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Comments (0)A Jewish shop owner is generating controversy for trying to sell a bar of soap allegedly made from the remains of Holocaust victims.
Abraham Botines, who founded the curiosity shop Botines on the city’s trendy St. Laurent Boulevard in 1967, claims he bought the bar of soap from a retired Canadian soldier who found it in a concentration camp.
Botines’ son Ivan, who co-owns the store, said its ingredients are a mystery.
“I can only tell you what [Abraham] told me, which is it was probably made from human fat or grease,” he told CTV News.
After reporters began descending on the store last Friday morning, the controversial artifact was removed from the front window. Abraham Botines said it can now be seen only by serious collectors or those willing to pay the price of $300.
“It’s my soap and I’m free to do anything I want with it,” he told the Canadian Press.
Abraham Botines said he tried to sell the item to a Holocaust museum, which refused the offer. He said he has long been collecting memorabilia from the Nazi era.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. initially reported the existence of the beige bar of soap stamped with a swastika, alleged to be from Poland circa 1940.
The story also triggered discussions of whether the Nazis actually made soap from the remains of Holocaust victims.
“We have never found any evidence that soap was made from the remains of murdered Jews,” Frank Chalk, a history professor at Montreal’s Concordia University, told CTV. “It’s an urban myth.”
B’nai Brith Canada has called the item an “indignity” and said it would like police to investigate.
British Lawmakers: Israel “Buying” Political Influence
Two British lawmakers accused supporters of Israel of “buying” influence in the Conservative Party.
Both used anti-Semitic stereotypes in their statements, reportedly made last week, which drew criticism from the body that monitors anti-Semitism in Britain.
Addressing a meeting at the House of Commons of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Friends of Al Aksa, Labor Party lawmaker Martin Linton, who chairs the parliamentary group Labor Friends of Palestine, said that “There are long tentacles of Israel in this country who are funding election campaigns and putting money into the British political system for their own ends,” the Jewish Chronicle reported on March 25.
However, Linton told the Daily Telegraph on Tuesday that he did not recognize the “tentacles” comment, but admitted he had said that Israelis with dual nationalities were funding British parties.
Another Labor lawmaker, Sir Gerald Kaufman, who is Jewish, claimed that “right-wing Jewish millionaires own” part of the Conservative Party.
Mark Gardner, spokesman for the Community Security Trust, the organization that monitors anti-Semitism in Britain, said that “Anybody who understands anti-Semitism will recognize just how ugly and objectionable these quotes are, with their imagery of Jewish control and money power. Ask the average voter who had made these comments, and they would most likely answer that it was the BNP [the far-right British National Party], not a pair of Labor lawmakers.”
Italian PM Calls for End to West Bank Building
Italy’s prime minister called on Israel to stop building settlements and to return the Golan Heights to Syria as part of a global peace settlement for the Middle East.
Silvio Berlusconi , considered one of Israel’s strongest allies, made his remarks Saturday during the Arab League summit in Sirte, Libya, which he attended as an observer at the invitation of Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gadhafi.
In a speech to the league, Berlusconi said he had reiterated to Israel that its recent decisions to build in eastern Jerusalem “are counterproductive and may seriously compromise the possibility of reviving dialogue.”
Berlusconi added that he hoped that Israel would heed “the voices of friends, such as Italy and the United States.”
Berlusconi said he had great faith in “the commitment of President Obama and his administration” to reactivate the peace process in the Middle East. He called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take “concrete and positive steps” to better the living conditions of Palestinians.
He said Italy hoped for a “comprehensive peace” that also would include the solution of the conflict with Lebanon and Syria, and “would also foresee the return of the Golan Heights to Syria.”
On Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI referred to the recent unrest in eastern Jerusalem over planed construction in both Jewish and Arab neighborhoods.
“I am deeply saddened by the recent clashes and tensions that have arisen once again in this city that is the spiritual home of Christians, Jews and Muslims,” Benedict said.
The pope called on “those responsible for the fate of Jerusalem to take the path of peace with courage and to follow it with perseverance.”