Barbara Spectre
Barbara Spectre, née Lerner (b. 1942 in Madison, Wisconsin) is a Jewish Zionist and anti-white activist, born in the United States, later moving to Israel and then Sweden, joining her husband, who was then serving as the rabbi of the Stockholm Synagogue. She is the founding director of the government-funded Paideia, "The European Institute for Jewish Studies in Sweden", with stated purposes such as renewal of Jewish culture in Europe.
Life
Barbara was born in Wisconsin the daughter of Sam Lerner and his wife Ida, née Hoffman, both longtime residents of Milwaukee and Madison, Wisconsin. She grew up in New York. She studied philosophy at Columbia University and New York University and earned her doctorate from Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel. She married Rabbi Philip Spectre, and the couple moved to Ashkelon, Israel, in 1967, where she worked in the Jewish Studies department at Achva College of Education.
After moving to Jerusalem in 1982, she worked at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, the Melton Center of the Hebrew University, and Yellin College of Education. She was the founding chair of the Schechter Institute in Jerusalem in 1984. In 1999, she emigrated to Sweden and settled with her family in Stockholm, where her husband became the rabbi of the Stockholm Synagogue.
In 1991, Specter received the “Award for Contribution to Jewish Education” from the Seminary of Judaic Studies, in 1998 the “First Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies Award for Jewish Education,” in 2007 the “Max Fisher Prize for Jewish Education in the Diaspora” and in 2008 the “ICRF Women in Action Award.”
Quotes
In 2010, she stated controversially to the Israel Broadcasting Authority News that:
- "I think there is a resurgence of anti-Semitism because at this point in time Europe has not yet learned how to be multicultural. And I think we Jews are going to be part of the throes of that transformation, which must take place. Europe is not going to be the monolithic societies they once were in the last century. Jews are going to be at the centre of that. It’s a huge transformation for Europe to make. They are now going into a multicultural mode and Jews will be resented because of our leading role. But without that leading role and without that transformation, Europe will not survive."[1]
The Israel Broadcasting Authority has since tried to remove the video from websites such as YouTube. In November 2023 she resurfaced:
- "If you wanted to ask me what my citizenship is, I pay taxes in all three and I have citizenship in all three [United States, Israel and Sweden] but my true citizenship is Jewish."[2][3]
