World News in Brief

Poland ponders changing concentration-camp trips

Amid a growing diplomatic crisis between Israel and Poland, a senior Polish diplomat said his government was “reviewing” changes to annual educational school trips from Israel to former Nazi death camps.

Paweł Jabłoński, the deputy minister of foreign affairs, called the trips “propaganda”, Gazeta Prawa reported. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, tens of thousands of Israeli youths visited former death camps in Poland annually as part of programmes overseen by Israel’s education ministry.

“This propaganda, also based on hatred towards Poland, is seeping into the heads of young people from the early school years,” Jabłoński said. “The way in which these trips take place is clearly not the right way. We are reviewing this matter, and we will make appropriate decisions.”

Dylan sued for alleged sexual abuse 56 years later

A woman is suing Bob Dylan for sexually abusing her when she was 12 under a New York law that temporarily lifted limitations on such lawsuits.

The woman, identified in court documents as JC, says the Jewish rock star groomed and exploited her in his room at the Chelsea Hotel over six weeks in 1965, USA Today reported on 16 August. She says she suffered physical and psychological harm. A lawyer for Dylan vigorously denied the charges.

Jewish humanitarian groups attempt to aid Haitians and Afghans

Jewish aid organisations are responding to two major humanitarian crises, although it’s unclear whether much can be done from afar to support Afghans now that the Taliban has retaken their country.

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee is among many foreign groups directing aid to Haiti following an earthquake on 14 August that killed nearly 1 300. The organisation is sending medical supplies to a hospital in the region of Haiti most affected. The American Jewish World Service, which has long been involved in helping Haitians advocate for human rights, is also raising funds for relief aid.

But when it comes to Afghanistan, humanitarian groups have fewer avenues to help. HIAS, originally the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, wrote on Facebook on Sunday night that it would work to help Afghans who make it to the United States through a special programme designed to protect people who aided the US mission there.

Poland approves law that limits Holocaust restitution

Poland’s president on 14 August signed into law a bill that will restrict Holocaust restitution claims by Jews and others who had property stolen by the Nazis or Soviet-backed occupation forces during World War II.

The law, signed by President Andrzej Duda, gives all property restitution claims a 30-year time limit from the alleged theft. That will effectively wipe out any claims from the World War II years.

Israel’s top two leaders called the law antisemitic, and the country recalled its ambassador to Warsaw. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is Jewish, voiced concern prior to Duda’s signing, and international Holocaust restitution organisations also fumed after its passage.

Duda and other Polish leaders claim the bill will simplify the country’s property laws and end a period of corruption and confusion over restitution claims, but the move is a clear continuation of the country’s right-wing government’s longstanding crusade to separate itself from the effects of Nazi war crimes.