Amid tensions over Holocaust, Jewish cemeteries vandalized in Poland

Two Jewish cemeteries have been vandalized in Poland amid a fresh diplomatic crisis between that country and Israel over complicity in the Holocaust. In the city of Świdnica, a suburb of Wroclaw in southwestern Poland, at least 15 headstones were smashed last week at the local Jewish cemetery. Other headstones were painted with black graffiti, including one of a pentagram – a symbol associated with Satanism. Local police are investigating possible anti-Semitic motives, the website Wmeritum reported. The cemetery had seen previous incidents, Monika Krawczyk, chairwoman-elect of the Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

 
 

 

 
 
Paralysed motor neurone disease patient: ‘I’m a happy man’

A man with motor neurone disease (MND) has spoken out about his opposition to assisted suicide. John Hughes was responding to an open letter to MPs by Geoff Whaley, another MND patient, who advocated legalisation. Mr Whaley killed himself with medical assistance in Switzerland earlier this month, but Mr Hughes said it is “a great pity” that stories like his own aren’t told. Mr Whaley’s letter read: “I have been able to fulfil my final wish: to be in control of my end, rather than endure the immense suffering motor neurone disease had in store for me.” But in a letter to The Times, Mr Hughes explained how his disease does not prevent patients from having a “happy” life. When he was diagnosed with MND four years ago and began to suffer with serious respiratory problems, Mr Hughes refused the morphine for a ‘dignified’ death and instead opted to have a tracheostomy.

 

 
 
Transgender ‘dad’ wants word ‘mother’ kept off child’s birth certificate

A woman who used the law to ‘change sex’ to male is fighting to keep the word ‘mother’ off her child’s birth certificate. The anonymous woman became pregnant just ten days after being granted a Gender Recognition Certificate. But following the birth of her child, the Registrar General said she must be listed on the child’s birth certificate as ‘mother’, as it is a legal requirement. The woman has launched a legal battle against the Registrar General at the High Court, so that she can be ‘recognised’ as the child’s father or ‘parent’. If she is successful, her child will be the first in the UK to be born without a legal mother. She became pregnant following fertility treatment using an anonymous sperm donor, so the child has only one legal parent.