Serbia: Dozens of headstones destroyed in Jewish cemetery

Via Jewish News:

Two youths in Serbia have been arrested on suspicion that they toppled or smashed 47 headstones at the Jewish cemetery in the northern city of Pančevo.

In the attack, carried out on 8 December, the youths allegedly jumped over the cemetery fence and proceeded to push down the headstones, causing several to smash, the news site 021 reported. Police were notified of the vandalism last week, according to the report. It did not say whether the youths targeted the cemetery because it was for Jews.

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Serbia: Belgrade Jews Oppose WWII Leader’s Rehabilitation

Via Balkan Insight (h/t Watch: Antisemitism in Europe):

A member of the Jewish Community of Belgrade, which represents the city’s Jews, told BIRN on Monday that the organisation would call witnesses to testify at the ongoing rehabilitation hearings about Nedic’s active participation in the Holocaust.

“Rehabilitation would represent a devaluation of indisputable historical facts, and an insult to all the victims and survivors of the survivors. Serbia would also suffer moral and political damage,” said Haris Dojc, a member of the Jewish Community of Belgrade and coordinator of historical research for heirless Jewish property.

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Serbia: Air Serbia passengers to Tel Aviv told they're flying to "Palestine"

Via Ynet News:

Land crew at Serbia's Nikola Tesla International Airport in Belgrade has recently informed Air Serbia passengers flying to Tel Aviv that boarding had begun for the flight to "Palestine."

The incident, which occurred on August 29 ahead of Air Serbia's JUO 816 night flight from Belgrade to Tel Aviv, created uproar at the airport, with Israeli passengers refusing to get on the plane until the correct announcement was made. The airline representatives explained to passengers that "the flight is to Tel Aviv, not to Israel."

One of the Israeli passengers recounted the incident: "To our surprise, one of the airport employees asked over the PA system that 'passengers for flight 816 with service to Palestine please come to gate C3.' She repeated this several times."

"I couldn't hold back when I heard it. At first I thought that I didn’t hear the announcement correctly, and I asked a few other people if they heard them say 'Palestine' over the PA system," he continued.

The passenger approached the airline's desk at the gate. "I was joined by a man from Rosh Pina. I asked them to announce that the flight was going to Israel and not to Palestine," he said.

The manager responded that the flight was to Tel Aviv, not Israel.

"I told her that the flight was also not to 'Palestine' and requested they announce that the flight was going to Israel or even Tel Aviv. We told them they need to announce it three times, and told them that we would refuse to board the plane otherwise," he said.

"After the staff discussed the matter amongst themselves in Serbian, they indeed announced that the flight was going to Tel Aviv three times. The manager of the desk personally took us to gate C3 and apologized to us several times." 

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Serbia: football hooligans “hate Jewish people without seeing one in their entire lives"

Via Strangers at Home:

Most of the Jewish population in Serbia was eradicated during the Nazi occupation in the 1940s, so why is a world famous cartoonist drawing comics about anti-Semitism?

Alexsandar Zograf says that his comments are an “attempt to reflect on Serbian past and present”, and tackle the absurdity of football hooligans, who  “hate Jewish people without seeing one in their entire lives.”

But Zograf works also touches the historical side of anti-Semitism in Serbia, focusing on figures like Hilde Dajc’s story, and her experience in a concentration camp in Belgrade during the 40s.

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Serbia from The Global Reporting Centre on Vimeo.

Serbia: At rehabilitation trial, historian claims that Nazi-puppet Leader ‘Did Not Kill Jews’

90% of Serbia's 16,000 Jews were killed between August 1941 and May 1942.




Via Balkan Insight:

Historian Bojan Dimitrijevic told the Belgrade-based Higher Court on Monday that the Nazi backed WWII-era puppet government led by Nedic never physically murdered any Jews, as killings were only carried out by German occupation troops in the country at the time.

“The Jewish question was not within the competence of Nedic’s government, but rather the German forces. In implementing this policy, Nedic’s government merely made statistical records of the Jews in Serbia,” Dimitrijevic said.

“All the activities of arresting [people], putting [them] in concentration camps and killings were carried out exclusively by German forces,” he added.

Asked by the judge whether the Nedic government published anti-Semitic posters, Dimitrijevic admitted that it did use propaganda against Serbia’s Jewish community.

