It is so very difficult, indeed utterly unbearable, to sit silently by while Jews, and now the general religious and secular communities, completely misuse and distort the term Tikkun Olam– certainly not intentionally or out of any malice, but rather out of ignorance in the pursuit of virtuous goals and principles which may be applicable to general society and civilization but which have tragically become a poor substitute for authentic religious observance. This repair rhetoric has become an obsession, a catch-all credo. Everything today is Tikkun Olam….

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Before that, he was chairman for the Israeli mission in Tunis from 1996 to 2000, and worked at the Arab Maghreb department at the Israeli foreign ministry from 2000 to 2003.

In July 2009, Egyptian security forces uncovered a plot by three “Al-Qaeda-linked” terrorists to assassinate the ambassador at his home and bomb the Israeli embassy building in Cairo. The three conspirators confessed during interrogation and provided details of their plans. The three claimed they had plans to carry out a “series of attacks” against police stations and government offices, as well as holy Christian and Islamic sites. The credibility of these confession have been doubted as some suspect they were extracted under torture.

In 2012, he was the Baye diplomat-in-residence at The Washington Institute.

NZone a local TV station interviewed former Ambassador to Israel and current Acting Ambassador to New Zealand, Shalom Cohen on April 30:

Leonard Bell is a Lecturer in Art History at University of Auckland.  He and others have compiled an extensive history of Jews in New Zealand.  His book reveals the diversity and disproportionate impact on New Zealand society covering pre-colonial times to the present.

Paul Spoonley, a Research Director at Massey University, wrote the chapter on Anti-Semitism in New Zealand.  Unknown to us, several members of the (now defunct) political party Social Credit were ardent supporters of the theory that a Jewish conspiracy controlled world affairs.

Bell asserts that there is no Jewish race but instead Jews should be considered as a collection of “Jewish peoples.”

Kim Hill of National Radio interviewed Leonard Bell and the interview may be heard in its entirety here:

A review of the book may be found here.

Last night Eva gave a talk in Dunedin. 

This blogger has taken down the story almost verbatim.  Many of our members and members of the public missed out on seeing her presentation.  This, for the moment is the next best thing:

My kiwi host- Anna had mentioned that there was a guest lecture in town happening on the 17^th of April… A lady from Israel… She was being flown into New Zealand to give speeches about her experience during the Holocaust… WWII.

Eva Lavi is recognized as a miracle child… as she is one of the survivors of the Holocaust and therefore a name on Oskar Schindler’s list.

The Oskar Schindler….

I was absolutely fascinated to be able to partake in this lecture… I had been thinking about it all day. To be able to listen to someone who went through such agony, pain, and unspeakable horrors yet provide an abundance of hope and true strength in surviving leaves me still speechless.

We got to the lecture hall very early… 20 past 5 when it started at 6. The lecture hall has a maximum capacity of 300.. and within 20 minutes.. it was well over 400. The room filled well over 450 people. It goes to show how much respect the people in Dunedin have for this lady.. as she is without a doubt an icon of strength and hope for racial equality and acceptance.

The moment she stepped in the room it went silent. She slowly sat down on the chair in front of the lecture hall and had nothing but a smile across her face- showing how touched she was for the incredible turn out. Her character was quaint.. yet she was very witty. She was quite the lady…

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A holocaust survivor and one of the last remaining Jews to be saved by Oskar Schindler hopes her story can help prevent the horrors she witnessed happening again.

Eva Lavi, 76, was in Dunedin yesterday and spoke to pupils at St Hilda’s Collegiate School as part of a national speaking tour to raise awareness about the horrors she and millions of other Jews went through during World War II.

She described how, thanks to the efforts of her mother, Fela Rac, and Mr Schindler, she was able to survive the horrors of the war when so many others – including six million Jews – perished.

Mrs Lavi was aged 2 and living in Krakow when the Germans invaded in 1939.

Her life changed drastically and she and her family shifted into a ghetto, where 15,000 Jews were crammed into an area which had housed about 3000 people before the war. She was 8 when the war finished.

She described how, at first, she enjoyed being round so many relatives in the ghetto, but it did not take long for things to change.

Her grandparents were killed by the Nazis for being “too old”, less than a week after the family moved there.

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We were privileged to be given the opportunity to arrange Eva Lavi’s (Prisoner Number 76404) speaking engagements and in Christchurch alone  approximately 350 history students from Middleton Grange, Burnside HS, Papanui HS, Rangi Ruru and Villa Maria College heard her speak.

