> The time has come for European Jews to pull their heads out of the sand,
> face reality and ask themselves honestly whether their children can possibly
> remain proud Jews in societies which have reverted to treating them as
> pariahs. Less than 70 years ago the soil of Europe was drenched in Jewish
> blood. Under the leadership of Germany, considered the most cultured country
> in Europe, six million Jews were brutally murdered in a meticulously planned
> genocidal campaign. The vast majority of Germans and citizens of
> Nazi-occupied territories either collaborated or looked the other way as
> millions of their Jewish neighbors were deported and systematically
> exterminated.
> After that terrible era, the call went out: Never again. Yet only several
> decades later, the evil winds of visceral anti-Semitism are again raging
> throughout Europe, with the difference being that the nation state of the
> Jews is now the surrogate for the conventional demonization of individual
> Jews. For many Jews, this now directly affects the fundamental quality of
> their daily secular and interpersonal lives.
> The great source of concern is the extent to which indigenous Europeans have
> revived the hostility and prejudice deeply embedded in their religion and
> culture, which many mistakenly believed had been permanently excised after
> the horrors of the Holocaust.
> Furthermore, in most European countries, Muslim immigrants in escalating
> numbers are assuming an increasingly more powerful role in society and
> politics. They have imported vile concepts originating from their former
> anti-Semitic society and culture, imitating and even exceeding obscene Nazi
> propaganda. This is exemplified by the portrayal of Jews killing Muslim
> children to obtain their blood to bake matzot, or mullahs calling on the
> faithful to murder the Jewish descendants of apes and pigs. Not
> surprisingly, Muslim immigrants are also disproportionately involved in the
> surge of physical violence targeting Jews.
> European opinion polls express a contemporary version of this approach when
> they explicitly regard Israel as the greatest threat to global peace and
> stability — exceeding North Korea, Iran or Syria. What is this, if not a
> 21st century rendition of the medieval hatred in which Jews were viewed as
> Satan’s representatives on earth and blamed for natural disasters such as
> earthquakes, plagues and poisoned wells?
> The more sophisticated indigenous European version targets the nation state
> of the Jews, defaming Israel’s army — the most humane military force in the
> world — accusing it of war crimes, of deliberately killing children, and
> even behaving like Nazis. Holocaust inversion has now penetrated the
> mainstream and become a major vehicle promoting hatred of Jews and diverting
> European guilt for the Holocaust by obscenely accusing its survivors of
> engaging in similar genocidal activities.
> The anti-Semitic attacks affect all Diaspora Jews other than those masking
> their Jewish identity or currying favor by collaborating with Israel’s
> enemies. The concentration of venom directed at the Jewish state is
> particularly grotesque when one takes into account that Israel is the only
> democratic state in a region where Muslim fundamentalism reigns supreme,
> imposes barbaric practices, denies elementary human rights and freedom of
> worship and shamelessly indulges in violence and murder of minorities and
> state-sanctioned persecution. While Arab states like Syria blatantly butcher
> their citizens en masse, the spotlight remains centered on condemning Israel’s
> efforts to defend itself from neighbors seeking its destruction.
> It is no exaggeration to describe the situation as worse than in the 1930s.
> Back then, the Jews could at least rely on liberals or segments of the Left
> to support them against the Nazis. Alas, today, these groups frequently lead
> the anti-Semitic pack.
> One need only observe the European media and the vicious online comments
> endorsing anti-Jewish attacks to appreciate how the levels of anti-Semitic
> paranoia now directly impact the fundamental quality of their daily lives.
> In “polite” society and among the so-called enlightened intelligentsia, this
> is rationalized as postmodernism combined with extraordinary guilt about
> Europe’s colonial past. These concepts have assumed a crucial role in
> European thinking and are frequently employed as a rationale for demonizing
> Israel as a colonial implant.
> What is particularly shocking is the extraordinary growth of popular
> anti-Semitism among the Left and Right, even in Germany, a country which
> obviously has a special obligation to distance itself from any vestige of
> anti-Semitism. Günter Grass’ extraordinarily crude outburst against Israel
> elicited a huge groundswell of popular support. The German government
> attempted to resist these elements, but when a state-funded Jewish museum
> invites as its guest a woman who justifies Hezbollah and Hamas and promotes
> boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel, the impact of the radical
> anti-Jewish currents on institutions is only too evident.
> European Jews today do not merely confront a hostile anti-Jewish media. They
> face increasing violence and even murder. Instead of serving as a wake-up
> call, the massacre at a Jewish school in Toulouse, France, generated greater
> violence against Jews and led to the exposure of terrorist cells preparing
> to murder Jews. There are ongoing anti-Israeli demonstrations in which signs
> and chants of “gas the Jews,” “Hitler was right” or “slit the throats of
> Jews” are everyday events, and anti-Semitism is escalating not only in
> France but in the U.K., Sweden, Hungary, Germany and throughout most of
> Europe.
> The fact that Jewish children are increasingly encountering anti-Semitism in
> schools and Jews are becoming progressively regarded as detestable pariahs
> is not all. Today, in many European countries, there is ever-growing
> agitation to ban circumcision and Jewish ritual slaughter. In some areas
> Jews even feel obliged to remove their skullcaps to avoid being attacked on
> the street.
> The most chilling feature of the burgeoning anti-Semitism in Europe is that
> it does not emanate from governments or leaders but has infected the masses
> and is growing at the grass-roots level and thus likely to intensify.
> Surely these awful developments represent clear signals that Jews are no
> longer welcome. How is it possible to bring up children to proudly maintain
> their Jewish identity in such a climate?
> Jews have a tendency to deny the reality and toxicity of anti-Semitism until
> it reaches unbearable levels. But now the time has arrived for Jews to take
> stock of themselves and consider immigrating to Israel as a response to the
> growing hatred that threatens to engulf them.
> Unlike their predecessors in the 1930s who were denied entry visas and had
> nowhere to flee, today Israel, with its Law of Return, provides a haven and
> welcomes Jewish immigrants young and old. Understandably, many may find it
> economically prohibitive to immigrate, but they can at least make sure that
> their children are not trapped in societies which hold them in contempt.
> Committed Jews living in a Jewish state will not merely find a refuge. They
> will discover that it will enhance the quality of their lives and ensure
> that their children grow up to be proud Jews, able to absorb their Jewish
> religious and cultural heritage to the maximum.
