Mick Hartley

Remember the Aalst Carnaval back in March? Large puppets of stereotypical Orthodox Jews were paraded around, complete with fat cigars and money bags. Well – when in a hole, just keep digging:

Organizers of a parade in Belgium that earlier this year provoked international uproar over an anti-Semitic float, have published 150 caricatures mocking Jews ahead of the 2020 event.

The caricatures, some featuring Orthodox Jews with red, hooked noses and golden teeth, were printed on ribbons intended for participants in the annual event, which was added in 2010 to the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO….

The designer of the 2020 caricatures told Het Laatste Nieuws daily that they target UNESCO’s criticism of last year’s display and are “not against Jews.” He was not named.

One caricature shows a red-headed Orthodox Jew with golden teeth and is captioned: “UNESCO, what a joke.”

Hans Knoop, spokesperson for the Forum on Jewish Organizations of Belgium’s Flemish Region, called the 2020 caricatures “pure provocation” and a “manifestation of anti-Semitism.”

Aalst Mayor Christoph D’Haese and organizers dismissed criticism over March’s display, saying it reflected the spirit of irreverence at the event.

UNESCO is currently deliberating over whether to remove the event from its list over the float.

In 2013, a group designed for the Aalst carnival a float resembling a Nazi railway wagon used to transport Jews to death camps.

The people who designed the float, known as the FTP Group, marched near the float dressed as Nazi SS officers and ultra-Orthodox Jews.

A poster on the wagon showed Flemish Belgian politicians dressed as Nazis and holding canisters labeled as containing Zyklon B, the poison used by the Nazis to exterminate Jews in gas chambers in the Holocaust. UNESCO condemned that display.