World's Most Important Jewish Advocacy Group "Horrified" by Nazi Resurgence in Ukraine - Russia Insider

The World Jewish Congress, an international organization that represents Jewish communities and organizations in 100 countries around the world, has written a letter to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church expressing deep concern about the Church's participation in neo-Nazi ceremonies in Ukraine. The letter, addressed to Patriarch Filaret of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, strongly condemned a recent ceremony near Lviv marking the 70th anniversary of the creation of the Galician division of the Waffen SS, in which Ukrainians fought on the side of Nazi Germany. From the WJC website:

In late July, Ukrainians wearing SS uniforms were photographed trudging through trenches and fire rifles in a reconstruction of a key battle against the Soviets during World War II. An Orthodox priest led a ceremony for fallen soldiers of the Nazi unit, sprinkling his blessing over several men sporting swastikas who lowered a coffin in a ritual reburial.

In his letter, [World Jewish Congress president] Lauder expressed hope that Filaret would use his “moral authority to prevent any further rehabilitation of Nazism or the SS, and that you will call on the clergy of your Church not to participate in any future ceremonies or events that glorify or legitimize a uniform that epitomizes the evil of genocide.”

Lauder also mentioned that Oleg Pankevich, a lawmaker for the extreme-right Svoboda party, took part in the reburial ceremony.

“As you know, leaders of Svoboda, like their counterparts in Jobbik in Hungary and Golden Dawn in Greece, frequently engage in anti-Semitic rhetoric that has ominous implications,” Lauder wrote the church leader.
Unfortunately for the World Jewish Congress -- and the rest of the world -- Svoboda is now a leading player in Ukrainian politics.

Complete story at - World's Most Important Jewish Advocacy Group "Horrified" by Nazi Resurgence in Ukraine - Russia Insider

The Double Identity of an "Anti-Semitic" Commenter | Common Dreams

Like many other news websites, Common Dreams has been plagued by inflammatory anti-Semitic comments following its stories. But on Common Dreams these posts have been so frequent and intense they have driven away donors from a nonprofit dependent on reader generosity.

A Common Dreams investigation has discovered that more than a thousand of these damaging comments over the past two years were written with a deceptive purpose by a Jewish Harvard graduate in his thirties who was irritated by the website's discussion of issues involving Israel.

His intricate campaign, which he has admitted to Common Dreams, included posting comments by a screen name, "JewishProgressive," whose purpose was to draw attention to and denounce the anti-Semitic comments that he had written under many other screen names.

The deception was many-layered. At one point he had one of his characters charge that the anti-Semitic comments and the criticism of the anti-Semitic comments must be written by "internet trolls who have been known to impersonate anti-Semites in order to then double-back and accuse others of supporting anti-Semitism"--exactly what he was doing. (Trolls are posters who foment discord.)

The impersonation, this character wrote, must be part of an "elaborate Hasbara setup," referring to an Israeli international public-relations campaign. When Common Dreams finally confronted the man behind the deceptive posting, he denied that he himself was involved with Hasbara.

His posting on Common Dreams illustrates the susceptibility of website comment threads to massive manipulation. As another illustration, he even audaciously tricked the white-supremacist Vanguard News Network, posing as "DeShawn S. Williams," a "Pro-White/Black, anti-jew."

Complete story at - The Double Identity of an "Anti-Semitic" Commenter | Common Dreams