new

JTA — I initially had some sympathy for the creators of an anti-Semitic carnival float in Belgium.

Studying their CVs and past creations for the annual carnival of Aalst, I saw that they were a group of some 20 upstanding citizens — a fireman, a technician, an Education Ministry official and a police department employee, to name a few. They had invested countless unpaid hours to produce something they thought was beautiful but ended up horrifying viewers all over the world.

Their creation, which they unveiled Sunday at Belgium’s most celebrated carnival, featured two huge puppets depicting pink-clad Haredi Orthodox Jews. One of them leers while smoking a cigar, a rat perched on his shoulder. Against a synagogue facade, the puppets have money bags at their feet. A platform following the float carried revelers dressed like the puppets who danced to a song about “bulging coffers” and “Jews getting extra fat.”

The float unleashed a storm of impassioned condemnations. The Simon Wiesenthal Center called the display “sickening.” B’nai B’rith International termed it “disgusting.” Both umbrella groups of Belgian Jews filed a federal complaint for incitement against the group, called Vismooil’n, saying the float looked like Nazi propaganda.

Even the European Commission slammed the display, with a spokesperson saying “It is unthinkable that such imagery is being paraded on European streets 70 years after the Holocaust.”

So I called up the lyricist behind the float’s song, Pascal Soleme, to ask why the group chose to create such imagery and whether the members had anticipated how offensive it would be to Jews.

I had hoped to introduce some nuance to what was condemned universally as crass racism. Were the creators aware that they were trafficking in anti-Semitic tropes? Did they get carried away in the aesthetics of the float without really considering the content? Was there a level of irony or parody an outsider couldn’t understand?

But rather than offering real explanations, or even expressing any regret for the fallout or trying to acknowledge where it came from, Soleme doubled down. The 52-year-old father of three, who works for the Aalst Police Department, said he thought the float was funny and cited the support of his mayor.

“Mayor Christoph D’Haese totally has our backs, he told us we’ve done nothing wrong,” Soleme told me. D’Haese even told the group that his office would cover any fine imposed by the authorities, Selome said.

D’Haese defended the Vismooil’n group, saying on Tuesday that its float was not intended to offend and that “such things should be allowed at the Aalst Carnaval.” The event was added in 2010 to UNESCO’s list of events that contribute to the “Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.”

Filip de Vidts, a technician and the secretary of Vismooil’n, referred me to D’Haese for a reaction. Treasurer Johan de Plecker, who works for the Education Ministry, did not reply to my request for an interview.

As for Soleme, he has “absolutely no regrets” about participating in the display.

“I think the people who are offended are living in the past, of the Holocaust, but this was about the present,” he said. “There was never any intention to insult anyone. It was a celebration of humor.”

The Jewish theme, he said, was “because we weren’t sure we’d be doing a 2020 tour [because of rising costs]. So that would mean we’d be taking a sabbatical, and it went on from there.”

Vismooil’n named the float “Sabbat Jaar,” or “sabbath year,” which in Dutch primarily refers to the shmittah, the biblical sabbatical year in which Jews are commanded not to work the land. But it can also mean a general sabbatical.

In an interview with a blogger covering the Aalst Carnaval, an unnamed spokesperson for the group offered a similar explanation. (The blogger has since deleted the text.)

“Everything has become so expensive, [we thought that] if we do 2019, there would be no more money left for next year. So we all went quiet until we smartly decided to go for the Sabbath Year and that was that. So simple,” the member said.

It was a telling quote, according to Joel Rubinfeld, the president of the Belgian League Against Anti-Semitism, or LBCA.

“Prices are rising, so who do they blame? The fat, greedy Jew,” he said.

On a Facebook page of carnival enthusiasts, the protests around the float prompted a flood of anti-Semitic humor.

One blamed “the sad Jews, closed off from the rest of society in Antwerp, who have no sense of humor.” Another referred to Jews as “dick cutters,” adding they are “whiners with sausages for ears and woolly curls on their heads.” Commenting on Jewish anger over the float, another wrote: “Later you wonder why Jew hatred is growing —”

Some commenters resented criticism of the float, calling it an attempt to impose political correctness in the Flemish Region, a federal state of Belgium whose local language is Flemish Dutch. Aalst is in the region.

