It has been more than a year since Hannah Rosenthal — who still owns a home in Madison and whose two daughters still live there — was appointed Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism at the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C.
As she explained to an audience of about 100 people on Feb. 10 at Chai Point, in her job she has traveled and will be traveling throughout the world to monitor and to combat anti-Semitism.
In that capacity, she said, she has seen several “major trends of increasing anti-Semitism.” They include:
• Traditional forms of anti-Semitism. Rosenthal said such things as scrawling swastikas on Jewish buildings, firebombing synagogues, and desecrating Jewish cemeteries are “happening all over.”
One traditional but still operating anti-Semitic lie is the “blood libel” claim that Jews use the blood of non-Jewish children to make Passover foods. Rosenthal said communities still exist that celebrate the “sainthood” of “non-existent children” supposedly so victimized.
But the blood libel has taken a new form, she said. Anti-Semites now accuse Jews of killing non-Jewish children to steal their organs, supposedly for transplant.
Rosenthal said this accusation is found not only in Israel-hating and Jew-hating Arab countries and organizations, but also in Australia, Sweden, and Ukraine.
In fact, she recounted a confrontation she had with Ukraine’s foreign minister last April in which he said, “We take such accusations very seriously. Jews have done it in the past and we want to make sure they don’t do it again.”
Read the full article in the March issue.
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