Israel

Israeli issues concerning the Holocaust in Eastern Europe. Israeli-Baltic, Israeli-Lithuanian, and Israeli-Latvian issues. Israeli “payments” for Baltic political support and the views of survivors and their constituencies. Tracking Yad Vashem’s political department vis-a-vis these issues.
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Please see the related page ISRAEL CHRONICLE, at:
https://defendinghistory.com/israel-debates/43340
*
Page on the “political department” of Yad Vashem:
https://defendinghistory.com/category/political-pressure-on-yad-vashem

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Estonia’s Severe Case of Holocaust Amnesia



O P I N I O N

by Efraim Zuroff

From today’s Times of Israel.


 

The visit to Israel of a foreign prime minister used to be a big deal. That’s why there were so many photos of Burmese head of state U Nu’s visit in the early sixties. Those days, however, are long gone and today when most prime ministers visit us it’s usually of little or no interest to anybody and they get almost no coverage unless they are major world figures.

That would help explain why I only found out Tuesday morning that Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip was to be touring Yad Vashem that day.

Ostensibly, that is no occasion of any particular significance, and the visit is more or less a pro forma requirement for any head of state coming to Israel in that capacity, especially if he or she has never been here before. But that is not true in the case of the Estonian leader, who heads a country that is suffering from a severe Baltic variant of post-Communist Eastern European Holocaust amnesia. This is an intellectual disease whose four main characteristics are a systematic minimization of crimes by local Nazi collaborators, a distinct lack of political will to prosecute and punish such individuals, a tendency to glorify locals who fought alongside the Nazis – in Estonia’s case in Waffen-SS units – and a determination to promote the historical canard of supposed equivalency between Nazi and Communist crimes.

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Posted in Double Genocide, Efraim Zuroff, Estonia, Israel, News & Views, Opinion | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Estonia’s Severe Case of Holocaust Amnesia

Holocaust Survivors in Israel Protest Neo-Nazi March in Kaunas


Letter from Holocaust survivors Feb 2013

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Events, Israel, Joseph Melamed, Kaunas, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views | Comments Off on Holocaust Survivors in Israel Protest Neo-Nazi March in Kaunas

The Last Public Statement of Former Israeli Knesset Member Marina Solodkin


One of the last photos of Dr. Marina Solodkin, who came to protest the Waffen SS march in Riga on March 16th 2013, shortly before her sudden death in her hotel room. Photo by Juris Kaža.

Marina Solodkin (1952 — 2013)

Dr. Marina Solodkin, 60, a Moscow native and former member of the Israeli Knesset, died in her hotel room, of an apparent heart attack or stroke, in Riga, the capital of Latvia, on March 16th. She had come to join activities to protest this year’s Waffen SS march earlier that day. [UPDATE: See now reports in Arutz Sheva, Haaretz, Jerusalem Post, Jewish PressJTAThe Times of IsraelYNet; a brief biography appears on the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s website.]

A screen-capture of Dr. Solodkin’s final Facebook posting, from Israel on March 15th before setting off for Riga, appears below. It translates:

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Posted in Celebrations of Fascism, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Israel, Latvia, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Obituaries | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on The Last Public Statement of Former Israeli Knesset Member Marina Solodkin

Facebook Discussion of 23-29 April 2013 on the May 2013 Global Forum in Jerusalem


A paste-in of the Facebook discussion to date on the upcoming Global Forum conferences in Jerusalem is available at:

https://defendinghistory.com/facebook-discussion-on-2013-global-forum-23-29-april-2013.

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Efraim Zuroff, Israel, Monica Lowenberg, News & Views, Opinion | Comments Off on Facebook Discussion of 23-29 April 2013 on the May 2013 Global Forum in Jerusalem

Genocide Center in Vilnius Responds to the List of Alleged Holocaust Perpetrators Published by the Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel



Editor’s note:  The following is an English translation by Geoff Vasil of an article that appeared on Delfi.lt on October 25, 2013. The images that appeared with the original Lithuanian text are not reproduced here.

In 1999, The Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel published Crime and Punishment, compiled after many years of work, by its chairman, Tel Aviv attorney Joseph Melamed, a native of Kovno (Kaunas), Holocaust survivor and veteran of the Jewish partisan resistance in Lithuania and of the Israeli War of Independence. In the late 1990s, Mr. Melamed wrote repeatedly to Lithuanian prosecutors, explaining that some Holocaust perpetrators and witnesses were still alive and investigations could be pursued.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Debates on Juozas Lukša, Genocide Center (Vilnius), History, Israel, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Views of Prof. Sarunas Liekis | Tagged , | Comments Off on Genocide Center in Vilnius Responds to the List of Alleged Holocaust Perpetrators Published by the Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel

Efraim Zuroff’s Speech at the 28 October 2013 Annual Memorial Program of the Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel [in Hebrew]



דבריו של ד″ר אפרים זורוף באזכרה השנתית לקורבנות השואה בליטא

 כ″ה חשון תשע″ד 28/10/2013

 

ערב טוב לכולם,

עו″ד יוסף מלמד בקש ממני לעדכן אותכם לגבי האירועים שהתרחשו מאז האזכרה האחרונה לפני שנה בנסיונות של ממשלת ליטא לעוות את ההסטוריה של השואה, וכמו כן גם למזער או להעלים את השתתפותם של ליטאים כל כך רבים ברצח יהודים בליטא, אבל גם מחוץ לגבולותיה.

