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Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Jan. 21, 2005 / 11 Shevat, 5765

Harry Shirt flap obscures real anti-Semitism

By Jonathan Tobin


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The fact that the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center is pushing for Harry to go to Auschwitz speaks volumes about the failure of some of those who seek to represent Jewry to understand the problem




http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz later this month on Jan. 27 may well have been ignored by much of the mainstream press, if not for a costume party attended by British royalty.


The pictures of Britain's Prince Harry — who ranks third on the list of those who might one day replace Queen Elizabeth II — wearing something that resembled a World War II German army uniform, replete with a swastika armband, not only engaged the royalty-mad English tabloids but made headlines around the globe.


And the subsequent suggestions that Harry might be forced to attend the memorial ceremony at Auschwitz as some form of penance has elevated the anniversary from the back page to the front page.


Some hope the firestorm of anger directed at the second of the late Princess Diana's sons might help those who wish to promote Holocaust education. Presumably, Harry's shirt will serve as an incentive to worry more about Holocaust denial and the need for even more teachings about Nazi horrors.


But as much as the dimwitted royals deserve the abuse they are receiving, permit us to observe that all this carrying-on over a 20-year-old's sick joke is obscuring the real story about anti-Semitism in the Europe of 2005, not that of 1945.

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The fact is, you don't need an invitation to a royal costume party to see vestiges of the culture of Jew-hatred these days. Much worse things than the sight of a tabloid celebrity wearing a swastika are available to be heard and seen in London, Paris, and in many other European and Asian capitals, not to mention the United Nations.


As a U.S. State Department study reported last week, anti-Semitism continues to plague Europe. In particular, the willingness of many in the European media and other members of its intellectual elite to demonize the State of Israel and foment hatred of Jews continues without much notice.


In the 19th and 20th centuries, traditional European anti-Semitism was spread to the Arab and Islamic world. But in the last few decades, immigrants from the Islamic world have become a bridgehead for Jew-hatred in Britain, France, Germany and other European nations.


But rather than focus on this virus, the same sources who howl about Harry have either downplayed the rise in anti-Semitism or become willing accomplices to a movement that seeks to delegitimize Jewish national identity and Israeli self-defense. For all of the condemnations of the famous prince, anger over slights to dead Jews is but cheap talk when it is not matched by fury at Islamist and Palestinian terrorism, whose end goal is the annihilation of the descendants of Hitler's victims.


Those who truly care about the memory of Jewish martyrs don't need Prince Harry or any other intellectually challenged British royals marring the Auschwitz anniversary with crocodile tears. The fact that the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center is pushing for Harry to go to Auschwitz speaks volumes about the failure of some of those who seek to represent Jewry to understand this problem.


This month, we should embrace Auschwitz's survivors and remember the millions who perished there. But we also have the right to demand that the international media pay at least as much attention to the very real and dangerous symptoms of contemporary anti-Semitism as it does to Harry's shirt.

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JWR contributor Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent. Let him know what you think by clicking here.

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© 2004, Jonathan Tobin