The Times of Israel liveblogged Thursday’s events as they happened.
An estimated 10,000 people will soon take part in the March of the Living to mark the murder of 6 million Jews by Nazi Germany in the Holocaust.
During the event, which is held yearly, participants march from the Auschwitz concentration camp to the Birkenau extermination camp, where the Nazi gas chambers were housed during World War II.
This year’s march in Poland takes place amid rising anti-Semitism worldwide and organizers say the commemorations are meant to send a resounding rejection of Jew-hatred.
“We are here to say in a clear voice: ‘Never again.’ We march to remind the world of the horrors that occurred during the Holocaust and to lead a global movement to combat anti-Semitism in all its forms,” Shmuel Rosenman, the founder and co-chairman of March of the Living, says in a statement.
No senior Israeli government officials are taking part in this year’s march, though former chief rabbi Israel Lau and Jewish Agency chairman Isaac Herzog will take part. Also attending are US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and Romanian Prime Minister Viorica Dancila, among others.
Union of Right-Wing Parties MK Bezalel Smotrich says he found US peace envoy Jason Greenblatt’s rebuke of racist remarks by rabbis at a West Bank pre-military academy “deeply disappointing.”
In a series of Twitter posts, Smotrich claims footage aired by Israeli television of the Bnei David Yeshiva rabbis was “taken out of context by small-minded journalists” and “that there isn’t even the slightest mention of racism” in their remarks.
“I regret that you unintentionally aligned yourself with those who wish to harm this great institution,” Smotrich writes of Greenblatt.
In the recordings aired by Channel 13 news, Rabbi Eliezer Kashtiel, the head of Bnei David, says “we believe in racism,” and calls for the enslavement of non-Jews because they are genetically inferior.
1/6
Dear Jason,
Your recent tweet and aligning with the false campaign against the Eli Mechina was deeply disappointing to me. Since I sincerely greatly respect you, I am confident that if you would have heard the entire lesson
<<< https://t.co/S0eItO6o5s— בצלאל סמוטריץ' (@bezalelsm) May 2, 2019
LONDON — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is facing a court hearing today over a US request to extradite him for allegedly conspiring to hack a Pentagon computer.
Assange, who is fighting attempts to send him to the United States, is expected to appear by video link from prison for the hearing at London’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court.
A few dozen supporters holding signs reading “Free Assange” and “No extradition” gather outside the courthouse before the hearing. It’s an early stage in what is likely to be a months- or years-long extradition process.
The 47-year-old Australian was sentenced Wednesday to 50 weeks in prison for jumping bail in 2012 and holing up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. At the time, he was facing extradition to Sweden for questioning over rape and sexual assault allegations made by two women.
Assange says he feared being sent to the US to face charges related to WikiLeaks’ publication of classified U.S. military documents.
Assange was arrested last month after his relationship with his embassy hosts went sour and Ecuador revoked his political asylum.
Lawyers say Assange will fight extradition to the US, where authorities have charged him with conspiring to break into a Pentagon computer system.
He is accused of scheming with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to break a password for a classified government computer.
— AP
The 2019 International March of the Living begins in the Auschwitz former concentration camp.
A delegation led by senior officials from around the world leads more than 10,000 people in walking the three kilometers to the Birkenau death camp, where the event will culminate with the central ceremony.
In a speech before the march, the event’s chairman Shmuel Rosenman says anti-Semitism is “yet again sweeping the world,”mentioning the California and Pittsburgh shootings as well as an attack on Christians in Sri Lanka and on Muslims in New Zealand.
“Let this be your first step, on a lifetime journey of fighting hatred and injustice, and creating a world where every single human life is valued,” he says.
“Let the March begin!”
Participants begin marching following the blowing of the hofar, a ram’s horn that is used in Jewish ceremonies.
— Michael Bachner
Former state ombudsman Micha Lindenstrauss has died, according to Hebrew media reports.
There is no immediate word on the cause of his death.
Lindenstrauss, 82, served as head of the State Comptroller’s Office in 2005-2012. Prior to that, he had a long career as a judge, including as president of the Haifa District Court.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad Secretary-General Ziad al-Nakhaleh has warned that if Israel harms or kills members of terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip, Islamic Jihad will respond with force and target major cities in the Jewish state.
“I clearly state that we will respond with force and attack major cities, if any harm is done to [members of] the resistance or premeditated assassinations are carried out against them, regardless of their organizational roles, and irrespective of whether understandings have been concluded or will be concluded,” Nakhaleh says in an interview published on Dar al-Hayat, an Arabic-language news site.
— Adam Rasgon
President Reuven Rivlin mourns the passing of former state comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss, who died today at 82.
“I received with sadness the news of the passing of former State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss, former President of the Haifa District Court, who was born in Berlin in Nazi Germany. Judge Lindenstrauss is a symbol of the Holocaust and the rebirth of the Jewish people, and of the State of Israel’s unwavering commitment to the rule of law and effective and pointed self-criticism,” Rivlin says in a statement.
