Punk Impresario Dies

LONDON — Malcolm McLaren, the Jewish punk impresario who formed the Sex Pistols, died April 1 at a Swiss hospital of mesothelioma, a cancer. He was 64. He was raised by his maternal grandmother, Rose Isaacs, a member of London’s venerable Sephardi community. In the early 1970s, he and his then-partner, Vivienne Westwood, ran a clothing store and were part of London’s bleak, nihilistic arts scene. In 1975, he brought together the Sex Pistols, a group that eschewed pop music forms and function. Its songs and albums – including God Save the Queen, which savaged the monarch as a fascist – were banned. The band broke up in 1978, and its members and McLaren spent 10 years mired in lawsuits over who owned the music and name.

Protest Pre-planned

IRVINE, Calif. — The Muslim Student Union (MSU) at the University of California, Irvine, orchestrated the disruption of a Feb. 8 speech by Israel’s U.S. ambassador, Michael Oren, leaked e-mails indicate. MSU representatives have said the disruption, which provoked an ongoing academic disciplinary process, had been the impetus of students acting individually. Eleven students were arrested for disrupting Oren’s speech. The revelation about the e-mails was published by the Washington-based Investigative Project on Terrorism. It said the e-mails show the MSU both organized the disruptions and told students to say they acted on their own.

Israel Backs Gay Fest

SAN FRANCISCO — The Israeli consulate in San Francisco is co-sponsoring a month of events highlighting gay and lesbian culture, along with local Jewish groups. It’s the first time a foreign country has sponsored such an event in the United States, the consulate told the San Francisco Chronicle. Until the end of April, Israeli films, concerts, dance performances, panel talks and author appearances will focus on gay culture in Israel and the U.S. Jewish community. Highlights include a screening of Yossi and Jagger, a 2002 Israeli film about a romance between two male IDF soldiers, and readings by Israeli novelist Yossi Avni-Levy, whose book, Auntie Farhuma Wasn’t a Whore After All, features a gay couple.

Hungarian Jews Protest Anti-Semitism

BUDAPEST — More than 1,000 Jews marched through Budapest’s Old Ghetto district April 6 in response to a series of anti-Semitic incidents in the lead-up to Hungary’s elections this month.
The marchers defied a police recommendation to keep a low profile, marching in the neighbourhood of the Great Dohány Street Synagogue wearing kippot. The recommendation came the previous week, after the windows of a rabbi were stoned in the same area during a Passover seder.
The previous week, anti-Semitic graffiti appeared in various places in Budapest, a Holocaust memorial was damaged in the western Hungarian city of Zalaegerszeg and neo-Nazis held an anti-Semitic rally in the eastern city of Tiszaeszlár, where a notorious blood libel against the local Jewish community led to pogroms in 1882-83.
Organized by the Free Folks for Hungary movement and the Association of Hungarian Jewish Religious Communities, the Budapest demonstration was secured by the police and no violence was reported.
Jews have expressed concern about anti-Semitic overtones in the national election campaign. In a vote set for April 11, with a possible runoff on April 25, the ruling party Socialist party was expected to be toppled by the country’s main conservative party. A far-right party is also expected to score significant gains. Hungary’s estimated 50,000 Jews traditionally vote centre-left.