Volume 4 No 2 - Journal for the Study of Antisemitism

2012] ANTISEMITIC INCIDENTS, JULY–DECEMBER 2012 381justified the use of violence and corporal punishment against women,” theministry noted in its statement.London, November 1: A Jewish academic repeatedly broke down in tears ashe told an employment tribunal that he had suffered a decade of harassmentwhile opposing a boycott of Israel. Mathematics lecturer Ronnie Fraser,whose parents escaped Nazi Germany, said he felt a special responsibilityto challenge the university and College Union after it rejected a widelyaccepted definition of antisemitism. “This case is not about Israel-Palestine.It’s not about me. It’s about fellow Jews. We have been forced out. Wehave been humiliated. It has been horrendous and relentless against us,” hesaid. Later, the tribunal was briefly halted when Fraser again wept whileexplaining how he believed his grandparents had been killed at Auschwitz.“They died as a result of antisemitism, and this is my way of saying ‘neveragain,’” he stated.London, November 2: The Jewish umbrella body in Britain lodged a complaintwith church officials about an Anglican vicar whom they accuse ofantisemitic speech. The Board of Deputies of British Jews filed the complaintagainst Reverend Stephen Sizer in connection with content thatappeared on his website, the London-based Jewish Chronicle reported.Sizer, a senior pastor of the Anglican Christ Church in Virginia Water, Surrey,has twice altered his website after linking to sites that promote Holocaustdenial and Zionist conspiracy theories, the Chronicle reported.Paris, November 12: Abdelghani Merah, the brother of Franco-AlgerianIslamist Mohamed Merah, who killed seven people in southwest France lastMarch, has co-written a book on his terrorist brother that will be publishedthis month. French news websites published extracts from the book, Monfrère, ce terroriste (My Brother, This Terrorist), and he was interviewed byM6 television. He emphasized that the main motivation behind the attacksin Toulouse and Montauban was the antisemitism of the Merah family.“Hatred and racism” explain the radicalization of his brother Mohamed,Merah said. “The Salafists had only to harvest the flower of this hatred.”London, November 13: Metropolitan police reportedly said the recent deliveryof an explosive device to a house near London was an antisemitic hatecrime. The explosive device was sent to a house in Clayhall, near London,causing police to close the area to traffic, according to the Ilford Recorder,a local newspaper. The report did not say how the package was delivered orwho was the intended recipient. Explosives experts examined the packageand made it safe. The house to which the package was delivered remainedcordoned off while police conducted their investigation. Nobody was