International

How do you stop neo-Nazis from meeting up at Adolf Hitler’s birthplace? Station officers there around the clock. That is just what the small town of Braunau in Austria has done, by turning Hitler’s first home into a police station.

An online campaign calling on people in Italy to surveil and report the whereabouts of Jewish and Israeli tourists, or anyone suspected of having ties to “Zionists,” has sparked anger among Israeli diplomats, local Jewish leaders and Italian politicians.

The Jewish chess legend Judit Polgár has declined an invitation to become Hungary’s president, a largely ceremonial position that would have increased the visibility of one of the country’s most celebrated Jewish figures.

Andy Burnham officially became Britain’s new Labour prime minister on Monday, July 20, replacing Keir Starmer, who resigned following the party’s disastrous showing in local elections in May. Starmer left behind a mixed record on anti-Semitism. He purged the party of its image as hostile to Jews under former party leader Jeremy Corbyn. But at the same time, attacks against Jews in Britain rose dramaticallly in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attack on Israel. Uncertainty is at a high.

If the phrase Argentina’s Jewish community has adopted to mark the 32nd anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in the country’s history sounds familiar to their compatriots, it’s intentional: “Today we cannot lose . . . our memory” echoes the soccer-mad nation’s World Cup slogan.

The diplomatic isolation of Israel during the war in Gaza following the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre will go down in history as a moral failure and a defeat of humanity, says French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy. “The absence of support for Israel will be considered by future historians as a moment of huge disgrace for the West,” Lévy commented  in an interview in Tel Aviv.

Qatar Foundation International, the US member of the Doha-based nonprofit foundation headed by the Qatari royal family, told partners this week that it is “winding down its operations,” according to a screenshot of an email circulated on social media.

Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney announced on June 1 a new government body to combat racism, saying its first priority would be tackling anti-Semitism. Carney addressed Canada’s surge in anti-Semitic hate crimes during a speech at Holy Blossom Synagogue, Toronto’s oldest Jewish congregation. He said the government had to “start with clearly admitting that Canada’s civic compact is failing Jewish Canadians.”

Babka and Krantz, a Jewish bakery owned by Polish and Israeli immigrants has shut its doors, citing a combination of economic pressure and anti-Semitic harassment.

The system of UN special rapporteurs, whom the UN considers independent “experts” and whom it is loath to criticize, is “completely broken,” according to Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch. UN Watch released a 104-page report, titled “From Watchdogs to Idealogues,” in which it details the ways that 13 of the 59 special rapporteurs have politicized their work and subverted the cause for human rights. The rapporteurs, whom the UN Human Rights Council selects, are supposed to monitor and report neutrally on human rights issues globally.