10 years on, France doesn't get it
Sunday marked ten years since the
murder of Ilan Halimi. That's Halimi in the square with the purplish pink around it. It's from a Muslim dating site. It was eventually
taken down. Halimi was brutally murdered by a gang of Muslims, all but one of whom have been let go ten years later. On Sunday, there were a number of very small ceremonies in Paris marking Halimi's murder. They were
only attended by Jews.
The small crowd and its Jewish focus illustrate the wide disconnect between how the Halimi case is understood within and outside of France’s Jewish community – and what that might mean for the French Jewish future.
For France’s Jews, it remains an intimately tragic affair, marking arguably the most savage and sadistic anti-Semitic crime in France since World War II. For many citizens of French or European Christian origins, it is indeed a despicable violent crime, but not one fuelled by anti-Semitism. For me this is a form of blindness, of denial – but also a mark of the failure of France's government and Jewish community to establish violent anti-Semitism as a central concern for the whole of society.
...
Guershon N'duwa, president of the FJN, the Black-Jewish Federation of France, a constituent member of the French Jewish umbrella body CRIF, has organized the ceremony for Ilan Halimi for the past ten years, but he will not organize an eleventh. "The French government has always minimized the case of Ilan Halimi, and even now, has still not woken up to establish the link with the attacks of the past few years," says N'duwa, "and there is a definite link, a hatred of Jews.”
He continued: "But while Jewish community leaders have reached upwards, if you like, to French political parties on the right and left, they have not reached out to the non-Jewish public. So in spite of grandiose statements by politicians about fighting anti-Semitism, many French people still believe that Ilan's horrific death was a specifically Jewish affair, with few emotional links to the overall French nation, and not even necessarily a case of anti-Semitism. In reality, the intense emotional reaction by Jews here became a line that separated them from other French people, who reacted with intellectual disgust, but little more."
Both the Jewish community and the French government have been unable to engage the wider French public with the need to see, recognize and confront violent anti-Semitism and incitement against the community. This has diminished the number of French people who see anti-Semitic violence as a problem for all of France, not only its Jews and the government and security elite. For many, World War II had ended long ago, so it was easier to believe that this was a simple indecent but random tragedy committed by sociopaths.
...
The anniversary event’s low turnout was also an indication of intra-Jewish politics that have weakened the community’s resonance to speak as a united voice on this issue. In fact there were five other competing Halimi commemoration ceremonies around Paris this year, somewhat atomizing the effect of fewer and more robustly attended events. There were no Halimi family members present at Sunday’s Boulevard Voltaire gathering either, though his sisters reportedly attended one of the other ceremonies.
"This has become a very politicized affair and I am unhappy enough about that not to do it again," says N'duwa, who comes from a Protestant family in Congo-Brazzaville, Africa. He converted to Judaism years ago in France and has also lived in Israel.
...
Youssouf Fofana, who organized his kidnapping for ransom, will be in prison for years, in theory for life. Most of the others involved, including the woman used as bait, and the building superintendent who gave them the basement room and apartment in which Halimi was tortured in exchange for 1500 euros (which he never saw), have already been released.
Ten years after Halimi's murder, I still wonder why Jews remain in France. Neither they nor their non-Jewish neighbors understand what's going on in their country.
Labels: European Jews, feckless French, French anti-Semitism, Paris, Paris terror attacks
Europe to allow Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps to operate on its territory
Europe is going to
allow the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps to operate on its territory beginning in 2023.
Making matters significantly worse from the Israeli and European Jewish
perspective is Europe’s decision to allow the Army of the Guardians of
the Islamic Revolution, or the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps as
it usually called in the West, broad latitude to operate within the EU
starting in 2023.
