A Tel Aviv court convicted a 19-year-old Jewish Israeli on Thursday for making thousands of bomb threats against airports and Jewish schools and community centers, mostly in the United States.

The dual US-Israeli national was arrested in March last year in southern Israel following an investigation by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. He was not named in the court filings.

The allegations

That he made more than 2,000 anonymous bomb threats against mostly Jewish schools and institutions in the United States

forced evacuations and created an environment of terror among the Jewish community in 2016 and early 2017

used identity-masking technology to call in bomb threats to synagogues, community centers and schools.

used the online marketplace AlphaBay to market extortion services

made around $240,000 in bitcoin from bomb threats.

Last year, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency published a recording of one of the bomb threats calls using voice hiding technology to a Jewish community center (JCC):

"It’s a C-4 bomb with a lot of shrapnel, surrounded by a bag [inaudible]. In a short time, a large number of Jews are going to be slaughtered. Their heads are going to [sic] blown off from the shrapnel. There’s a lot of shrapnel. There’s going to be a bloodbath that’s going to take place in a short time. I think I told you enough. I must go."

Jewish memorials in Berlin The Holocaust Memorial A huge field of stelae in the center of the German capital was designed by New York architect Peter Eisenmann. The almost 3,000 stone blocks commemorate the six million Jewish people from all over Europe who were murdered by the National Socialists.

Jewish memorials in Berlin The "Stumbling Stones" Designed by German artist Gunther Demnig, these brass plates are very small — only 10 by 10 centimeters (3.9 x 3.9 inches). The stumbling stones mark the homes and offices from which people were deported by the Nazis. More than 7,000 of them have been placed across Berlin, 70,000 across Europe, and in 2017 the first stones were also laid in outside Europe, in Buenos Aires.

Jewish memorials in Berlin The Wannsee Conference House Fifteen high-ranking Nazi officials met in this villa on the Wannsee Lake on January 20, 1942 to discuss the systematic murder of European Jews, which they termed the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question". Today the house is a memorial that informs visitors about the unimaginable dimension of the genocide that was decided here.

Jewish memorials in Berlin Track 17 Memorial White roses on track 17 at Grunewald station remember the more than 50,000 Berlin Jews who were sent to their deaths from here. 186 steel plates show the date, destination and number of deportees. The first train went to the Litzmannstadt ghetto (Lodz, Poland) on October 18, 1941; the last train to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp on January 5, 1945.

Jewish memorials in Berlin Otto Weidt's Workshop for the Blind Today, the Hackesche Höfe in Berlin Mitte are mentioned in every travel guide. They are a backyard labyrinth in which many Jewish people lived and worked — for example in the brush factory of the German entrepreneur Otto Weidt. During the Nazi era he employed many blind and deaf Jews and saved them from deportation and death. The workshop of the blind is now a museum.

Jewish memorials in Berlin Fashion Center Hausvogteiplatz The heart of Berlin's fashion metropolis once beat here. A memorial sign made of high mirrors recalls the Jewish fashion designers and stylists who made clothes for the whole of Europe at Hausvogteiplatz. The National Socialists expropriated the Jewish owners and handed over the fashion stores to Aryan employees. Berlin's fashion center was irretrievably destroyed during the Second World War.

Jewish memorials in Berlin Memorial at Koppenplatz Before the Holocaust, 173,000 Jews lived in Berlin; in 1945 there were only 9,000. The monument "Der verlassene Raum" (The Deserted Room) is located in the middle of the Koppenplatz residential area in Berlin's Mitte district. It is a reminder of the Jewish citizens who were taken from their homes without warning and never returned.

Jewish memorials in Berlin The Jewish Museum Architect Daniel Libeskind chose a dramatic design: viewed from above, the building looks like a broken Star of David. The Jewish Museum is one of the most visited museums in Berlin, offering an overview of the turbulent centuries of German Jewish history.

Jewish memorials in Berlin Weissensee Jewish Cemetery There are still eight remaining Jewish cemeteries in Berlin, the largest of them in the Weissensee district. With over 115,000 graves, it is the largest Jewish cemetery in Europe. Many persecuted Jews hid in the complex premises during the Nazi era. On May 11, 1945, only three days after the end of the Second World War, the first postwar Jewish funeral service was held here.

