(Jewish Group) The Week in Anti-Semitism in Europe (No. Ireland, The Netherlands, France)

[Behind the Aegis]

Jewish headstones smashed in Northern Ireland cemetery

Unidentified vandals knocked down and smashed at least 10 gravestones in the Jewish section of a cemetery in Belfast, Northern Ireland on Thursday.

The vandalism, which police are investigating as a hate crime, occurred at the City Cemetery of Belfast, the BBC reported Saturday.

The Jewish section has graves as old as the 1870s, according to the BBC. They occupy a walled-off section of the cemetery, which is maintained by the Belfast City Council.

Steven Corr, a politician for the Sinn Féin party, one of Northern Ireland’s largest, visited the graveyard on Friday to help clean up the damage.

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Dutch soccer fans chant ‘Hamas, Jews to the gas’ before match against Ajax

Fans of the Dutch soccer team Vitesse chanted “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas” at a fan rally before a scheduled match against Ajax, an Amsterdam-based team known for its history of Jewish supporters.

Police began examining footage from the action on Wednesday night, which occurred in Arnhem, where Vitesse is based. The two clubs played Sunday, and Ajax won 2-1.

Supporters and rivals of Ajax often affectionately refer to the club and its fans as “Jews,” out of recognition of the centuries-long strong presence of Jews in Amsterdam. It’s a pattern across Europe, used for fans of teams in England, Italy and Germany.

But in the Netherlands, the “Hamas, Jews to the gas” chant has become more commonplace in recent years.

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Delivery man who refused to service French Jews deported back to his native Algeria

French immigration authorities deported a 19-year-old immigrant from Algeria who was jailed for refusing to deliver food to Jews after it was discovered he was living France illegally.

Dhia Edine D. was sentenced in January to four months in jail for declining to deliver food made by a kosher restaurant in Strasbourg while he was working there as a food courier for the Deliveroo delivery company.

Upon his arrest, following a complaint to police by the restaurant’s owner for discrimination, the courier was found to have been living illegally in France.

In announcing the deportation on Saturday, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin wrote on Twitter: “Anti-Semitic hatred has no place in France.”

entire article above

As for the French story, it's about the ONLY good news coming out of France in recent weeks regarding anti-Semitism.

[Behind the Aegis]

1. And in other news...

Dutch daily apologizes for drawing Jewish pollster as a puppet master

A mainstream daily in the Netherlands has apologized for a caricature depicting a Jewish political pollster and entrepreneur as a puppet master.

Pieter Klok, editor in chief of De Volkskrant, issued a statement Monday saying the image and trope “recall too many memories of anti-Semitic caricatures of the Nazi period and therefore should never have been published.”

The caricature, featured on the cover of the left-wing paper’s culture supplement Monday, depicted a leering Maurice de Hond holding a set of marionette strings. The article focused on a media campaign led by de Hond on behalf of a murderer he said was wrongly convicted in 1999.

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Meanwhile, in France...

Macron calls for change in law after killer of French Jewish woman avoids trial

After a man who killed his Jewish neighbor successfully pled that he was unfit to stand trial because of what a court called a marijuana-induced psychotic episode, French President Emmanuel Macron is calling for a change in his country’s legal system.

“Deciding to take narcotics and then ‘going mad’ should, not in my view, remove your criminal responsibility,” Macron told the Le Figaro newspaper in an interview published Sunday. “I would like the justice minister to present a change in the law as soon as possible.”

A high court recently ruled that the killer Kobili Traore should not stand trial for beating Sarah Halimi to death and throwing her out the window of her third-story apartment in 2017.

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