“The EU delisting of IRGC military
organizations and personnel is tantamount to a green light for
Iran-sponsored terrorism. Likewise, the EU delisting of IRGC financial,
engineering, construction, energy and transport sector entities
amounts to European approval of the IRGC’s dominance in Iran’s economy,
which equates to the continued repression of the Iranian people by a
regime that just cashed in on temporarily deferring aspects of its
nuclear program,” Ali Alfoneh, an expert on the Revolutionary Guard, and
a fellow a the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote.
Europe’s
media are not paying attention to some of the fine print in the
nuclear agreement that largely affects their citizen’s security as well
as that of Israel institutions across the continent.
Alfoneh
noted, “After the nuclear agreement signed last week, the United States
will maintain most of its sanctions on individuals and entities
connected to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the regime’s
elite forces for external terrorism and domestic repression. The
European Union, however, has chosen a different path: a mass delisting
of the Guards on the date the deal calls ‘Transition Day.’” Europe’s
“Transition Day” is to take place eight years after the agreement has
been formally implemented.
Alfoneh wrote, “barring unforeseen
circumstances [implementation] will occur at some point over the next
three months. On that day, the EU will delist the IRGC, as well as its
Air Force and Missile Command. Most unexpectedly, it will lift nuclear
sanctions on the Quds Force, the IRGC’s external arm tasked with
‘exporting the revolution’ and extending support to terrorist proxies.”
The
EU is slated to delist Iranian banks such as Ansar and Mehr , which
are under sanctions because of their nuclear proliferation and nuclear
weapons delivery activities. The EU did not object to delisting the
notorious Brig.-Gen. Mohammad Hejazi.
Hejazi is a former commander of the Basij militia, Alfoneh told The Jerusalem Post.
It's time for European Jews to leave the hostile continent. What could go wrong?
Labels: Basij, Europe, European Jews, Iranian Revolutionary Guard
24 days - The truth about Ilan Halimi HY"D to be released on April 24
Received via email:
My name is Heidi Oshin and I work with Menemsha Films, a film distribution company. We are the distributors of the French film "24 Jours: La Verite sur l'affaire Ilan Halimi" (a/k/a "24 Days") (see the synopsis below). I am writing to let you know about the theatrical release of this film nationally.
We are opening "24 Days" on April 24, 2015. "24 Days" will have a nationwide release on that day. The film will be playing in several areas of South Florida, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and a few other cities currently being finalized. "24 Days" will also be available in the US and Canada on iTunes the same day.
"24 Days" is a very timely film and is certainly riveting. Screen Daily writes that French director Alexandre Arcady delivers one of the most “wrenching and politically astute” films to come out of France. Given the news of rampant anti-Semitism sweeping Europe, the film's message should be heard as widely as possible.
I am happy to provide you with a link to the film and trailer for your previewing. We are also happy to provide you with posters and flyers (either or both hard copies or digitally) as well a email blasts that you can send on to your email lists. Please let your friends, family, colleagues and students know about this important film.
I look forward to hearing back from you,
Heidi
--
Here's a synopsis of the film:
January 20, 2006. After dinner with his family, Ilan Halimi called an attractive girl he had met at work and made plans to meet her for coffee. Ilan did not suspect a thing; he was 23 and had his whole life ahead of him. The next time Ilan’s family heard from him, it was through a cryptic online message from kidnappers demanding a ransom in exchange for their son’s life. Based on a book co-written by the victim’s mother, Ruth Halimi, director Alexandre Arcady’s cinematic adaptation offers a vicious circle of dangerously realistic events: from the kidnapping and torture of Ilan Halimi at the hands of the Gang of Barbarians, to the the 600-plus phone calls, insults, and threats received by the family, through the Parisian police’s incompetence in dealing with what was clearly an anti-Semitic crime.-- -- --
--
Menemsha Films
Heidi Bogin Oshin
2601 Ocean Park Blvd., Suite 100
Santa Monica, California 90405
Tel 310.452.1775
Fax 310.452.3740
heidio@menemshafilms.com
www.menemshafilms.com
Hope it becomes available online.