“During his term as state comptroller, he turned his office into an agency that investigated in real time. The government complimented his work and described it as life-saving. Judge Lindenstrauss’ unique sharpness and his restrained personality will remain in our hearts,” the president adds.
The Israel Bar Association, as well as a number of current and former lawmakers, also issue statements mourning Lidenstrauss’ death.
Hamas says Yahya Sinwar, the terror group’s leader in the Gaza Strip, is en route to Cairo to meet with Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel.
A statement from Hamas says Sinwar was invited to Egyptian capital by Kamel for talks on bilateral ties, “ways to alleviate the suffering of our people” and a number of other issues.
Israel’s top court has delayed the expulsion of Human Rights Watch’s country director following a petition challenging the move, his lawyer says Thursday.
The Jerusalem district court last month rejected an earlier petition against the decision to expel Omar Shakir, a US citizen, ruling he had until May 1 to leave.
But just a day ahead of the deadline the Supreme Court issued an injunction allowing Shakir to remain in Israel for seven days, attorney Michael Sfard says.
During this period the Interior Ministry can submit its response to the appeal which Shakir lodged at the supreme court.
After the May 7 deadline the court “could theoretically issue a new decision” on the case, Sfard tells AFP.
The Interior Ministry’s decision to deny Shakir his work and residency permits was due to his alleged support of a boycott of Israel over its treatment of Palestinians — a claim accepted by the district court.
HRW denied the group or Shakir promoted a boycott of Israel, calling the April district court ruling a “new and dangerous interpretation of the law,” since it equated criticism of businesses operating in the West Bank to boycotting Israel.
— AFP
POWAY, California — The gunman who attacked a Southern California synagogue last week fired at worshipers near a front entrance that leaders earlier identified as needing improved security.
The Poway Chabad Synagogue north of San Diego sought a federal grant last year to better protect that area.
The $150,000 was approved in September but only awarded in late March.
The rabbi who oversees security grants tells The Associated Press that the timing means the synagogue had no chance to start spending the funds before the shooting.
He says Jewish leaders are considering asking authorities to allow some of the money be used to hire security guards, which it doesn’t have now.
The shooter killed a woman and wounded an 8-year-old girl and two men, including the rabbi presiding at the Passover service.
— AP
The Portuguese cartoonist behind a cartoon published in the international edition of the New York Times that has been widely denounced as anti-Semitic is defending his work and claiming criticism of it is being driven by the “Jewish propaganda machine.”
The cartoon, which the Times has since issued multiple apologies over, depicts a blind yarmulke-wearing US President Donald Trump being led by a dog with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s face, which has a collar in the shape of a Star of David.
Speaking with CNN, Antonio Moreira Antunes insists he has the “utmost respect” for Jews but they’re not “above criticism.”
He says accusations of anti-Semitism are being “made through the Jewish propaganda machine” and pushed by unspecified right-wing Jewish figures.
“The Jewish right doesn’t want to be criticized, and therefore, when criticized they say ‘We are a persecuted people, we suffered a lot… this is anti-Semitism,'” Antunes tells the network.
Former Israeli chief rabbi Israel Meir Lau addresses the March of the Living commemorating Nazi Germany’s murder of 6 million Jews, which this year comes amid rising anti-Semitism.
Lau, a Holocaust survivor who has taken part in the event each year since it began in 1988, says Jews in Europe were told ahead of the Holocaust to leave there and return to their home, only to continue to be demonized once they arrived in Israel.
“You hated us here because we are strange. You fight us there because we are home. So decide, what do you want from us? We are human beings,” he says.
Lau calls anti-Semitism “a madness that doesn’t have any logic” and says to cure it “you need a psychologist.”
Noting the deadly shooting at a San Diego-area synagogue last weekend, Lau asks the attacker, “What did we do to you?”
US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman addresses the March of the Living, vowing the United States will combat anti-Semitism wherever it arises.
“I commit on behalf of my government, on behalf of the Untied States, that we will give no quarter to the ugly and resurgent strains of anti-Semitism cropping up anywhere on this planet,” he says.
“As president Trump said publicly last year: ‘Those who seek the destruction of the Jewish people will themselves be destroyed,'” Friedman adds.
He also calls Israel “a force for such good in the world” and a reminder that not only the Jewish people but all humans “can, will and must be defended from the tyrannical, hate-filled regimes that threaten us.”
“The atrocities of Nazi Germany will never, ever, ever return to this world,” Friedman says.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah vows his terror group will defeat the Israeli military if it enters Lebanon as part of a future war, according to a translation of his remarks by Israel’s Ynet news site.
“Israel wants a war? Let it go to war. The Israeli units and brigades that dare to enter southern Lebanon will be annihilated and destroyed on live television in front of the whole world,” he says, according to the translation.
Nasrallah says Israel is deterred by Hezbollah’s military capabilities and has no interest in launching a military operation in Lebanon.
“[Israel] is scared of being entangled in Gaza, even though it is exposed from all sides, so it will dare enter southern Lebanon,” he says.
