Wiesenthal Center’s Top 10 Worst Anti-Semitic Acts of 2014

December 30, 2014

3 min read

anti-semitism

The Simon Wiesenthal Center has released a list of its top 10 worst anti-Semitic offenses of 2014. Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the organization, told The Jerusalem Post that in ranking the list this year, they tried to highlight how “rhetoric at the top has filtered down to average people.” Repeat offenders such as Arab leaders or Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan were left out for that reason.

10. The Recent Outbreak of Anti-Semitism in the UK

A number of incidents in close succession left local and international Jewish communities stunned. A security guard at a sporting-goods store in Hertfordshire barred several Jewish teens from entering the shop, saying “No Jews, no Jews”, while Dave Whelan, owner of the Wigan Athletic Football team told reporters, “I think Jewish people do chase money more than everybody else.”

9. Frazier Glenn Cross Jr.

Cross, a former Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon, opened fire on a Jewish Community Center and Home for the Aged in Kansas City, Kansas, killing three. Also known as Frazier Glenn Miller, he expressed that he “wanted to make damned sure I killed some Jews…before I died.” None of his victims were Jewish.

8. ‘Spreading Hate in Academia’

The United Auto Workers #2865 Union, representing graduate students in the state of California, promoted a successful boycott campaign against Israel. Meanwhile, Professor Steven Salaita, an Arab-American, called for “the destruction of Israel”, posting on social media, “At this point, if Netanyahu appeared with a necklace made from the teeth of Palestinian children, would anybody be surprised?” Salaita also said of American Jewry: “Every little Jewish boy and girl can grow up to be the leader of a murderous colonial regime.”

7. Mayor Mihaly Zoltan Orosz of Erpatek, Hungary

Orosz hung Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former President Shimon Peres in effigy in a public display in August. He accused “the Jewish terror state” of trying to wipe out the Palestinians. Over Peres’s effigy was a sign reading, “I am a war criminal, bastard genocider, that’s why I get my rightful punishment, death by hanging! I am going to my master, to Satan, because hellfire awaits me! – Simón Peresz.”

6. Sweden

Björn Söder, a Sweden Democrats Party politician, made the list for spreading right-wing anti-Semitism with his statements, saying, “Most [people] of Jewish origin who have become Swedes leave their Jewish identity,” and that it is important to distinguish between “citizenship and nationhood.” The Swedish government overall was cited for failing to combat anti-Semitism: “Swedish Jews have been targets of hate crimes from Muslim extremists, but authorities have rarely, if ever, taken action against the perpetrators.”

5. Turkish columnist Faruk Köse

Köse is a columnist for Yeni Akit, a paper with close ties to President Erdogan’s government. He demanded an apology from Turkey’s Jewish community for Israel’s defensive actions in Operation Protective Edge this past summer, suggesting they pay a tax to pay for damages resulting from the operation.

“You came here after being banished from Spain. You have lived comfortably among us for 500 years and gotten rich at our expense. Is this your gratitude – killing Muslims? Erdogan, demand that the community leader apologize. So of course one feels like saying, ‘God bless that Hitler!’” he wrote.

4. Annette Groth, Inge Höger, Claudia Haydt and Heike Hänsel of Germany’s Left Party

These four German politicians fomented hatred for Israel during a talk at the Bundestag. Höger and Groth invited virulently anti-Israel speakers Max Blumenthal and David Sheen to speak about the Jewish state. When party leader Gregor Gysi canceled the use of the party room for the talk, he was “forced to barricade himself in a bathroom to escape the wrath of Blumenthal and Sheen,” according to the Wiesenthal Center, in what became known as “Toiletgate”. This is just a highlight from Höger and Groth’s record of anti-Semitism, which includes participation in 2010’s Mavi Marmara Gaza flotilla.

3. Paris Assault

A Jewish couple was brutally assaulted and the woman raped in their own apartment on the outskirts of Paris. Assailants tied up the couple, demanding,  “Tell us where you hide the money. You Jews always have money.”

2. Support for Arab Terror

Elements in Jordanian parliament and members of the Palestinian Authority were cited for their praise of Arab terrorists. Jordanian MPs held a moment of silence for the killers in November’s brutal attack on a Jerusalem synagogue, while Fatah, the PA’s ruling party, published a cartoon depicting the three teenaged Israeli boys kidnapped and murdered early this summer as rats following a spate of vehicular terror attacks in Jerusalem.

1. Belgian Doctor

90-year-old Bertha Klein fractured a rib. Her son called a doctor asking for pain relief for his mother and was told, “Send her to Gaza for a few hours, then she will get rid of the pain. I’m not coming.”

The Joods Actueel paper reported that her grandson, Hershy Taffel, filed a formal complaint. “It reminds me of what happened in Europe 70 years ago,” Taffel said. “I never thought those days would be repeated.”

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