Scots Jewish community says there is nothing funny in Nazi video
REACTION WHILE the court decision sparked a debate across the globe, to the Jewish community in Scotland the video message was deeply offensive.
Nicola Stevenson, co-president of the Glasgow Jewish Representative Council (GJRC), said she supported the sheriff’s decision.
She said: “There is a difference between doing jokes about the Holocaust and doing something that says ‘gas the Jews’. That is not a joke.
“That’s like saying kill an entire race, which is what it meant. What is funny about invoking something that talks about killing an entire race?
“He said he was doing this to be as offensive as possible to his girlfriend. There was no intention for it to be a joke. He was trying to be as offensive as he possibly could.
“Freedom of speech is not a freedom to say anything.
“There is possibly no subject off limits, but there are possibly things you don’t say at certain times to certain people in certain contexts.”
The Community Security Trust (CST), the charity that fights for the safety and security of the Jewish community in the UK admitted the case was not clear cut.
Mark Gardner, the CST communications director said: “This is not a straightforward case.
“But once it was brought, there could only really be one outcome and that is the legal consequence of saying ‘gas the Jews’, which was then repeated many times online.” Jewish leader Ephraim Borowski said the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities website had been “bombarded with abusive comments” after the video appeared online.
He said: “Material of this kind goes to normalise the antisemitic views that frankly we thought we had seen the last of, here and elsewhere.”
“The other thing that struck me was the explicit statement that this was intended to give offence and intended to be the most offensive thing he could think of and then he says he isn’t a racist. But unfortunately we hear that all the time from people.
“I’m no historian but it is the marching signal of the Nazi stormtroopers who contributed and supported the murder of six million Jews, including members of my own family, and I take this all slightly personally.”