Boycott Israel's Swedish Boycott
Mark Graffis
Sunday, August 23, 2009 7:28 PM Subject: Re: Holocaust Films Keep
Coming
http://www.legitgov.org/action_boycott_ikea_boycott.html
Shop Till You Drop at IKEA to Counteract Israel's Boycott!
Thousands of Israelis petition to boycott Sweden retailer IKEA By
Adi Dovrat and Irit Rosenblum, Haaretz 23 Aug 2009 Thousands of
Israelis have signed an online petition to boycott the Swedish
furniture retailer IKEA, in the wake of a controversial article
published in the Swedish daily Aftonbladet that suggested that
Israeli soldiers "harvested" the organs of Palestinians. The
signatories were also dismayed at the refusal of the Stockholm
government to denounce the allegations under the banner of press
freedom. Various figures in the Israeli government have harshly
criticized the article and demanded, to no avail, that the Swedish
government issue a condemnation. On Sunday it emerged that Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to press Stockholm for an
official condemnation.
Swedish daily: IDF killed Palestinians for organs --Article published
by Aftonbladet reporter claims soldiers snatched Palestinian youths
and returned their dismembered bodies a few days later. By Roni
Sofer, Israel News 18 Aug 2009 Leading Swedish daily Aftonbladet
claimed in one of its articles that IDF soldiers killed Palestinians
in order to trade in their organs. On Tuesday the Israeli Foreign
Ministry responded by saying that the article "is a shocking example
of Israel's demonization." According to the ministry, the Stockholm-based
paper accused the Israeli army of organ theft. The report mentioned
Brooklyn resident Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, who is accused of involvement
in the recent human organ-trafficking case that caused a storm in
the US and Israel. The report said Palestinians claim youngsters
were forced to give up theirs before being executed. This suspicion,
the report said, may lead to an international war crimes investigation
against Israel.
Black market kidney trade exposed in US and Israel 26 Jul 2009 An
international racket in the trade of black-market kidneys has been
exposed in America. In the first documented case of organ trafficking
in the US, the FBI last week arrested so-called kidney matchmaker,
Levy Izhak Rosenbaum of Brooklyn. He was arrested only days after
he had met with a secret government informant and an undercover FBI
agent. The agent had tricked Rosenbaum into believing he was searching
for a kidney for a sick relative who was on a transplant list at a
US hospital. According to the FBI, Rosenbaum, who is a member of
the Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn, was able to display a
thorough knowledge of kidney donations.. In a secretly recorded
conversation it was revealed Rosenbaum was in contact with a major
overseas hospital syndicate, which would buy organs from vulnerable
people in Israel or other poorer countries for $10,000 and sell
them to patients in the US for as much as $160,000. Rosenbaum was
allegedly recorded saying he had brokered many kidney swaps, with
money acquired from the deals then being spread between Israeli
doctors, visa preparers and those who cared for the organ donors
in the US.
Israel targets U.K. funding of group that exposed 'IDF crimes' in
Gaza By Barak Ravid, Haaretz 29 Jul 2009 Israel continues to ratchet
up diplomatic pressure against European Union funding of a group
that exposed what it described as war crimes perpetrated by the
Israel Defense Forces in Gaza. The deputy director-general of the
Foreign Ministry, Rafi Barak, expressed "concern" last week over
Britain's financial contributions to "Breaking the Silence," an
organization founded by IDF veterans which collects testimonies
from soldiers serving in the Palestinian territories. Barak
communicated Israel's dissatisfaction over Britain's funding of the
group during a meeting with London's ambassador to Tel Aviv, Tom
Phillips. Barak met with Phillips to discuss efforts by various
British organizations to institute a boycott against Israel. During
the meeting, Barak also raised the subject of funds which the British
government channels to Breaking the Silence.
IKEA.com
----- Original Message ----- From: Mark Graffis To: Undisclosed-Recipient:;
Sent: Sunday, August 23, 2009 6:29 PM Subject: Holocaust Films Keep
Coming
http://www.jewishtimes.com/index.php/jewishtimes/news/jt/national_news/holo
caust_films_keep_coming/14074
National News
Oy! There is no suffering like Jewish suffering.
Baltimore Jewish Times National News - Holocaust Films Keep Coming
Comments (0)
Holocaust Films Keep Coming August 17, 2009
Los Angeles Tom Tugend JTA Wire Service
At least once a year over the last quarter century, a respected
critic will prove conclusively that films about the Holocaust and
the Nazi era have reached a saturation point and that movie and
television audiences are suffering from a terminal case of Holocaust
fatigue.
Ignoring such earnest arguments, Hollywood and other movie makers
in the United States and Europe regularly roll out new slates of
films on these topics.
This summer is no exception.
Hollywood kicks things off Aug. 21 with the opening of Quentin
Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds," featuring Brad Pitt, in which
American Jewish GIs terrorize the German army and almost singlehandedly
wipe out the Nazi leadership. At least another five more Holocaust-related
films from around the world are set to see wider distribution in
the coming months.
A similar list, and perhaps even more impressive, could be compiled
for almost any other recent year. Going back less than 12 months,
Hollywood alone released "The Reader," "Valkyrie," "Defiance" and
"The Boy in the Striped Pajamas."
So why the continuing flow, and public acceptance, of films about
the gruesome events of more than 60 years ago?
Filmmakers, distributors and scholarly experts agree on some reasons
and to a lesser degree on others.
