who wrote “Free Gaza and Palestine” on the walls of the former Warsaw Ghetto has been tasked with teaching members of a British teachers union about antisemitism.
Ewa Jasiewicz, who spray-painted the slogan in Poland in 2010, has given three sessions titled “Understanding Antisemitism,” the Jewish News of London reported Tuesday.
Separately, another journalist for Sky News, Mark Stone, has apologized for writing on Twitter Tuesday to a Jewish person who had complained about antisemitism that “the ‘Jew hatred’ you experience is actually the consequence of the current Israeli government’s policies; their prolongation of an untenable occupation.”
Criticized for questioning or excusing antisemitism, Stone wrote: “Very sorry if my last Tweet suggested that anti-semitism is in anyway imagined” or caused by Israel.
Jasiewicz prior to her sessions asked participants to read materials that “challenge common Eurocentric understanding of antisemitism” and prepare to hear “four prominent black British Jews discuss their experiences of racism in the Jewish community.”
The president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Marie van der Zyl, called Jasiewicz’s role “grotesque” in a letterWednesday to the teachers union.
Last month, dozens of Jewish teachers left the union following calls by its staff for educators to join pro-Palestinian rallies.
About 230 Palestinians died last month in Israeli airstrikes launched in response to thousands of rockets fired from Gaza that led to the death of 12 people in Israel.
The conflagration triggered a major increase in antisemitic incidents in Britain, Europe and beyond.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