“There were some elements of that, but that is not the same as killing people,” Dimitrijevic said.

(...)

Nedic, who was prime minister from 1941 to 1944, was declared a war criminal by the Yugoslav Communist authorities after the Nazi occupation of the country ended, but his great-grandson and his allies are hoping that the court will posthumously clear his name.

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Spain: Man detained for providing arms for 2015 Paris Jewish supermarket attack

Via i24 News:

Spanish police said Wednesday they had detained a French national suspected of heading a weapons trafficking ring that provided arms to Amedy Coulibaly, who staged a deadly attack on a Jewish supermarket in Paris last year.

In a statement, police said Antoine Denevi, a 27-year-old originally from northern France, was detained on Tuesday in the southern Spanish Malaga area after Paris issued a Europe-wide arrest warrant.

He "left the neighboring country (France) weeks after the Paris attacks to escape police action, and settled in the province of Malaga from where he continued his illegal activities using fake papers," the police said.

"It's also been determined that his activities were linked with people of Serbian origin, who may have facilitated his access to arms and munitions."

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Serbia: Star of David causes stir at Belgrade pride parade

Stefan Sparavalo

Ynet reports:

A gay pride parade held in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, last week was the scene of a clash between supporters of Israel and left wing pro-Palestinian activists. 

A Serbian supporter of Israel, Stefan Sparavalo, 24, claimed he was verbally assaulted by several female activists while walking with an Israeli flag. Sparavalo claimed that the activists demanded he put away his flag, as it stands as a symbol for fascism and apartheid.

Sparavalo noted that the attacks against him were led by Dr. Orly Fridman, an Israeli living in Belgrade, who conducts workshops on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Dr. Fridman however, denies Sparavalo's timeline of events, saying that he initiated the incident by vocally protesting a political speech being read by one of the activists who was participating in the parade.

According to Sparavalo, he was verbally attacked and threatened with physical gestures after he refused to put away the flag. "When I told Fridman that her request to put away the flag due to the Star of David amounted to anti-Semitism, she laughed and answered that she could not be an anti-Semite, as she herself is an Israeli." 

Dr. Friedman refutes the claim, telling Ynet: "It never happened. The pride parade includes political speeches. A Serbian peace activist got on stage and read a political text, and then the man began rudely yelling that 'this is a pride parade, not a left wing political parade.'" 

She added that, "While he was yelling, I noticed that he had a pride flag with a Star of David on it, and asked him to stop yelling in the name of the flag, and asked him to let the activist finish her speech." 

"I told him that I was Israeli, and that he was representing my symbol, which represents tolerance and pluralism, and told him to stop trying to silence people. He yelled back that I was an anti-Semite, and that all left wing activists were anti-Semites, while mentioning groups like B'Tselem and Meretz," she said.  Read more.

Serbia: President says Nazis targeted Jews because they were over-represented in prestigious professions

Via  Times of Israel

Serbian human rights groups called on Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic to apologize for saying at a Holocaust commemoration that Nazis targeted Jews because of their over-representation in certain professions.

Nikolic “is spreading stereotypes about the Jewish people, saying that this minority was “over-represented in prestigious professions,'” said the January 28 statement signed by a number of Belgrade-based human rights monitors and civil society groups. 

(...)

In his speech on January 27, Nikolic said that for the Nazis, “the biggest threat was seen in the Jewish people, probably on the account of their characteristics and being prominent in the prestigious professions in the domains of finances, art and science,” according to a report by the government-run broadcaster, Voice of Serbia. 

He spoke at a ceremony marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day, commemorating the liberation of Auschwitz in 1945.

Serbia: Football fans hold antisemitic banner

UEFA are set to launch a formal investigation into the anti-Semitic banner that marred Tottenham's goalless draw against Partizan Belgrade.  

The banner displayed among the Serbian supporters during the Europa League tie which finished 0-0 read: ‘Only Jews and Pussies’ — an allusion to the TV comedy Only Fools and Horses. 

Delegates from European football’s governing body were made aware of the banner before half-time, yet no effort was made to take it down.

More: Daily Mail

Serbia: Cemetery vandalized

Several headstones were vandalized at the Jewish cemetery in Subotica on the night of February 10-11. 

According to Jewish Community Subotica, nine headstones have been damaged, including two of greater value belonging to prominent citizens.

More: InSerbia