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Posted in Double Genocide, Efraim Zuroff, Israel, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Efraim Zuroff’s Speech at the 28 October 2013 Annual Memorial Program of the Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel [in Hebrew]

Dr. Efraim Zuroff’s Speech at the Annual Memorial for Lithuanian Holocaust Victims



O P I N I O N

by Efraim Zuroff

Authorized English translation of Dr. Zuroff’s speech at the annual commemoration event held by the Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel, received from the Israel Office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Hebrew original is here.


Good evening,

Attorney Yosef Melamed asked me to update you regarding the recent events which have taken place since the last memorial event a year ago, concerning the attempts by the Lithuanian government to distort the history of the Holocaust and to minimize or deny the participation of many Lithuanians in the murder of Jews, not only in Lithuania but also beyond its borders.

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Posted in Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Double Genocide, Efraim Zuroff, Events, Israel, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Dr. Efraim Zuroff’s Speech at the Annual Memorial for Lithuanian Holocaust Victims

If Israel Can Honor the USSR’s Unquestionable Role in Bringing Down Hitler, Why Can’t France and the European Union?



O P I N I O N

by Didier Bertin

From the very beginning, the source of our problems is to be found in an inaccurate narrative of World War II that is rather widespread here in France. This can be explained in part by France’s  position as a de facto ally of the Axis at first, starting from the time of Petain’s surrender to Hitler’s forces in 1940. It was rather late in the war that a substantial segment of society in the country per se (as opposed to the heroic resisters who had joined the Allies outside surrendered France’s borders) became a stalwart ally of the United States and Great Britain, at a time when that was by a confluence of circumstances most convenient for all three countries.

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Posted in Didier Bertin, Double Genocide, France, History, Israel, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , | Comments Off on If Israel Can Honor the USSR’s Unquestionable Role in Bringing Down Hitler, Why Can’t France and the European Union?

Jerusalem Post, Again, Fails to Post Dissenting Comments on a “Lithuania Ecstasy” Story



M e d i a   W a t c h   /   O p i n i o n

Readers on several continents again report to Defending History that the Jerusalem Post has failed to post perfectly polite comments to yet another ecstatic ode to issueless Lithuanian-Jewish love. This time it’s the story “Growing Lithuanian Business Ties Beget Political Support” which reported on the recent visit to Israel of the Lithuanian Minister for the Economy Evaldas Gustas.

The rejected comments pointed out that a senior specialist employed at his ministry was exposed last spring as Lithuania’s most hateful internet blogger, responsible for a series of images disparaging to Jews, Blacks, Gays, and to the history of the Holocaust in Lithuania (sampling of images here). Our Open Letter to the minister essentially asks why the hateful top official is still in office. Is such a question taboo for a major English language daily in Israel?

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Posted in Citizenship, Double Games, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Israel, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, South Africa | Tagged , | Comments Off on Jerusalem Post, Again, Fails to Post Dissenting Comments on a “Lithuania Ecstasy” Story

An Open Letter to Steve Linde, Editor-in-Chief of the Jerusalem Post



O P I N I O N

by Olga Zabludoff

Editor’s note: This and other responses were first offered to the Jerusalem Post for publication.


The Lithuanian government is pouring ever more resources and doing an ever better job with its PR campaign to turn Litvaks (Jews of Lithuanian origin) into virtual PR agents who now go further than they do themselves: painting a picture of the New Jewish Paradise in Lithuania without even mentioning the existence of painful current issues. Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief Steve Linde no doubt meant only the best with his Chapter-of-Psalms, and will, I feel confident, now be happy to give the issues some rounded airing.

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Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Double Games, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Israel, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Olga Zabludoff, Opinion, Politics of Memory, South Africa | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on An Open Letter to Steve Linde, Editor-in-Chief of the Jerusalem Post

Israeli Association of 2nd and 3rd Generation Survivors Calls for Action from Israel and Other Democracies


JERUSALEM—On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, observed today internationally, Dorot Hahemshech, Israel’s largest association of children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, issued a call to both the Israeli government and other democracies to renew and intensify the efforts to bring to justice Nazi war criminals and collaborators while it is still possible. The leaders of the NGO also commented on the growing phenomenon of distorting the history of the Holocaust in a number of countries, particularly in the context of the Double Genocide movement rampant in Eastern Europe.