Nasrallah is speaking at event to commemorate three years since the death of Mustafa Badreddine, Hezbollah’s former military chief, who the IDF’s chief of staff at the time said was killed by his own men.
BERLIN — Germany’s leading Jewish organization is expressing alarm over footage of flag-waving neo-Nazis in self-styled uniforms marching through a town in eastern Germany on May Day, unhindered by police.
The Central Council of Jews says the march in Plauen by members of The Third Way party “brings back memories of the darkest chapter in German history.”
Footage of the march Wednesday prompted widespread outrage in Germany and calls for authorities in the state of Saxony, where far-right sentiment is particularly strong, to step in.
Police in Saxony said the march had been a success from a policing point of view, with no violence.
The Central Council of Jews says “if the Saxony state government is serious about combating right-wing extremism, it must not allow such demonstrations.”
— AP
Chabad Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein is hosted by US President Donald Trump at the White House after being injured in a deadly shooting attack at his California synagogue over the weekend.
Speaking in the Rose Garden, Goldstein recalls facing “evil and the worst darkness of all time” as shooter John Earnest opened fire in the Poway synagogue during prayers on the last day of Passover.
“My dear rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, taught me the way we react to darkness with light. It was that moment I made a decision that no matter happens to me I am going to save as many people as possible,” Goldstein says, referring to the late Chabad leader.
“My life has changed forever but it changed so I can make change and so I can help others learn how to be strong, might and tall,” he adds.
Goldstein also thanks Trump, who he calls a “mensch par excellence,” using a Yiddish phrase for an honorable person.
“Mr. President, when you called me I was at home weeping. You were the first person who began my healing. You heal people in the worst of times and I am so grateful to that,” Goldstein tells Trump.
Goldstein says Trump “helped bring Lori Kaye great honor,” referring to the woman murdered in the shooting.
WASHINGTON — Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado becomes the 21st Democrat to announce a presidential bid, citing among other inspirations his Holocaust survivor mother and grandparents.
Bennet, whose father is not Jewish, does not identify as Jewish. However, he has cited his mother’s survival of the Holocaust on multiple occasions as an impetus for his political career, and does so in the 3-minute, 41-second video he posts today announcing his candidacy
Bennet, 54, says he was inspired by the nation’s founders, and these were not limited to the founding fathers. He lists Abraham Lincoln, civil rights icons like Frederick Douglass and the suffragettes, and “Our parents and grandparents who stood up to tyranny in World War II. My mom and her parents who survived that tyranny and rebuilt their shattered lives in the only country they could, the United States of America.”
Bennet’s mother and grandparents survived the Warsaw Ghetto.
Bennet is the seventh sitting US senator to join a crowded field. He sought to distinguish himself from others by saying that he did not seek fame, and was preoccupied mostly with the nuts and bolts of legislating.
“You probably don’t know me because I don’t go on cable news every night,” he says.
On policy, Bennet strikes a centrist note in the video, arguing for health care reforms, but abjuring the “Medicare for all” that some on the party’s left now advocate, and calling for greater investment in education, but not the free community college that some have proposed.
— JTA
A Muslim-American radio host can recover monetary damages against a neo-Nazi website operator who falsely accused him of terrorism, a federal judge has ruled.
SiriusXM Radio show host Dean Obeidallah is seeking more than $1 million in damages against The Daily Stormer founder Andrew Anglin, who hasn’t responded to Obeidallah’s libel lawsuit.
Chief US District Judge Edmund Sargus Jr. agreed Wednesday to enter a default judgment against Anglin and his company, Moonbase Holdings LLC. Sargus scheduled a June 12 hearing in Columbus, Ohio, to determine the proper amount of damages and fees.
Obeidallah “has adequately stated his claims and is entitled to monetary relief,” Sargus writes. But the judge adds that an evidentiary hearing is necessary “because Obeidallah’s evidence does not provide definite figures of his injuries.”
Anglin also faces possible default judgments in other cases, including separate lawsuits filed by two other targets of his site’s online harassment campaigns.
— AP
President Reuven Rivlin issues a call for unity in Israeli society at the closing ceremony for Holocaust Remembrance Day.
“We must find ways to remember together. No more right and left in the memory of the Holocaust, no ultra-Orthodox and secular, no Zionists and non-Zionists, no more Mizrahis and Europeans, rather one people that remembers and pains together,” Rivlin is quoted as saying at Kibbutz Yad Mordechai by the Kan public broadcaster.
Also speaking at the event was former army chief of staff Benny Gantz, whose Blue and White party finished second in last month’s Knesset elections.
“We must be ready for a lasting campaign against extremist hate. An uncompromising campaign in Europe against extreme forces, in the leadership and the street. An uncompromising campaign in the US, above the front pages of prestigious newspapers or in the halls of synagogues,” he says, referring to an anti-Semitic cartoon in the New York Times and the deadly shooting attack over the weekend at a synagogue near San Diego.
A woman in the southern city of Kiryat Gat has been wounded by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, Israeli television reports.
The 45-year-old is said to be in moderate to serious condition after being hit in the face by shrapnel from the rocket.
