Israel Matzav

The capital of European anti-Semitism?

Belgium, which hosts the European Union capital in Brussels, provides a paradigmatic example of the new-style ֲ hatred for the Jews. The Belgian capital’s oldest Jewish school,ֲ named forֲ Maimonides, will be closed soon due to anti-Semitic attacks and lack of students. Like during the Nazi occupation, it is dangerous today for a Jewish girl to go to school in Brussels these days. They are routinelyֲ told "Dirty Jew – go to your country".

Belgium has 40,000 Jews. In 2012, watchdog groups recorded a 50 percent rise in anti-Semitic hatred.

It is estimated that 30% of the Brussels population (1 million) is Muslim and they will be the majority in three generations. The daily De Morgen published the results of a survey among young Muslims in Brussels high schools. It finds that half "can be described as anti-Semitic, which is a very high rate", says VUB sociologist Mark Elchardus.

Meanwhile, Belgian authorities declared war on Judaism. A Belgian court in the city of Antwerp has just forced a Jewish Orthodox school for girls, affiliated with a hassidic sect, to admit the two sons of an anti-Zionist hareidi militant who attended the Holocaust denial conference in Tehran in 2006 and was photographed kissing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

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In Antwerp, the famous “Belgian Jerusalem”, a highly respected and government-funded Catholic school, the College of the Sacred Heart, hosted a “Palestine Day”, which was replete with anti-Semitic references and activities for youngsters. One stall at the event was titled “Throw the soldiers into the sea” where children were invited to throw replicas of Jewish and Israeli soldiers into two large tanks of water.
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During the onset and aftermath of the Black Death (1348-49), Belgian Jews were slaughtered by the local populace and authorities who blamed them for poisoning the wells to cause the plague. Only a handful of families survived, most of whom were burned at the stake in 1370, charged with desecrating the Host (the wafers used in communion).

In 1940 the Belgian Jews were burned in Auschwitz with the voluntary participation of the Belgian authorities. Seventy years later, Belgian pupils are learning how to target Israeli flags, effigies of an Antwerp Hassid, a synagogue, the Maccabi sports club - and ultimately, to kill Israelis.

These days, while the Belgian authorities were opening the Jewish museum in the building that served as a Nazi station, passengers on a train in Brussels got a shock as the following announcement came over the speaker, “Welcome to the train to Auschwitz. The Jews are asked to get off at Buchenwald".

Labels: Belgium, European anti-Semitism

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:21 AM