"The Holocaust has 6 million compelling stories, and Hollywood is
always desperate for a good story," said Meyer Gottlieb, president
and chief operating officer of Samuel Goldwyn Films and a child
survivor of the Holocaust. "It is only the media that think the
public is tired of the subject."
Rabbi Marvin Hier, founding dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and
producer of several Oscar-winning documentaries on the Holocaust,
insists that films and books about the Final Solution will never
be out of vogue.
"Why sit through something about the invasion of aliens from outer
space when the reality was so much more incredible and frightening?"
he asked.
Howard Suber, a UCLA professor considered among the top film teachers
and consultants, believes that all Holocaust films are variations
on "the world's greatest storyline": A character is trapped in a
certain situation-will he have what it takes to get out?
He adds that "the moment a Nazi storm trooper or a swastika appear
on the screen, the audience knows a survival story is coming."
"That story always works, from baby Moses floating down the Nile
and Joseph and his brothers to 'Robinson Crusoe' and the TV 'Survivor'
series," said Suber, author of "The Power of Film."
Considerably more touchy is the thesis that the prominence of Jewish
studio heads, producers and directors in Hollywood and European
movie centers tilts their professional judgment toward films on the
extermination of 6 million fellow Jews.
According to this theory, the question is: If the founders of
Hollywood and their modern-day descendants had not been Jews, but
instead had come from Rwanda, Armenia, Bosnia or Darfur, would we
be watching films about genocides in their countries?
Sharon Rivo, executive director of the National Center for Jewish
Film at Brandeis University, is convinced that personal ties and
family experiences strongly influence later professional decisions.
"At least once a week I get a pitch by someone who feels that he
or she must make a film about parents or grandparents who survived
the Holocaust," Rivo said.
"I believe there have been only two feature films about the Armenian
genocide, neither one with much impact," she said. "I would love
to see top dramatic films about the suffering and genocides of
gypsies or Rwandans, but they need to be familiar with the levers
of production in this business."
Even as consummate a professional as Steven Spielberg believes that
personal background counts. Well before the release of "Schindler's
List," he told JTA that he learned to count numbers by tracing the
scratches on the forearm of a survivor befriended by his parents.
Suber holds a strongly divergent view, asserting that ethnic or
other kinds of sentiments play no role in the tough, bottom
line-obsessed entertainment business. Forty years ago, tackling the
subject in a study on the interaction between Jewish culture and
film culture, he concluded there was none.
The Eastern European immigrants who founded the film industry went
out of their way to downplay their Jewishness, he recalled. Even
today, Suber maintained, "Hollywood Jews are secular Jews, they are
American businessmen who don't put their race or religion first."
Whatever the reason, a new wave of Holocaust films is hitting
theaters in the coming months:
* In "Inglourious Basterds," Pitt is the leader of the ferocious
band of American Jewish GIs, and writer-director Tarantino infuses
the film with his stylized camera work and violence-his GIs don't
take prisoners but slowly scalp the German soldiers or crack their
skulls with baseball bats. Along with "Defiance," which glorified
the Jewish partisans in World War II, "Basterds"
may mark a new sub-genre in which the Jews are no longer the victims
but the pitiless avengers.
* A slyer and less bloody satirical fantasy about turning the tables
comes from Germany in Dani Levy's "My Fuhrer: The Truly Truest Truth
About Adolf Hitler." With the Third Reich crumbling, Hitler's
henchmen figure that only a fiery speech by the Fuhrer on New Year's
Day 1945 can rouse the German masses and turn the tide. But Hitler
is in a funk, locked in his room, and only the great acting coach
Adolf Grunbaum, currently in a concentration camp, can restore the
dictator to his old form-and in the process extract his own form
of revenge. The German import, previously seen in this country at
a number of Jewish film festivals, is opening its first American
theatrical run in various cities.
* Due in the fall is "Four Seasons Lodge," a feature documentary
about a community of Holocaust survivors who come together in New
York's Catskill Mountains every summer to celebrate their lives.
* In "Tickling Leo," three generations of a Jewish family, with
roots in Hungary and branches in New York and Israel, try to connect
its members to each other. The key to their reconciliation involves
the still controversial World War II "Rudolph Kastner Affair" in
which a Jewish leader bargained with Adolf Eichmann, the "architect
of the Holocaust," for the lives of 1,000 community leaders in
return for money and supplies for the Nazi war machine.
* "Being Jewish in France" details the love-hate relationship between
the French and their Jewish compatriots from the anti-Semitic Dreyfus
Affair of the 1890s to the present. Excellent archival footage
strengthens the focus on the World War II era, when the Vichy
government and the French police did much of the dirty work for the
German occupiers. The three-hour documentary is now on the film
festival circuit but is worthy of wider theatrical distribution.
* Denmark, which saved nearly all of its 7,500 Jews, contributes
"Flame & Citron," based on the true story of two legendary Danish
resistance fighters who sabotaged the Nazi occupiers and assassinated
their local collaborators.
The film was released last month.
* Waiting in the wings are two completed independent films on
little-known aspects of the war.
Karin Albou's "Wedding Song" follows the story of two 16-year-old
Tunisian girls, one Muslim and the other Jewish, whose lifelong
friendship is tested by the six-month Nazi occupation of their
country. "About Face" is a well-researched documentary by Steve
Karras about young Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria who
fought their one-time tormentors by joining the U.S.
Army and an elite British commando unit.
This story reprinted courtesy of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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