News Releases 2023
Paris, 9 January 2023
On 9 January 2015, the “Hyper Cacher” supermarket in the outskirts of Paris was attacked by an Islamist gunman, who killed four, while screaming the cause of “Palestine”.
The victims were Yohan Cohen, a 20-year-old student and supermarket employee, Philippe Braham, a 45-year-old IT executive, François-Michel Saada, a 64-year-old retiree and Yoav Hattab, a 22-year-old student who tried fighting back.
The assault had followed two days of terror in and around Paris, including the massacre of the Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly editorial staff – that had published caricatures of the Prophet Mohamed, deemed “blasphemous” by the terrorists – and the cold-blooded killing of police agents.
The connection between these events and the terror spree brought the Jewish victims into the limelight, mourned by heads of State and French Mayors participating in the “million people march” in Paris. For that occasion, we had produced an immense balloon with the message: “I am Charlie, the Police, the Jews... I am the Republic.”
Samuels with the Wiesenthal Centre balloon and as it appeared in the news, with a line
of French Mayors leading the rally.
Read more: Wiesenthal Centre Marks the Commemoration of the...
Paris, 8 January 2023
In a letter to Mikkel Bogh, Director of the National Gallery of Denmark, Dr Shimon Samuels, Director for International Relations of the Wiesenthal Centre, expressed shock by a text under the painting “The Holy Women at the Sepulchre.”
In 1965, Pope John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Council which, under his successor Pope Paul VI, produced Nostra Aetate, i.e. the Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Christian and non-Christian Religions, which made a dramatic turn in seeing Judaism as the “Father Religion.”
Paris, 8 January 2023
Four days ago, the Wiesenthal Centre had alerted the French Interior Minister of a conference, to be held in Avignon today 8 January, hosting three known radical Islam preachers.
See: https://www.wiesenthal.com/about/news/wiesenthal-centre-to-french-33.html
Finally, as had happened in November last year, also this event has been cancelled.
Read more: BREAKING NEWS: With Pressure From The Wiesenthal...
Paris, 4 January 2023
In a letter to French Interior Minister, Gerald Darmanin, Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr Shimon Samuels, expressed shock at the news that “Avignon will host, next Sunday 8 January, a conference with three known radical Islam preachers.”
Read more: Wiesenthal Centre to French Interior Minister:...
In a year filled with antisemitic rhetoric and attacks, the Simon Wiesenthal Center ranked their ten most prominent antisemitic incidents of 2022.
Article by The Jerusalem Post staff
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-726211
30 December 2022
The Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) released its list of the top ten worst antisemitic incidents of 2022 on Thursday, in which the Jewish human rights organization described it as “a tremendous increase of Jew-hatred that infected mainstream culture, academics, and media across the world.”
SWC Associate Dean and Director of Global Social Action Rabbi Abraham Cooper stated that “politicians offer words of solace to Jewish victims but failed to take effective measures to curb the attacks, while UN diplomats, cultural and academic elite often legitimize hatred of the Jewish state.”
So who made the cut?
Read more: The top ten worst antisemitic incidents of 2022...