Kudos to the Kate Macpherson, Heather Burgess, NZ Zionist Federation and the Wellington Holocaust Centre for making it all possible.

Anna Turner from the Christchurch Press attended the talk and here is her article:

At 2-years-old she was removed from her home and crowded into Poland’s Krakow Ghetto. At 5-years-old she was taken to the Plaszow Labour Camp where she witnessed unspeakable horrors. And at 8-years-old she was saved from certain death by Oskar Schindler.

Reporter ANNA TURNER speaks to Holocaust survivor Eva Lavi, who was in Christchurch yesterday.

Holocaust survivor Eva Lavi’s voice cracks with emotion as she describes herself as a “child of miracles”.

The softly-spoken woman was just two years old when war broke out in Europe and she and her family were forced into a life of unimaginable horror.

Over the next six years, Lavi narrowly escaped death on many occasions and was ultimately saved by Oskar Schindler, whose story was made famous in the movie Schindler’s List.

Now 76-years-old, Lavi has visited Christchurch to share her incredible tale of survival.

In 1939, Lavi was living in Poland with her parents, Fela and Wilek Rac, when the war broke out. The family was forced into the cramped Krakow Ghetto along with 15,000 other Jews.

Survivors forced out of dugouts during the liquidation of the Ghetto

Within the first month, Lavi’s grandparents were killed for being “too old”.

Her mother told her if she wanted to survive she would have to “be like a little robot”.

“She said ‘Don’t cry, don’t be noticed, be obedient’. So I did what she said.”

The main entrance of Plaszow

Lavi recalled one incident where the Nazis came to the ghetto, looking for children, and her mother shoved her out the window.

“She told me to cling on to the drainpipe and wait until they had gone. It was minus 30 degrees out and I almost froze to death,” Lavi recalled.

“When my mother came and got me I was like an ice-block, but she defrosted me.”

At another point, her father tried to feed the family poison as he “believed it would be better for them all to die” than to continue living in the ghetto.

Her mother stopped him, telling Lavi the family had to keep fighting.

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Here is the National Radio Interview:  aft-20130417-1420-schindlers_list_survivor-048

This week writer Iain Banks announced he has cancer and may have just months to live. Here he explains why, in 2010, he decided his novels would no longer be published in Israel.

I support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign because, especially in our instantly connected world, an injustice committed against one, or against one group of people, is an injustice against all, against every one of us; a collective injury.

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Earlier this month, Palestinian children were taught Islam-based hatred of Jews on the weekly PA TV children’s show The Best Home. A young girl recited a poem filled with both Islamic hate messages and other libels demonizing Jews. The poem taught Palestinian children that Jews, “Allah’s enemies, the sons of pigs,” defiled the Quran and Jerusalem, both crimes against Islam, and “murdered children,” “cut off their limbs,” and “raped the women in the city squares.” Palestinian Media Watch has documented that this weekly PA TV children’s program teaches hatred and denial of Israel’s existence.

The suggested response to Jews and Zionists offered in this hate poem is military and Islamic:

“Bravo, applause, applause, applause to Hadeel.”

The poem also included a tribute to Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah organization and Arafat:

The following is the text of the hate poem recited by a young girl on PA TV’s children’s program…

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A Labour lord has been suspended by the party after an alleged anti-Semitic rant blaming a Jewish ‘conspiracy’ for his dangerous driving jail sentence.

Lord Ahmed is said to have complained in a TV programme that Jews ‘who own newspapers and TV channels’ put pressure on British courts.

The Muslim peer was jailed for 12 weeks in 2009 – serving 16 days – after being involved in a fatal car crash on Christmas Day 2007.

Lord Ahmed, 55, admitted dangerous driving after it emerged he sent five text messages while driving shortly before the motorway collision near Rotherham that killed 28-year-old Martin Gombar.

Today’s announcement follows reports he told an Urdu-language broadcast in Pakistan that his trial judge was appointed to the High Court as reward for helping a ‘Jewish colleague’ of former prime minister Tony Blair.

He allegedly said: ‘My case became more critical because I went to Gaza to support Palestinians. My Jewish friends who own newspapers and TV channels opposed this.’

A Labour spokesman said: ‘The Labour Party deplores and does not tolerate any sort of anti-Semitism…

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