Yad Vashem launches Web site in Farsi to combat Holocaust denial

[JohnLocke]

Yad Vashem launches Web site in Farsi to combat Holocaust denial
Associated Press
Saturday, January 27, 2007
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JERUSALEM--Israel's Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem, has launched a version of its Web site in Farsi to educate Israel's most bitter enemy, Iran, about the Nazi slaughter of 6 million Jews.
The site was unveiled this week to coincide with the U.N.'s annual Holocaust remembrance day on Saturday, officials said.
"Every year, nearly 20,000 people from Muslim countries, including Iran, visit the Yad Vashem Web site," said Avner Shalev, Yad Vashem's chairman. "We believe that making credible, comprehensive information about the Holocaust available to Persian speakers can contribute to the fight against Holocaust denial."
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called the Holocaust a "myth" and said Israel should be "wiped off the map." Last month, Iran hosted a conference that questioned whether the Holocaust took place.
Saturday marked the 62nd anniversary of the Auschwitz death camp's liberation by the advancing Soviet army, and came a day after the U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution condemning the denial of the Holocaust. Only Iran rejected the resolution.
The U.N. resolution did not single out any country, but Israel and the United States both suggested that Iran should take note, especially after last month's conference.
Yad Vashem's Farsi site includes 20 historical chapters, including dozens of photos, arranged chronologically, from the rise of the Nazis to power until the postwar trials of Nazi leaders. The site also includes a poem by Abramek Koplowicz, a Jewish boy murdered in Auschwitz at age 14.
Yad Vashem also has English, Hebrew and Russian versions of its Web site. Yad Vashem spokeswoman Estee Yaari said Saturday that an Arabic-language site was also in planning.
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Read the rest here.

[citizen snips]

1. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and David Duke need to see that.

because both of them are holocaust deniers.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-iran13dec13,0,2528243.story?coll=la-opinion-leftrail

[JohnLocke]

2. Kick (nt).

[Nikki Stone1]

3. Considering how Armenian Christians were treated in Iran, a Farsi site on the Armenian genocide

might also be appropriate.

[Lisa]

4. my Persian friends told me a very bizarre story about visiting Bahrain

This was back before the Iranian Revolution. The Customs guy looked at their passports and just went nuts. "Iran?! You are from Iran?! You must have Jewish friends. There are so many Jew-lovers in Iran -- there are Jews all over the streets there!" And they kept the visitors there and questioned them for several hours, accusing them of being Mossad spies!

My friends said that they didn't want to see the "Borat" movie, because it brought back so many unpleasant memories. I bet President Ahmadinejad would be absolutely speechless with rage if he'd heard that little exchange!

[JohnLocke]

5. That IS weird.

I think that after the Iranian Revolution, the vast majority of Iranian Jews went to Israel (if they hadn't already went went state of Israel was established), or the U.S., or elsewhere. Before then, though, there was a significant Jewish population there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Jews

[Lisa]

7. luckily they have quite an appreciation of irony!

We could not help laughing at the reaction that the customs official would have, if he could see New York City or Montreal -- he'd burst a blood vessel, I'm sure, at the sight of so many cultures milling around together, black hats and turbans side by side. My friends say that they can still remember his face, bug-eyed with anger and disgust about "Jews all over the street" in Iran. They are saddened by the spread of such xenophobia into their beloved country.

As you say, there were established Jewish communities there for a long time (and Iran took in Jewish refugees when some western countries, Canada for example, were turning them away prior to the outbreak of WWII). I think the rise of the Holocaust deniers is relatively recent. Some of the Iranian Jews left after the revolution, but even during the Iran-Iraq War there were families there still (as a heartbreaking account in the graphic "Persepolis" novels indicated ... a little Jewish girl who lived down the street was killed when her house collapsed).

[mmonk]

6. I knew quite a few people from Iran in the 70's.

None of them were holocaust deniers. Just because they may have a few in government pushing denial now doesn't mean that Persians in general are holocaust deniers.

[Behind the Aegis]

8. Good job.