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DECEMBER 3, 2020
JEWISH EXPONENT
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



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NEWSBRIEFS Report: 22% of European Hate Crimes in 2019 Against Jews
EVEN THOUGH JEWS comprise less than 1% of the population
in the pan-European region, anti-Semitic incidents accounted
for 22% of hate crimes recorded there in 2019, JTA reported.

There were 5,954 incidents recorded in Europe, Russia and
Central Asia by the Office for Democratic Institutions and
Human Rights, and 1,311 were labeled as anti-Semitic. That was
the second-largest category in the report.

The largest category was racism and xenophobia, with 2,371
incidents, while those targeted for gender or sexual orientation
was third with 1,277 cases.

The report noted that its figures are not definitive and may be
lower than the actual number of hate crimes committed.

Canada Names First Envoy to Fight Anti-Semitism
Former Canadian justice minister and human rights activist
Irwin Cotler was named Canada’s first envoy to combat anti-Sem-
itism by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, JTA reported.

Cotler, who is a lawyer and former Parliament member, has
worked with numerous prisoners of conscience including Nelson
Mandela, Soviet dissident leader Andrei Sakharov, Soviet gulag
prisoner Natan Sharansky and author Jacobo Timerman, a
former prisoner of the Argentine junta.

“As Canada’s first Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust
Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism, Irwin Cotler will
use his vast knowledge and experience to promote Holocaust
education, remembrance, and research as we continue working
with partners in Canada and around the world to fight against
hate and intolerance,” Trudeau said in a statement. “Because
anti-Semitism has no place in Canada — or anywhere else.”
Walter Mosley Honored by National Book Foundation
The National Book Foundation bestowed one of its highest honors
on Black Jewish novelist Walter Mosley in November with its
Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

Mosley, 68, is known for his “Easy Rawlins” mystery series
about a Black detective in Los Angeles. One of his books, “Devil
in a Blue Dress,” was adapted in 1995 into a movie.

He is the first Black man to win the award, although fellow
Jews who previously won the award include Saul Bellow, Philip
Roth and Arthur Miller.

Mosley was born to a Jewish mother and a Black father in Los
Angeles. Synagogue to Open on Site of Babyn Yar
A new synagogue will open in 2021 in Babyn Yar — the Kyiv,
Ukraine, location where the Nazis and collaborators murdered
thousands of Jews, JTA reported.

Massacres occurred at the ravine site between September
1941 and November 1943, with the first massacre killing nearly
34,000 Jews.

It is “our duty to care for people who visit Babyn Yar and need to
honor their memory and pray for the death of their loved ones and
all those who died in the terrible tragedy of the Holocaust,” Moshe
Reuven Azman, a chief rabbi of Ukraine, said in a statement.

The Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center, which was estab-
lished in 2016 to build a Holocaust museum in Kyiv, is raising
money for the project, which is expected to cost millions. Plans
for a museum will likely not materialize before 2024. l
— Compiled by Andy Gotlieb
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