Jews in Europe are voicing increasing consternation about Israel’s budding engagement with surging far-right European parties that have anti-Semitic histories. In Poland, Austria and the halls of the World Jewish Congress, among other places, Diaspora activists are raising sharp questions about the morality of Jerusalem’s foreign policy. “We should not abandon our heritage and cut…
Talk about Viennese chutzpah. Six decades after it was founded by former Nazis, Austria’s Freedom Party (FPO) is courting Jewish voters, hoping that its anti-Muslim message will resonate with the tiny community and help it overcome lingering accusations of anti-Semitism. Jewish leaders are dismissive but the party, like others on the European far right, appears…
(JTA) — President Reuven Rivlin of Israel said he will “never condone” Israeli representatives meeting with representatives of the European far right. Rivlin sent a letter to the Vienna Jewish community in response to a message from its head, Oskar Deutsch, and World Jewish Congress Vice President Ariel Muzicant in which they criticized Israeli politicians…
(JTA) — Rabbis in Vienna condemned the chief rabbi of Russia for meeting the head of Austria’s far-right Freedom Party. Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar met this week with Heinz-Christian Strache and his delegation at his office in Moscow, the UK Jewish News reported. The meeting came two weeks after the Freedom Party candidate for…
— Austrian lawmakers voted to dispossess the home where Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was born. The vote Wednesday night followed years of the German border town of Braunau and later the national government trying to purchase the home from its owners. In October, the Austrian government initiated legal procedures to dispossess the home from its…
On Sunday, Austria put a halt to the seemingly unstoppable surge of far right populism in Europe. Yes, Austria of all places. Green Party-turned-independent candidate, Alexander Van der Bellen, decisively won the presidential election against Norbert Hofer of the far right Freedom Party. The votes by Austrians living abroad – like me – are still…
Austria’s most infamous son, Adolf Hitler, is rarely mentioned in his home country. So it came as a shock to many when presidential candidate Alexander Van der Bellen reached into a folder during a recent live TV debate and produced a photo montage including two images of the Fuehrer. The former Greens leader was complaining…
An octogenarian Holocaust survivor made an emotional video plea urging fellow citizens to vote against Norbert Hofer, a far-right candidate in Austria’s presidential election who stands a good chance of winning power this December. “When they made the Jews clean the streets, the people of Vienna stood there, men and women, and said ‘Look at…
100% of profits support our journalism
