COLLABORATION

 https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/collaboration

German authorities required the assistance of the Axis nations and of local collaborators in the regions they occupied to implement the "Final Solution." Collaborators committed some of the worst atrocities of the Holocaust era.

Franco, Nazi Collaborator

 https://albavolunteer.org/2013/06/franco-nazi-collaborator/

After World War II, the Franco regime succeeded in whitewashing its close ties to Nazi Germany—which had helped Franco win the Civil War, and which continued to be Spain’s closest ally in the years immediately following. After 1945, Franco presented himself not merely as the anti-Communist “Sentinel of the West,” but also as a cunning statesman who had managed to keep Spain out of the war (when in fact he had aspired to join the Axis) and, most notably, as a savior of thousands of European Jews from extermination.

WHY ARE SO MANY EASTERN EUROPEANS SUDDENLY CELEBRATING NAZI COLLABORATORS?

https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2019/05/29/why-are-so-many-eastern-europeans-suddenly-celebrating-nazi-collaborators/ideas/essay/

Cukurs is only one example of a troubling and puzzling phenomenon: The revival in Central and Eastern Europe of historical figures who had been previously discredited by their ties to Holocaust crimes. In the quarter century since the end of communism in this region, states and societies have endeavored to “normalize” the past, reviving events and actors erased from communist-era histories. On the one hand, this process has brought to light important cultural, social, and political figures who were marginalized because they did not fit into the ideology of Soviet communism. On the other hand, it has animated a cast of “heroes” whose moral and legal transgressions have been sanitized.

How Israel’s Justice System Dealt With Alleged Jewish Collaborators in Concentration Camps—And Why That Still Matters Today

 https://time.com/5710303/nazi-collaborator-trials/

Over those two decades, the kapo trials went through four main phases, moving from an initial perception of Jewish ghetto and camp functionaries as perpetrators equivalent to the Nazis to a final perception of them as victims.

Sofrus

Mishnas Sofrim. WWW. hebrew books. org

Arab world divided on Russia-Ukraine

 https://www.axios.com/arab-world-divided-russia-ukraine-wheat-imports-46b026b7-6e2f-44fc-b001-882d193008d1.html

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has also divided support for Ukraine.

Hamarneh said Arab social media feeds are full of people sharing posts made by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in support of Israel during the Gaza war. “This will mobilize the anti-Zelensky coalition," he said.

Dima Khatib, a Palestinian activist living in Doha, claimed it was hypocritical for the West to support Ukrainian resistance while often calling Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation terrorism. It's an argument echoed by other Palestinians and some of their supporters online.

Meanwhile, opinion in Lebanon is mixed along long-standing divisions in the country.

The pro-Hezbollah camp has sided completely with Russia, while those who do not back Hezbollah are voicing their support for Ukraine, according to Ayman Mhanna, director of the Beirut-based Samir Kassir Foundation.

Diaspora Min. asks PM to cancel deposits for Ukrainian refugees

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/323364

Ambassador Yevhen Korniichuk told reporters at a press briefing Tuesday that he was disappointed by Israel’s decision, comparing Ukrainian war refugees to Jews seeking shelter from the Holocaust during World War II.

“Dozens of Ukrainian citizens were sent back from Ben Gurion International Airport to the countries from which came over the past few days,” said Korniichuk. “Thousands of Righteous Gentiles in Ukraine saved Jews during the Holocaust.”

“This is a humanitarian issue, and I ask that it be reconsidered. Demanding cash guarantees of 10,000 or 20,000 shekels is very difficult. We are asking for your help. They aren’t coming here to work. They are fleeing war.”

Yuval Noah Harari: No matter what he does, Putin has already lost this war

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/yuval-noah-harari-no-matter-what-he-does-putin-has-already-lost-this-war/

“This war is not about conquering this city or that city. Putin can conquer all of Ukraine, that’s completely true,” Harari told Channel 12 news on Friday. “But this war is over the very existence of a Ukrainian people.”

Putin, he said, began the war “because he has a fantasy he’s built up in his head that there isn’t a Ukrainian people, that Ukrainians are actually Russians, that they want to be a part of Russia, and that only some small Judeo-Nazi gang in power is preventing it.”

Putin believed that he’d go in, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would flee, the military would surrender and the population “would greet the Russian tanks with flowers.”

But “he was wrong all along the way.”/

Ukrainian negotiator says Russia realizing ‘real cost of war’

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/ukrainian-negotiator-says-russia-realizing-real-cost-of-war/

“They are starting to realize the real price of war only now. And now we are starting to have constructive negotiations,” added the official, who participated in the first two rounds of talks between Russia and Ukraine, held on the border of Belarus.

The antisemitism animating Putin’s claim to ‘denazify’ Ukraine

 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/25/vladimir-putin-ukraine-attack-antisemitism-denazify

By claiming that the aim of the invasion is to “denazify” Ukraine, Putin appeals to the myths of contemporary eastern European antisemitism – that a global cabal of Jews were (and are) the real agents of violence against Russian Christians and the real victims of the Nazis were not the Jews, but rather this group. Russian Christians are targets of a conspiracy by a global elite, who, using the vocabulary of liberal democracy and human rights, attack the Christian faith and the Russian nation. Putin’s propaganda is not aimed at an obviously skeptical west, but rather appeals domestically to this strain of Christian nationalism.

TRUMP GOES FULL ANTI-SEMITE, UNLOADS ON AMERICAN JEWS IN WILDLY BIGOTED RANT

 https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/12/donald-trump-anti-semitism-jews-israel

In February 2017, asked what the government planned to do about the uptick in threats to Jewish centers and the rise in anti-Semitism since his election, Donald Trump responded, “I am the least anti-Semitic person that you’ve ever seen in your entire life.” That claim, like the one he would make a few months later about being “the least racist person there is anywhere in the world,” obviously was and remains not true at all. How do we know? Let’s examine the evidence!

Henry Ford and Anti-Semitism: A Complex Story

 https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-resources/popular-topics/henry-ford-and-anti-semitism-a-complex-story

As with most famous people, Henry Ford was complex and had traits and took actions that were laudatory as well as troublesome. The most controversial and least admirable aspect of Ford’s career was his descent into anti-Semitism. Convinced that “bankers” and “the Jews” were responsible for a whole range of things he didn’t like, from the world war to short skirts to jazz music, Ford used his newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, to carry on an active anti-Semitic campaign. Between 1920 and 1922 a series of articles denounced all things Jewish. While officially apologizing for the articles in 1927, Ford’s anti-Jewish sentiments ran deep. Seen within the context of the times, they demonstrate the sharp realities and tensions that emerge in societies undergoing profound cultural, economic and political change.

Nazi Collaborator or National Hero? A Test for Lithuania

 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/10/world/europe/nazi-general-storm-lithuania.html

“They have built up a whole national narrative around fighting Communism that they cannot dismantle,” said Grant Gochin, a South African of Lithuanian descent who has calculated that he lost 100 family members to the Holocaust in Lithuania, dozens of them in territory under Mr. Noreika’s control during the Nazi occupation.

Is halachic status independent of reality?

Sanhedrin (33b)  To explain the terms “innocent” and “righteous” in the verse: “And the innocent and the righteous you shall not slay” (Exodus 23:7), the Sages taught: From where is it derived that with regard to one who is leaving the court having been found liable, and someone said: I have the ability to teach a reason to acquit him, from where is it derived that the court brings the accused back to be judged again? The verse states: The innocent you shall not slay, and the accused may in fact be innocent.