The following is a translation from the original Hebrew text.

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Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Documents, Double Genocide, Israel, News & Views | Comments Off on Israeli Association of 2nd and 3rd Generation Survivors Calls for Action from Israel and Other Democracies

Tel Aviv’s Leyvik House Issues Call to World Jewish Congress on Vilnius Yiddish Jobs in the Works


 TEL AVIV— Daniel Galay, director of Leyvik House in central Tel Aviv, one of Israel’s major Yiddish culture institutions, issued the following statement today on the Leyvik House website (copy), and on its Facebook page (see also Efraim Zuroff’s Facebook comment). For background see our earlier report.


 

Appeal to the World Jewish Congress

Tel Aviv, 12 June 2014

Like all lovers of Yiddish language and culture, we at Leyvik House in Tel Aviv, home to the Union of Yiddish Writers and Journalists in Israel, were happy to see the recent announcement that the World Jewish Congress would be facilitating a new Yiddish center in Vilnius, Lithuania.

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Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Double Genocide, Human Rights, Israel, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, South Africa, Vilnius Yiddish Institute, World Jewish Congress (WJC) and ORT, Yiddish Affairs | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Tel Aviv’s Leyvik House Issues Call to World Jewish Congress on Vilnius Yiddish Jobs in the Works

UN Resolution Against Glorification of Nazism Opposed on 21 Nov. 2014 by Just Three Countries



D O C U M E N T S   /   G L O R I F I C A T I O N    O F   C O L L A B O R A T O R S

The following is the official 21 Nov. 2014 United Nations voting sheet for the resolution (A/C.3/69/L.56/Rev.1) “Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.” The original is posted on the UN website. This copy has three added arrows for rapid identification of the three states that voted “No.”

Media coverage includes: Margaret Besheer in Voice of America;  Joseph Brean in Canada’s National Post;  Ken Hanly in Digital Journal;  Dovid Katz in The Times of Israel;  Ryan Maloney in Huffington Post Jim Miles in CounterPunch;  Boruch Shubert in JP Updates;  Sam Sokol in the Jerusalem Post.

Glorification of Nazi collaborators (and local perpetrators) by states and their elites is a serious issue in various countries, including Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, and Ukraine.

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Posted in Canada, Collaborators Glorified, Documents, History, Israel, News & Views, Ukraine, United Nations, United States | Comments Off on UN Resolution Against Glorification of Nazism Opposed on 21 Nov. 2014 by Just Three Countries

Jerusalem Debate on Antisemitism in Lithuania: Deputy Foreign Minister and Dr. Efraim Zuroff



Debate in Jerusalem, at World Forum for Combating Antisemitism, at Session on Holocaust Denial and Distortion in Eastern Europe

I: Summary document released by the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry boasts of “accomplishments in liquidation of consequences of the Holocaust”

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Human Rights, Israel, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views | Tagged | Comments Off on Jerusalem Debate on Antisemitism in Lithuania: Deputy Foreign Minister and Dr. Efraim Zuroff

Israel Faced Some Delicate Post-Holocaust Issues During Lithuanian PM’s September Visit



Efraim Zuroff asked in the Jerusalem Post that the Baltic state’s campaign to revise Holocaust history — and its plans to plonk a convention center in the middle of Vilna’s old Jewish cemetery — be on the table; Zuroff’s post-visit article in i24

INTERNATIONAL OPPOSITION TO “CONVENTION CENTER IN THE JEWISH CEMETERY”

PAPER TRAIL

ISRAEL PAGE

ISRAEL SECTION

7 SOLUTIONS

AFTER MEETING NETANYAHU, PRIME MINISTER BUTKEVICIUS GLOATED TO MEDIA THAT ISRAEL DOESN’T OBJECT TO THE “GRAVEYARD CONVENTION CENTER” DESPITE INTERNATIONAL OPPOSITION; JTA REPORT; IN THE JERUSALEM POST

CAMPAIGN AGAINST JEWISH PARTISANS NOT EVEN MENTIONED? Does Israel betray its own citizens by not asking apologies for the World War II heroes Yitzhak Arad, (the late) Rachel Margolis and  Joseph Melamed? Arad and Melamed are heroes of Israel’s 1948 war of independence.  Will there now be a public apology on the prosecutors’ page that still defames him [as PDF]  and from the “Human Rights Association”? Apologies to Israeli citizens Rachel Margolis and Joseph Melamed? The 2009 Leivick House (Tel Aviv) speech of the late Ambassador Chen Ivri Apter. What does Dr. Arad  think?

