A Kenyan lawyer has filed a petition with the International Court of Justice in The Hague, suggesting that the trial and crucifixion of Jesus Christ was unlawful, and the State of Israel among others should be held responsible, Kenyan news outlet the Nairobian reported on Friday.

Dola Indidis (left), a lawyer and former spokesman of the Kenyan Judiciary is reportedly attempting to sue Tiberius (emperor of Rome, 42 BCE-37 CE), Pontius Pilate, a selection of Jewish elders, King Herod, the Republic of Italy and the State of Israel.

“Evidence today is on record in the Bible, and you cannot discredit the Bible,” Indidis told the Kenyan Citizen News.

Although those he suggests should have been convicted during the original trial have not been alive for more than 2,000 years, Indidis insists that the government for whom they acted can and should still be held responsible.

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Read more: http://www.3news.co.nz/Grave-tagger-told-to-leave-NZ/tabid/423/articleID/303104/Default.aspx#ixzz2YyBikCz3

Peace activist who grew up as the son of an Israeli general then became supportive of the Palestinian cause. He tells his story in The General’s Son.

The New Zealand government has doubled the grant of €50,000 it made in 2011 to support the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Site.

Minister for Culture and Heritage Hon Chris Finlayson announced the additional contribution of   €50,000 at a Polish National Day reception in Wellington for visiting Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski.

Mr Finlayson – who visited Poland and the Auschwitz-Birkenau site earlier this year – has received a thank you letter from Mr Jacek Kastelaniec, Director-General of the Foundation of Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, who spoke to the Wellington Jewish community in the Van Staveren Room in November 2010.

In his letter, Mr Kastelaniec said that he was deeply touched by news of the further contribution. “Without people like you it would be impossible to fulfill our mission. Your understanding of the great tragedy that occurred in Auschwitz during the II World War is in my opinion the key to our very good relationship with New Zealand.

“I hope that together we will be able to preserve the authenticity of the Auschwitz Memorial so the future generations could visit and try to understand what happened during the Holocaust. That they will see for themselves what can happen when hatred takes reign.”
Mr Kastelaniec hoped that individual donors might also contribute to the project.

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The idea of babies switched at birth has always been a staple of dramatic fiction, perhaps because it is no rare occurrence. Shakespeare used it in The Comedy of Errors and W.S. Gilbert used it twice, in The Gondoliers and HMS Pinafore.

Here it is used in the more serious setting of Israel and the Occupied Territories in a French-Israeli co-production whose more contrived and formulaic elements are redeemed by some solid and heartfelt performances.

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Currently being shown at

Empire Cinema and Paramount in Wellington

The Bridgeway in Auckland

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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