Jewish memorials in Berlin The New Synagogue When the New Synagogue on Oranienburger Strasse was first consecrated in 1866 it was considered the largest and most magnificent synagogue in Germany. The only one of Berlin's 13 synagogues to survive the Kristallnacht pogroms, it later burned down due to Allied bombs. It was reconstructed and opened again in 1995. Since then, the 50-meter-high golden dome once again dominates Berlin's cityscape. Author: Kerstin Schmidt



The court said: "The goal of the defendant was to cause public panic, to send many emergency forces to the threatened area, to cause an urgent evacuation of the place, to conduct searches and scans and to create a media echo that would enhance the damage inherent in his actions."

Read more: Poland strips back controversial Holocaust law

The conviction

The 19-year-old was found guilty on hundreds of counts, including:

extortion

publishing false information

creating panic

computer offenses

money laundering.

He will be sentenced later and faces possible extradition to the United States where hate crime charges have been levelled against him.

The defense

His parents had argued their son was autistic, but the court decided that "does not fulfil the conditions to be exempt from responsibility."

The judge hearing the case said the defendant "changed his version of events multiple times according to what suits him the most. He very much understands the significance of his actions."

Read more: German national newspaper apologizes for Netanyahu cartoon criticized as anti-Semitic

Wider debate

The repeated scares created fears of rising anti-Semitism in the United States. It also prompted accusations that US President Donald Trump was stoking right-wing fueled anti-Semitism.

Trump's daughter and son-in-law are Jewish and he has pursued a staunchly pro-Israel policy. Evangelical Christians are one of the president's most important support bases.

Trump had suggested the threats could be fake acts designed by Democrats to discredit him and his supporters. His comments provoked a backlash, although the president later condemned any form of "bigotry, intolerance and hatred."

Read more: Trump decries threats against Jewish centers

Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust Anti-Semitism in 16th-century Prague One of Germany's most famous silent films, "The Golem: How He Came Into the World," was made in 1920. Paul Wegener directed and played a leading role in the film set in 16th-century Prague. The Jewish ghetto is in danger and the emperor order the Jews to leave the city. Only the mythical Golem can help. It's one of the earliest films to address the persecution of Jews.

Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust Persecution of Jews in 1920s Vienna Based on a novel by Hugo Bettauer, "The City Without Jews," is an important example of how films have taken on anti-Semitism. The Austrian-made film is set in Vienna in the 1920s and shows how the residents held Jews responsible for all social ills. Critics, however, have lamented the film's use of anti-Semitic cilches.

Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust Fine line between tolerance and clichés Four years earlier in 1916, the American director DW Griffith had created the monumental historical film,"Intolerance." The story explains historical events over the course of four episodes, taking intolerance to task. Yet in a scene showing the crucifixion of Jesus, Griffith employed Jewish stereotypes. As a result, critics have also accused "Intolerance" of demonstrating anti-Semitic tendencies.

Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust Ben Hur through the decades "Ben Hur" was first made in 1925, but has been reinvented many time since then. It tells the story of a conflict betweet Jews and Christians at the beginning of the 1st century. Jewish prince Judah Ben Hur lives in Roman-occupied Jerusalem as a contemporary of Jesus Christ. The way the Jewish-Christian relationship is showed in the Ben Hur films remains a topic of discussion today.

Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust A trial and pogrom in 1880s Hungary Although hardly known today, GW Pabst's "The Trial" (1948) is an astounding early example of how the cinema reacted to the Holocaust. Filmed in Austria just three years after the end of the war, Pabst tells a true story set in 1882 in Hungary. A young girl disappears from her village and Jews are blamed. Tragically, a pogrom follows.

Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust Broaching the truth "The Trial" remained an exception. After the war, it took the film industry in Europe quite some time to deal with the subject. The French director Alain Resnais was the first to address the Nazi genocide in 1956, in the unsparing 30-minute documentary "Night and Fog."

Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust Bringing the Holocaust to TV It wasn't until the 1978 television mini-series "Holocaust" was made that the genocide was brought to the broader public. The four-part US production directed by Marvin J. Chomsky tells the story of a Jewish family that gets caught in the cogs of the Nazis' genocidal policies.

Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust Steven Spielberg's 'Schindler's List' Fifteen years later, American director Steven Spielberg was able to accomplish on the big screen what "Holocaust" had done for television audiences. "Schindler's List" portrayed the brutal reality of the Nazis' anti-Semitism in Germany, but also in Eastern Europe, spotlighting the unscrupulous SS offcer Amon Göth.

Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust Claude Lanzmann and 'Shoah' French director Claude Lanzmann harshly criticized Spielberg's drama. "He did not really reflect on the Holocaust and cinema. The Holocaust cannot be portrayed," he said in an interview. Lanzmann himself took up the subjects of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust in a completely different way - through long documentaries and essay films such as "Shoah" and "Sobibor."

Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust Humor and the Holocaust Italian comedian and filmmaker Roberto Bengini took a daring approach in his film on anti-Semitism and the Holocaust. In 1997, "Life is Beautiful" premiered, telling the fictional story of Jews suffering in a concentration camps. The humor he wove throughout had a liberating effect.

Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust Roman Polanski's 'The Pianist' An equally moving film by Polish-French director Roman Polanski was released in 2002. In "The Pianist," the fate of Jewish-Polish musician Władysław Szpilman during the war years of 1943-44 was brought to the big screen. The project allowed the director, whose mother and other relatives were deported and murdered by the Nazis, to work through his own family's past.

Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust Anti-Semitism and Jesus the Jew Films about the life of Jesus Christ often come up in discussions about anti-Semitism in cinema. Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ" (1988), for example, has been accused of reinforcing anti-Semitic clichés, particularly in scenes in which Jews are indirectly associated with greed.

Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust Mel Gibson's scandalous 'The Passion of the Christ' Much more controversial was the film that Australian Mel Gibson released two years later. Both Christians and Jews accused Gibson of explicit anti-Semitism in the film, saying he didn't counter the implications in the New Testament that Jews were to blame for the death of Jesus (who himself was Jewish). In public, Gibson likewise used anti-Semitic speech.

Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust Turkish anti-Semitism Audiences and critics alike decried the anti-Semitism in the Turkish film, "Valley of the Wolves." The action-packed movie version of a TV series of the same name showed a battle between Turkish soldiers and Israel. The film employed "anti-American, anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic stereotypes and was inciteful," according to several organizations.

Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust WWII still a challenge for filmmakers Just how difficult it can still be to address the subject matter of World War II is evident in the response to a three-part German TV series from 2013, "Generation War." The series follows a handful of German soldiers fighting on the eastern front. It was criticized in Poland for anti-Semitism and was said to have represented the Polish resistance.

Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust Hannah Arendt and 'the banality of evil' Margarethe von Trotta's film about Hannah Arendt was well received in 2012. The director sketched a balanced portrait of the philosopher and publicist who, in the 1960s, grappled with a figure who was largely responsible for the Nazi genocide: Adolf Eichmann. Arendt coined the phrase "the banality of evil" to explain anti-Semitism clothed in seemingly harmless bureaucracy.

Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust The 'Wonder Woman' controversy Because the protagonist of the current Hollywood super hero hit "Wonder Woman" is played by Israeli Gal Gadot, the film was not shown in a number of Arab countries. Gadot herself had served in the Israeli army and defended her experience. Not showing "Wonder Woman" is anti-Semitic, according to the public sentiment in Israel. Author: Jochen Kürten (ct)



Read more: Anti-Semitism in Germany: Are immigrants unfairly portrayed in the media?

Mark Zell, the chairman of Republicans Overseas Israel, said: "A lot of the uproar about anti-Semitism among American Jewish leaders and Democratic politicians – particularly those going after Donald Trump and his administration – has been over the top, as this would suggest."

Read more: Netanyahu's son is under fire for Facebook post that echoes Nazi's anti-Semitism

The Anti-Defamation League said last year that the bomb threats constituted anti-Semitism and recorded them in their annual report which showed a rise in anti-Semitic acts.

Read more: Anti-Semitic incidents surge in US: report

"These were acts of anti-Semitism. These threats targeted Jewish institutions and were calculated to sow fear and anxiety, and put the entire Jewish community on high alert," Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said last year.

cw/jm (AFP, AP, dpa)

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