Europe
“And we look to Jewish investment,” stated Portugal’s Secretary of State for Tourism Ana Mendes Godinho, who encouraged Jews to visit, invest in and seek citizenship in the country.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that “the Polish prime minister’s remarks here in Munich are outrageous. There is a problem here of an inability to understand history and a lack of sensitivity to the tragedy of our people. I intend to speak with him forthwith.”
Just one week after passing a controversial law criminalizing phrases indicating Polish responsibility for heinous crimes against Jews during the Holocaust, Poland’s ruling party has sponsored a new bill outlawing traditional Jewish ritual slaughter with a penalty of up to four years in prison.
Poland’s President Andrzej Duda on Tuesday signed into a law a controversial bill that makes it a crime for anyone to suggest Polish complicity in the Holocaust.
The Irish and Jewish people share a common history of suffering cruel persecution and achieving national redemption against immeasurable odds. But today, modern Ireland is one of Europe’s fiercest critics of Israel.
The Polish government has cancelled a visit to the country by Israel’s Education and Diaspora Affairs Minister Naftali Bennett’s following a statement highlighting Poland’s involvement in the Holocaust.
American and Israeli condemnation poured in on Thursday in the wake of a controversial bill passed by the Polish Senate a day earlier criminalizing statements linking Poland to the murder of Jews during the Holocaust.
The Irish Senate postponed a vote on a controversial bill that would criminalize trade with Israeli settlements just hours after the Israeli government protested the measure.
While many American and Israeli Jews may think negatively about Europe these days, there are indications of a rising number of Jews living in relative comfort in many of Europe’s largest cities.
The lower house of the Polish Parliament passed a law this week banning the use of the term “Polish concentration camps,” in an attempt to lay blame for the Holocaust squarely on German Nazis and exonerate Poles from being complicit in the crimes that left more than 1 million Polish Jews dead during World War II.
Despite issues such as the Iran nuclear deal and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process taking center stage at this week’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used the opportunity of the summit to tout Israel’s growing economic and technological clout to the world’s top businesses and leaders.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that Israel would retain Jerusalem’s holy sites in any peace deal during a public interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday.
