Meet the reporter who prompted Canada’s latest Nazi scandal

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A 98-year-old veteran. A politician ousted. Meet the Nazi-obsessed reporter behind it all.

Our contributor Lev Golinkin is always looking for Nazis. He’s been pretty busy lately.

Lev, who has over the past three years documented more than 1,600 monuments to Nazis and their collaborators in 30 countries, on Sunday was the first journalist to report that the 98-year-old World War II veteran given a standing ovation in Canada’s Parliament had actually fought with a Nazi unit. The story was picked up by news outlets around the world and had quick repercussions: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologized and the speaker of Canada’s House of Commons, who’d engineered the ovation, resigned Tuesday amid the spiraling scandal.

Some background: Ukrainian immigrant Yaroslav Hunka was a member of the SS Galichina, a unit created by the Third Reich in 1943 out of recruits from Western Ukraine. The soldiers took an oath of loyalty to Hitler and were trained by his henchmen. Lev and our engagement editor, Jake Wasserman, put together this explainer on the unit.

Rewriting history: By war’s end, the unit had been renamed, and thousands of its veterans eventually emigrated to Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and Australia. “Unlike the Nazis in South America who were in hiding,” Lev explained, “these people put out yearbooks, held parades, and built monuments.” After Lev’s August article about such a monument in a suburban Philadelphia cemetery, outrage from Jewish groups prompted the Ukrainian Catholic Church to temporarily cover it. 

Heinrich Himmler inspects the SS Galichina in 1944. (Wikimedia)

Zooming out: Lev, who himself was born in Western Ukraine, noted that 2 million Ukrainians died during World War II, and that 99% of the country fought against the Nazis. “Modern-day Ukrainians walk past graves on their way to buy groceries,” he said. He likened those who celebrate veterans of SS Galichina like Hunka to Americans who revere the Confederacy or the KKK. “They’re seen as heroes in a very specific region,” he said, “and are not seen as heroes by the vast majority.”

A new battleground: I asked Lev, who wrote a memoir about his native Ukraine, why he’s obsessed with Nazis. He spoke about “a new generation of Holocaust distorters” who “turn perpetrators into victims,” adding: “This is the battleground for Holocaust memory.”

“I look at these dead Jews and they never got to the safety of America,” Lev added. “I don’t think it’s too much to ask that the Jews who have the privilege and the blessing of being here speak out when their murderers are being celebrated.”

The Republican presidential candidates, sans former President Donald Trump, at the first debate. (Getty)

Opinion | No Republicans have expressed support for the Israeli protest movement — yet. Here’s why they should at tonight’s debate: “If the judicial reforms proposed by the Netanyahu coalition are allowed to advance, Israel’s national unity and security capabilities will be irreparably shattered, with enormous damage done to the U.S.-Israel relationship,” write Tali Reiner Brodetzki and Brett Goldman, who joined pro-democracy demonstrators at the last GOP presidential debate. “This should be of immediate concern to all champions of a secure Israel, Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals.” Read their essay ➤

Jewish writers, Bible stories and Holocaust history are on a new list of every banned book in the US: A new report from PEN America found that three Jewish writers of young-adult fiction are among the 10 most-banned authors. The nonprofit group also documented 3,362 instances of book bans in U.S. public school classrooms and libraries in the 2022-2023 school year, an increase of 33% from the previous school year. Read the story ➤

Related: Biden’s new book ban czar is a longtime progressive Jewish leader

And one more: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, newly acquitted over alleged election-related misconduct, blamed George Soros, the Jewish liberal billionaire and Holocaust survivor, for his recent troubles.

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Passengers in the departure hall at Ben-Gurion Airport earlier this year. (Moti Milrod/Haaretz)

 ✈️  In a historic move, Israel gained entry into the U.S. Visa Waiver Program, officials confirmed this morning, ending a decades-long effort aimed at allowing Israelis to travel to the United States for 90 days without getting a visa. (Haaretz)

🗳️  Daniel Lurie, a Jewish philanthropist and an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, filed to run for mayor of San Francisco. A Democrat, Lurie will compete in a primary campaign with the city’s current mayor, London Breed. (Jewish News of Northern California, New York Times)

📈  Right-wing extremist and antisemitic attitudes are on the rise in Germany. That’s according to a new study, which found that 8% of people in Germany have a right-wing extremist worldview, up from 2-3% in previous years. In related news, and for the second time this month, Germany banned a neo-Nazi group. (JTA, Reuters)

🏈  A high school football coach in Cleveland resigned after his team used the word “Nazi” in addition to racial slurs in its play-calling during a game on Friday. (AP, JTA)

🇮🇱  Israeli security forces evacuated an illegal outpost in the occupied West Bank Wednesday morning, and arrested four Jewish settlers amid the scuffle. (Times of Israel)

🎬  The organizers of the Golden Globes expelled a voting member from Egypt following the revelation of past tweets in which she appeared to promote conspiracy theories about Israel and Zionists. (JTA)

📺  An Israeli TV drama about a teen educational Holocaust trip to Poland was nominated for an International Emmy. The awards will be announced in November in New York City. (Times of Israel)

✍️  Albert Einstein’s secret plan to rescue an academic targeted by Nazis was revealed in a new letter, and that letter is now up for auction. This is a good time to remind you that next month, we’re hosting an event where actor Mandy Patinkin will discuss how Einstein inspired him to become a refugee activist. (Jewish Chronicle)

Shiva calls ➤  Zvi Hecker, known as the “bad boy of Israeli architecture” for his controversial designs, died at 92 … Juan Bradman, a Cuban-Jewish exile whose life inspired a novel, died at 90 … Jeremy Silman, an international chess master and author of several bestselling books, died at 69.

What else we’re reading ➤  In the Hunter Biden case, a shadowy Israeli witness faces a crucial dilemma … The Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side fully reopens after year-long preservation project … This Brooklyn band is making music inspired by illicit recordings from inside synagogues.

On this day in history (1922): Jewish director Arthur Hiller Penn, the younger brother of photographer Irving Penn, was born in Philadelphia. Penn, best known for directing Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and the Broadway premiere of The Miracle Worker (1959) as well as its 1962 film adaptation, was affiliated with the American New Wave movement. He first took an interest in directing while stationed in the U.K. during World War II, when he got involved with staging theatricals to entertain soldiers.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lays a wreath during the state commemoration ceremony for fallen soldiers on the 50th anniversary of the 1973 Yom Kippur War on Tuesday in Jerusalem.

Related: Why Leonard Cohen performed for Israeli troops during the Yom Kippur War

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Thanks to Lev Golinkin, Jodi Rudoren and Talya Zax for contributing to today’s newsletter, and to Beth Harpaz for editing it. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at [email protected].

Hope you have a terrific day.