“As we host those guests, we are forbidden to celebrate our own culture on our own land,” someone named Guido Schokaert wrote in the Facebook discussion.

The Aalst carnival case is the latest example of how quickly and thoroughly institutional anti-Semitism can corrupt upstanding institutions, like the Aalst Carnaval (or Britain’s Labour Party).

“The problem is not the carnival,” Rubinfeld said. “What’s happening in recent years at the carnival is a symptom of a wider problem, which is the return of 1930s anti-Semitism, alongside the upgraded version that we’ve become used to, that targets Israel as a substitute for Jews and visa versa.”

The Vismooil’n float is not the first time that this return manifested itself at the carnival, which is the local edition of celebrations that take place throughout parts of Europe and the Americas annually in anticipation of Lent, the 40-day period before Easter.

In 2013, a different group designed an Aalst carnival float resembling a Nazi railway wagon used to transport Jews to death camps. The designers of the float, which was meant as a protest against nationalist Flemish politicians, marched dressed as Nazi SS officers and Haredi Orthodox Jews. A poster on the wagon showed Flemish Belgian politicians dressed as Nazis and holding canisters labeled as containing Zyklon B, the poison used by the Nazis to exterminate Jews in the gas chambers.

And in 2009, at least two participants dressed up as Orthodox Jews with fake hooked noses, a yellow star on their chests and an Arab shawl around their shoulders.

The Aalst parade this year also featured a group called Forza Witkap, whose members came dressed in the white gowns and pointy hoods of the Ku Klux Klan. Led by the far-right politician Guy D’haeseleer, its float, designed to resemble a brewery, had a poster reading “Superior White Beer.” A participant, colorfully clothed and wearing blackface, handed out chocolate mousse to cheering spectators.

Alongside other forms of anti-Semitism, largely linked to Israel, classic forms have re-emerged in such apolitical settings as European soccer matches, music festivals, the rap scene and cultural events like the Aalst carnival.

By Wednesday, more than 1,880 people had signed a petition on the Change.org platform to have the Aalst Carnaval removed from the UNESCO list of heritage of humanity events.

“It doesn’t scare me because it’s my reality,” Rubinfeld said. “But I do think it’s time for UNESCO to pull the Aalst Carnival from its list of heritage events. There’s an institutional problem here.”

An Islamic preacher on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem told congregants that the Nazis burned the Jews of Europe during the Holocaust because they had been kidnapping children to use their blood in Passover bread. He also claimed that Jews worship Satan, plotted the 9/11 attacks, and control the Freemasons who sacrifice their wives and children in secret ceremonies. An English translation of the sermon, that was captured on video, was provided on Monday by Palestinian Media Watch, a non-governmental media monitoring organization.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center sent a letter to Jordan’s King Abdullah and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas urging them to “immediately take action against Sheikh Khaled al-Mughrabi, the religious teacher at the Al-Aqsa Mosque who is on the payroll of the Waqf [the PA religious authority], for using his class to promote the infamous blood libel screed that ‘explains’ why the Nazi Holocaust took place. The ‘Blood Libel’ is a Christian medieval canard that accuses Jews of using the blood of children to make Passover matzah,” the center said in a statement sent out to the press.

“The Temple Mount is a site of ultimate religious importance to Judaism and revered also by both Christianity and Islam. It should be an area that promotes peace, tolerance, and mutual understanding. However, the Al Aqsa Mosque has now been used to repeat horrific lies and legitimize genocide. Left unchallenged, the Sheik’s ‘sermon’ will only spawn more hatred and violence,” the letter to Abdullah and Abbas read.

During the recent sermon captured on video, al-Mughrabi says: “On the holiday of Passover it is ?forbidden for them to eat regular bread. These matzahs ?[unleavened Passover bread] were not kneaded in the regular way, but rather with the blood of children. In the end it reached the point ?where they were burned in Germany, because of these things, because they ?kidnapped young children.”

