News Releases 2019
"A campaign against possible chemical contaminants in vaccinations cannot be associated or compared with mass murder and the Holocaust."
Paris, 22 February 2019
In a letter to Italian Minister of the Interior and vice-Prime Minister, Matteo Salvini, Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels expressed "outrage at an anti-vaccination campaign by an unknown group 'Siamo' (We Are), allegedly associated with 'Corvelva' (Veneto Regional Coordination for Liberty of Vaccination)."
See: https://vaxopedia.org/2018/12/19/what-is-corvelva/
The letter described "Holocaust Denial, Holocaust Banalization and Holocaust Abuse, considered open to criminal prosecution in several European jurisdictions."
Read more: Wiesenthal Centre to Italian Interior Minister:...
Paris, 21 February 2019
H.E. Mr. Emmanuel Marcon
Président de la République
Palais de l’Elysée
Paris
Monsieur le Président,
It was a pleasure to speak briefly with you last night at the CRIF dinner.
The Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s over 400,000 worldwide membership is greatly moved by your speech at the dinner, especially your remarks acknowledging anti-Zionism as a form of antisemitism, your strong position against BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) against the State of Israel, your revulsion at the desecration of Jewish cemeteries and your focus on Islamist antisemitism, “requiring a reconquest of our lost territories in the struggle against radicalism.”
We especially appreciate your emphasis on Holocaust education and outrage at Holocaust denial, but above all your commitment that France will be signing the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Definition of Antisemitism.
Dr. Shimon Samuels with President Emmanuel Macron at the CRIF dinner.
The Simon Wiesenthal Centre played a seminal role in the forging of that document, through my colleague, our Director for Government Affairs, Mark Weitzman.
That definition, as you stressed in your speech, Mr. President, defines anti-Zionism - the denial of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination - as a form of Jew-hatred.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Dr. Shimon Samuels
Director for International Relations
Simon Wiesenthal Centre, Paris
Letter by Dr. Shimon Samuels published in The Times of Israel
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/an-open-letter-to-h-m-king-mohammed-vi-of-morocco/
Paris, 19 February 2019
H.M. King Mohammed VI
Rabat, Morocco
Your Majesty,
The Simon Wiesenthal Centre is an international Jewish human rights organization with a worldwide constituency of over 400,000 members. It applies the lessons of the Holocaust to counter antisemitism and other contemporary forms of discrimination and hate.
0ne of our major projects is to monitor incitement to hatred and violence on the shelves of international book fairs. The findings are then shared with the authorities of the Frankfurt Book Fair, where, accordingly those publishers identified in contravention of their contract - which prohibits incitement - are duly blacklisted.
Your Majesty’s patronage of the SIEL Casablanca Book Fair ensures the banning of any text insulting to Islam.
Yet, in our seven years of monitoring the SIEL, there has been no such vetting of texts on the Casablanca shelves that offend the Jewish religion and people.
Read more: An Open Letter to H.M. King Mohammed VI of Morocco
Blog by Dr. Shimon Samuels published in The Jerusalem Post
17 February 2019
https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/France-mobilizes-against-antisemitism-580959
The call has been addressed to party and municipal authorities in large cities across France, including in Lyons, Marseille and Nice.
People attend a gathering, organized by CRIF Jewish organisation, in memory of Mireille Knoll, an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor stabbed and burnt in her Paris apartment in what authorities suspect could be an anti-Semitic murder, in Marseille, France, March 28, 2018 (photo credit: JEAN-PAUL PELISSIER / REUTERS).
Almost 120 years ago, on August 20, 1899, a pro-Dreyfus group led a demonstration in Paris against antisemitism.
On February 19, 2019, almost all French parties across the political spectrum will join a rally against antisemitism, with two exceptions: Le Pen’s far Right and the Mélenchon’s far Left.
The case of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, who was unjustly sentenced and humiliatingly cashiered from the French army, took years to resolve.
Here, since the government’s release of its report showing the 74% spike in incidents, antisemitism seems to have become a new fetish – the place to be. Or is this just a flash in the pan? More importantly, how will it treat ‘anti-Zionism’ and the State of Israel?
“A 3-step campaign to replace Israel with Palestine and Holocaust with Nakba:
1) The high-school teacher
2) The classroom students
3) The Jewish community and Gentile friends.”
Paris, 14 February 2019
In a letter to Guillaume Vanhulst, Rector of the Haute Ecole Pedagogique Vaud (Higher Educational School, HEP) of Lausanne, Dr. Shimon Samuels, Director for International Relations of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, expressed outrage at a three-step inherently anti-Jewish hate campaign planned for 29-30 April on HEP’s campus:
1) An inculcation session for high-school teachers
2) From the teachers to their class students
3) From the students to the broader community.