Labels: European Jews, feckless French, French anti-Semitism, Paris
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls blasts anti-Semitism
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls made a blistering speech to his country's national assembly on Tuesday, in which he blasted his countrymen's lack of response to anti-Semitism, vowed to fight jihad, and even took on France's anti-Semitic comedian Dieudonne.
Here's one English translation video I managed to find.
Let's go to the videotape.
And here are some more
highlights.
In his speech, Valls was explicit that the “first question that has
to be dealt with clearly is the struggle against antisemitism.”
“History has taught us that the awakening of antisemitism is the
symptom of a crisis for democracy and of a crisis for the Republic. That
is why we must respond with force,” Valls said. Recalling a series of
antisemitic outrages in France in recent years, such as the abduction,
torture and murder of the young Parisian Jew Ilan Halimi in 2006, the
murder of three small children and a rabbi by an Islamist gunman at a
Jewish school in Toulouse in 2012, and the rape of a young Jewish woman
during an antisemitic assault on a Jewish home in the Paris suburb of
Creteil in December 2014, Valls asserted that these and other incidents
“did not not produce the national outrage that our Jewish compatriots
expected.”
“How can we accept that in France, where the Jews were emancipated
two centuries ago, but which was also where they were martyred [during
the Nazi Holocaust] 70 years ago, that cries of ‘death to the Jews’ can
be heard on the streets?” Valls asked, the indignation in his voice
steadily rising. “How can we accept that French people can be murdered
for being Jews? How can we accept that compatriots, or a Tunisian
citizen whose father sent him to France so that he would be safe, is
killed when he goes out to buy his bread for Shabbat?”
Valls observed that there “is a historical antisemitism that goes
back centuries.” But, he added, “there is also a new antisemitism that
is born in our neighborhoods, coming through the internet, satellite
dishes, against the backdrop of loathing of the State of Israel, which
advocates hatred of the Jews and all the Jews.”
Implored the French Prime Minister: “It has to be spelled out – the
right words must be used to fight this unacceptable antisemitism.”
Valls emphasized an additional point that he has made repeatedly over
the last few days: that a France shorn of its Jewish community would no
longer be France. “This is the message we have to communicate loud and
clear,” he said. “How can we accept that in certain schools and colleges
the Holocaust can’t be taught? How can we accept that when a child is
asked, ‘who is your enemy,’ the response is ‘the Jew?’ When the Jews of
France are attacked, France is attacked, the conscience of humanity is
attacked. Let us never forget that.”
The speech was also an opportunity for Valls to directly confront
Dieudonné M’Bala M’bala, the anti-Semitic French provocateur infamous
for devising the “quenelle,” an inverted Nazi salute, as well as for his
frequent mocking of the Holocaust. Yesterday, the French authorities
confirmed that Dieudonné, along with 53 other defendants, had been
arrested for offenses including hate speech, antisemitism, and
glorifying terrorism.
Refusing to mention the self-styled comedian by name, Valls spoke of
“the indignity of a serial hater having a full house on Saturday night,
when the country was mourning for what happened [at the HyperCacher
market] in Porte de Vincennes.” As the National Assembly rose in a
standing ovation for the Prime Minister, Valls thundered, “Let us never
pass over these matters in silence, and let justice be implacable with
those who preach hate. And I say that emphatically here at the National
Assembly.”
Too late?
Labels: Charlie Hebdo, Dieudonne, European Jews, France, French anti-Semitism, Islamic terrorism, Manuel Valls
BBC reporter blames French Jews for 'Palestinian suffering'
The BBC's Tim Wilcox answers the fears of a scared Jewish lady in Paris during Sunday's mass rally by saying 'the Palestinians suffered greatly at Jewish hands.'
In November 2014, Wilcox suggested that 'a lot of these prominent Jewish faces will be against the mansion tax.'
Let's go to the videotape.
Who says the BBC is biased?
