Exiled Chief Rabbi Says Jews Should lLave Russia While They Can

THE GUARDIAN: Exclusive: Pinchas Goldschmidt warns Jewish population will be made scapegoat for hardship caused by war

Pinchas Goldschmidt also said that while Russia’s Jews faced an uncertain future, antisemitism was on the rise across Europe and the US. Photograph: Matthias Schräder/AP
Moscow’s exiled chief rabbi says Jews should leave Russia while they still can, before they are made scapegoats for the hardship caused by the war in Ukraine.

“When we look back over Russian history, whenever the political system was in danger you saw the government trying to redirect the anger and discontent of the masses towards the Jewish community,” Pinchas Goldschmidt told the Guardian. “We saw this in tsarist times and at the end of the Stalinist regime.”

“We’re seeing rising antisemitism while Russia is going back to a new kind of Soviet Union, and step by step the iron curtain is coming down again. This is why I believe the best option for Russian Jews is to leave,” he added.

Goldschmidt resigned from his post and left Russia in July after refusing to back the Russian invasion of Ukraine. » | Stephen Burgen in Barcelona | Friday, December 30, 2022

Calls for More Antisemitism Teaching in UK Schools to Tackle Rise in Hate

THE GUARDIAN: Adviser urges governments to act ‘before this form of racism poisons the minds of many more young people’

Schools should be required to teach about contemporary antisemitism, not only the Holocaust, as part of a drive to combat an “alarming” rise in hatred towards Jewish people among British pupils, a government adviser has said.

The former Labour MP Lord Mann, who now sits as a non-affiliated peer, urged ministers across the UK to take action after an investigation found the number of antisemitic incidents in English schools had almost trebled over the past five years.

The independent antisemitism adviser to ministers said the “growing spread” of cases among young people should be a matter of “deep concern” to everyone, as he warned that such dangerous prejudices often led to violence against members of the Jewish community, including schoolchildren. » | Kevin Rawlinson and agency | Monday, December 19, 2022

Nazi Billionaires: German Big Business and Antisemitism

Beyond the Wall: Part 1 - The Rise of Germany's Far Right; Part 2: From Germany to Bulgaria, What Happened to Hope? | People & Power

What Is Antisemitism?

Jun 29, 2022 Antisemitism means prejudice against or hatred of Jews. In the United States, antisemitic incidents hit an all-time high in 2021. Hatred of Jews can take many forms, including violent attacks. It also appears in daily life. Do you know how to recognize it online, in social media, or in conversation?

European Antisemitism from Its Origins to the Holocaust

A screenshot from the accompanying video. | US Holocaust Memorial Museum
Jan 10, 2022 • This 13-minute film introduces the history of antisemitism. The term was coined in the 19th century and refers to prejudice against or hatred of Jews. But as this film shows, anti-Jewish hostility goes back many centuries—to the era of early Christianity and the Middle Ages. As a religious minority, Jews in Christian-dominant Europe were consistently persecuted as “outsiders.” They became scapegoats and victims of targeted violence in times of severe hardship and economic and political change.

Anti-Jewish prejudices endured and took on new forms as western societies became more secular in the 19th century, and Jews gained more rights and opportunities. Some politicians used “the Jews” as scapegoats in their attempts to gain support from people left behind by economic change. Ultra-nationalists, seeking ethnically homogeneous nations, saw Jews as biologically “foreign”—a different “race.” Antisemites also hatched conspiracy theories about “Jewish power” and that, after World War I and the Russian Revolution, linked Jews to Communism.

These radical strands of racial antisemitism, tied to ethnic nationalism and conspiracy myths, became core elements of Nazi ideology as the party was forming in the aftermath of World War I. After the Nazis took power in 1933, these ideas became state policy and underpinned anti-Jewish laws and decrees. Nazi propaganda portrayed Germany’s Jews as an “alien,” biological threat to the survival of the German people. During World War II, this racial antisemitism motivated Nazi policy that evolved into mass murder and genocide. Nazi officials also exploited longstanding traditional prejudices towards Jews in the countries they conquered to gain help from non-Germans to locate, round up, deport, and kill Jews.

This video is age-restricted; therefore, it is not embeddable on external websites. It must be viewed on YouTube itself. Please click here to watch it.