BUT PM DECRIED “DOUBLE GENOCIDE” IN PUBLIC (JP REPORT). HE WILL HOPEFULLY FOLLOW UP AT HOME ON STREET NAMES AND PUBLIC HONORS FOR HOLOCAUST PERPETRATORS [CURRENT DEBATE]; OVERDUE APOLOGIES TO JEWISH PARTISANS; RAPID REFORM OR ABOLITION OF GENOCIDE CENTER AND RED-BROWN COMMISSION — AND REPUDIATION OF THE PRAGUE DECLARATION.  NEO-NAZI PARADES ON INDEPENDENCE DAYS?

RECENT MEDIA:  Slate.  The Forward.  Jerusalem Post.  JTA.  Times of Israel.

Posted in Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Dr. Rokhl (Rachel) Margolis (1921-2015), Israel, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Politics of Memory, September 23rd Commemorations | Comments Off on Israel Faced Some Delicate Post-Holocaust Issues During Lithuanian PM’s September Visit

As Lithuania’s President Visits Israel



O P I N I O N

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Posted in Dovid Katz, Events, Human Rights, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Israel, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion | Comments Off on As Lithuania’s President Visits Israel

Lithuania’s President Dalia Grybauskaitė Completes Official Visit to Israel



LITHUANIA TRIBUNE / DELFI;   JERUSALEM POST

 Hopes Dashed She Would Announce Cancellation of  “Vilnius Convention Center in the Old Jewish Cemetery” and Promise to Remove Public Memorials for Holocaust Collaborators

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Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Israel, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok) | Comments Off on Lithuania’s President Dalia Grybauskaitė Completes Official Visit to Israel

Did Prime Minister Netanyahu Really “Okay” the Vilnius “Conference Center in the Jewish Cemetery”?


[from the day’s front page]


AN ISRAELI-LITHUANIAN MYSTERY

In September, during his trip to Israel, the Lithuanian prime minister reported back home with triumph  that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is quite happy with plans for a $25,000,000 national conference center in the middle of the old (15th century origin) Piramónt (Šnipiškės) Jewish cemetery in Vilnius. But did the Israeli PM really reject out-of-hand the growing  international Jewish (and non-Jewish) chorus of condemnation for a plan to have convention revelers clap, cheer, sing, drink in bars and use toilets surrounded by thousands of Jewish graves including some of the foremost Jewish scholars of the last millennium? Where his own ancestors are buried? Perhaps there has been some misunderstanding. Background on the cemetery’s history and implications of the case for all Europe, and on the current project.

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Posted in Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Israel, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok) | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Did Prime Minister Netanyahu Really “Okay” the Vilnius “Conference Center in the Jewish Cemetery”?

Israel’s Foreign Ministry Faces a Lithuanian Dilemma



DOCUMENTS | ISRAEL | DOUBLE GENOCIDE | RED-BROWN COMMISSION | GENOCIDE CENTER

As the Lithuanian government-sponsored “Red-Brown Commission” (popular moniker for the “International Commission for Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes of Lithuania“), quiet on the international front for a time, announces a comeback global conclave for 17-19 March 2016, suspense is rising as to whether various Jewish organizations, including Yivo and the AJC, but above all the Israel Foreign Ministry, will again be coming on board to legitimize the body that is the midwife of the Double Genocide movement in the European Parliament.

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Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Documents, Double Games, Double Genocide, Dr. Rokhl (Rachel) Margolis (1921-2015), Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Genocide Center (Vilnius), Israel, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Yad Vashem and Lithuania | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Israel’s Foreign Ministry Faces a Lithuanian Dilemma

A Month After Kaunas March Glorifying Holocaust Collaborators, Israeli Ambassador Shocks Survivors by Praising City’s Jewish Remembrance



ISRAEL CHRONICLE   |  ISRAEL SECTION  |  NEO-NAZI MARCHES  |  KAUNAS MARCHES

KAUNAS—One month after this year’s infamous Independence Day march in central Kaunas that featured a banner glorifying a number of Holocaust collaborators, including those co-responsible for the fate of this city’s 30,000 Jews in the Holocaust here on its ground zero, Israeli ambassador to Lithuania HE Amir Maimon has paid a very public congratulatory call on the mayor and city council to praise them unreservedly for their Jewish remembrance policies. There was no public mention of the march or request that future events desist from publicly glorifying the city’s collaborators. The following report is from today’s edition of the official website of the Lithuanian Jewish Community. Holocaust survivors and their families in both Kaunas and Vilnius who contacted Defending History were incredulous and “in shock”…

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Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Israel, Kaunas, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on A Month After Kaunas March Glorifying Holocaust Collaborators, Israeli Ambassador Shocks Survivors by Praising City’s Jewish Remembrance