Comments (0)Hitler Ad Raises Belgian Ire
November 26, 2008Jerusalem
JTA Wire Service
An advertisement for a Belgian travel show features an image of Hitler.
The show with the offensive ad is part of a public broadcast channel that recently canceled a cooking show on Adolf Hitler’s favorite meal, the Israeli daily Ha’aretz reported Sunday.
The ad, featuring a caricature of the travel show’s host wearing a stripper costume, a swastika armband and a Hitler mustache, were published in a national magazine.
The channel belongs to the Flemish broadcaster VRT.
“They obviously weren’t happy with our response [to the cooking show], so have added Hitler for no obvious reason other than getting attention and angering the Jewish community and the 15,000 Belgian non-Jews who were deported during World War II,” Michael Freilich, the editor of the Antwerp Jewish weekly newspaper Joods Actueel, told Ha’aretz.
“The Jewish community is furious. Some are even considering whether they want to live here.”
Revisionist Historian Avoids Extradition
An Australian revisionist historian won a legal battle to avoid extradition from Britain to Germany on charges of Holocaust denial.
Dr. Fredrick Toben, 64, was arrested at Heathrow Airport in London on Oct. 1 while he was en route from the United States to Dubai. German prosecutors on Nov. 20 dropped their appeal of a British judge’s decision last month that the arrest warrant was invalid.
Westminster Magistrates Court District Judge Daphne Wickham had said in her ruling that the warrant contained only “vague and imprecise” details about Toben’s alleged offenses. German prosecutors wanted to charge Toben for publishing anti-Semitic material on his Adelaide Institute Web site between 2000 and 2004.
Holocaust denial in Germany is a crime punishable by up to five years in jail.
Toben’s lawyers said he was released from custody Nov. 20 and is awaiting the return of his passport.
He is still, however, awaiting the verdict of a contempt-of-court hearing in Australia brought by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, which has accused Toben of breaching a 2002 Federal Court ruling to remove all Holocaust-denial material from his Web site.
Ukrainian Chief Rabbi Joins Interfaith Memorial
One of Ukraine’s two chief rabbis joined prayers for victims of the Stalin-era Great Famine.
Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich along with top Ukrainian officials, members of parliament, public and cultural figures, and representatives of other faiths participated Saturday in a memorial service for victims of the Holodomor, or Great Famine, of 1932-33 in Ukraine. Ukraine marked Freedom Day on Saturday.
Bleich, however, refused to jointly conduct a prayer with other religious leaders in the St. Sophia Cathedral of Kiev.
“Christian and Muslim leaders jointly conducted the service and prayed but Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich refused, referring to the Shabbat,” Dr. Aleksandr Sagan, minister for nationalities and religions in Ukraine, told JTA.
Among other commemorations Saturday, religious leaders addressed 44 foreign delegations, including the presidents of Georgia, Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as representatives of international organizations and religious leaders who attended an international forum.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko thanked the 13 countries that have recognized the Holodomor as an act of genocide, and a number of international organizations that have denounced the Holodomor as a crime against humankind.
Russia has refused to recognize Holodomor as genocide, while Israel is still considering Yushchenko’s call to recognize it as such.
This story reprinted courtesy of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.