In the video, al-Mughrabi, who gives twice weekly lesson on Islam at the mosque in Jerusalem, is seen listing alleged evils of the Jewish people that run a gamut of both classic and modern anti-Semitic accusations spanning centuries, cultures, and continents.

Al-Mughrabi begins by explaining that of the multiple gods that Jews worship, Satan ranks above the Muslim god Allah. “They have smaller gods, from one to nine,? and they have gods who are stronger than Allah, from 11 to 34,” al-Mughrabi. “Devil or Satan is ?number 11 for them. If you look at history, my brothers, you’ll see that the number 11 is ?holy for the Jews, and 666 is also a holy number, three times six signifies the Devil.?”

“Everything they wish to ?happen, or that they want to do and succeed at, they try to make happen on the 11th of ?the month— Therefore, notice the attacks on America [9/11] that took place. When were they? On the 11th of the month. Why? Because ?who was behind them? — It’s known that the Jews were behind them.” Al-Mughrabi then explains that the US film industry — “owned by the ?Children of Israel” — promotes through vampire films a theme that drinking human blood gives eternal life. It is because of this belief in the power of blood that Jews use the blood of children for their Passover bread, he claims.

“The Children of Israel had the holiday of Pesach, ?what is now called Passover,” al-Mughrabi said. “Every holiday, every group would look for a small child, ?kidnap and steal him, bring a barrel called the barrel of nails— They would put the ?small child in the barrel and his body would be pierced by these nails. In the bottom of ?the barrel they would put a faucet and pour the blood— The Devil or one of the big ?gods, demanded it of them as a condition for fulfilling their wishes, that they eat ??[matzah] bread kneaded with the blood of children.”

“When these ?stories were exposed, the Children of Israel were expelled from all of Europe and the ?tragedy of the Children of Israel began in all Europe.” The sheikh then claimed that proof of his allegations can easily be found on the Internet with a simple search using Google. “Even though there is a news blackout about ?them, they are on the Internet,” he says. Freemasons, he went on, are “witchcraft gatherings of the ?Children of Israel.”

“One of the ceremonies, for instance if someone wants to be ?accepted as a new member, or rise in rank— he has to somehow bring one of his sons ?or daughters, or his wife or one of his male or female relatives, and put them on the ?table and slaughter them with his own hands as a sacrifice to Satan, in order to rise in ?the ranks of the Freemasons. My brothers, this exists until today.?”

The myth of blood baked into matzah, known as ‘the blood libel,’ dates back to the Middle Ages in Europe, and was often used as a pretext to commit atrocities against Jewish communities. The false allegation is still believed in some Arab cultures and is occasionally cited by officials and public figures. In September 2014 Sheikh Abd Al-Mun’im Abu Zant, a former Jordanian MP revived the blood libel in an interview with al-Aqsa TV.

“On their religious holidays, if they cannot find a Muslim to slaughter, and use drops of his blood to knead the matzos they eat, they slaughter a Christian in order to take drops of his blood, and mix it into the matzos that they eat on that holiday,” Abu Zant said. In July 2014 Palestinian Islamic Jihad spokesman Daoud Shihad said that Israeli rabbis told IDF soldiers to knead the blood of Arabs into their dough.

“Israel is targeting the Palestinians— I would just like to remind you of the ruling by the Israeli rabbis, who have instructed the soldiers to knead the [dough for] the bread that the Jews eat with the blood of Arab and Palestinian children,” Shihad said during an interview on Lebanon’s Mayadeen TV, as reported by the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute.

A year earlier, in May 2013, Egyptian politician Khaled Zaafrani, during an interview on al-Hafez TV, a Salafist Egyptian station, also brought up the blood libel. “It is well-known that during Passover they make matzos called the ‘Blood of Zion.’ They take a Christian child, slit his throat, and slaughter him—they never forgo this rite.”

In April 2013, a Palestinian nonprofit organization removed an article from its website that accused Jews of using “the blood of Christians in the Jewish Passover.” The Miftah organization, founded by Palestinian lawmaker Hanan Ashrawi and funded by European and Western governments, reportedly apologized for publishing the article, after first refusing to apologize and condemning the Jewish bloggers who drew attention to the article.