These are hard times for those who reject the polarization of public discourse. Not only in the U.S.A., but also in Germany, there is practically no room left for nuance and differentiation.
AJC praised Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Šimašius for removing a plaque on the Lithuanian Academy of Science building honoring Jonas Noreika, an anti-Soviet fighter who was responsible for the deportation of Šiauliai Jews and seizure of their property during the Holocaust.
The latest European Union report on antisemitism begins with a stark warning. “These findings make for grim reading,” writes Michael O’Flaherty, director of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), in the foreword.
In the early and mid-1980s, I saw up close some of the remarkable Israeli efforts, supported by the United States government and a few American Jewish groups, on behalf of Ethiopian Jews.