Labels: BBC bias, European anti-Semitism, European Jews, France, Paris
Breaking: Hollande to accompany Netanyahu to Paris Grand Synagogue
Heavy symbolism here.
This past Sabbath was the first time the Grand Synagogue had been closed since the Nazi occupation in the 1940's.
Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, European Jews, France, Francois Hollande, Islamic terrorism, Paris
Paris victims identified
The four victims of Friday's terror attack on a Paris Jewish grocery store have been
identified. They are Yoav Hattab and Yohan Cohen (both pictured above), Philippe Braham and Francois-Michel Saada. May God Avenge their blood. Hattab is the son of the Chief Rabbi of Tunis.
Jews in France were advised by their government not to go to synagogue on Friday night! The Grand Synagogue in Paris (which I visited with Mrs. Carl back in 1998) was closed for the Sabbath for the first time since the Nazis overran France!
In the meantime, the Zionist group Betar is gearing up to
protect French Jews. I have to wonder why they're not encouraging aliya instead. Reports in Israel on Friday indicated that the Jewish Agency received hundreds of calls from French Jews seeking to make aliya (immigrate) to Israel.
Labels: European Jews, France, Paris
4 hostages killed in Paris Jewish supermarket
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.
Four people were killed on Friday when an Islamic terrorist entered a Paris Kosher supermarket on Friday afternoon. 15 other hostages escaped when police stormed the supermarket. The terrorist who perpetrated the attack (and also murdered a Paris police officer on Thursday) was killed, as were the two Charlie Hebdo terrorists who took hostages in a printing plant outside Charles DeGaulle Airport. The three terrorists were in constant contact with each other.
Let's go to the videotape.
Exclusif France 2 : les images du face-à-face... by francetvinfo
Anyone who can translate the French, please do.
Here's a bit
more.
Four of the hostages who were held at the kosher supermarket were
murdered by terrorist Amedy Coulibaly when he entered the store, just a
few hours before French President Francois Hollande denounced what he
called “an appalling anti-Semitic act.” Fifteen other hostages survived
the ordeal.
...
Yesterday, Coulibaly murdered a police officer in Montrouge, south of
Paris. His female companion, Hayat Boumeddiene, is said to still be at
large. During the simultaneous sieges, the couple reportedly spoke
more than 500 times to the Charlie Hebdo killers, Charif and Said
Kouachi, who were cornered by police at a printing shop to the northeast
of Paris.
According to French media reports, Coulibaly and Cherif Kouachi were
two of the most committed followers of convicted terrorist Djamel
Beghal. Telephone conversations reveal that the pair visited Beghal’s
home in Murat in the south of France.
French President Francois Hollande described the events as “a tragedy for the nation”.
In a national address, he thanked the security forces for their
“courage, bravery and efficiency,” but added that France still faced
threats.
“We have to be vigilant. I also ask you to be united – it’s our best weapon,” he said.
“We must be implacable towards racism,” he added, saying that the supermarket attack was an “appalling anti-Semitic act.”
Read it all.
It's too late for France - they let too many Islamic terrorists in and now they cannot get rid of them all. Let the rest of Europe - which is headed in the same direction - learn before it is too late.
Labels: Charlie Hebdo, European Jews, feckless French, France, Francois Hollande, Islamic terrorism, Islamophobia
And again: Armed hostage 'situation' in Paris Kosher market #jesuisjuif
As the Sabbath starts here in Israel, there is an armed hostage 'situation' in a Paris Kosher supermarket.
There's a liveblog
here.
Shabbat Shalom and stay safe everyone!
Labels: Charlie Hebdo, European Jews, France, Islamic terrorism
'A climate of hate'
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.
Four people have been murdered (a fourth person died after the video below was released) in a terror attack on the Jewish museum in Brussels on Saturday.
Let's go to the videotape.
The reactions have been
shocked. And for reasons I'm going to explain below, I have to wonder why everyone seems so surprised.
Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders was at the scene shortly after the attack, and told reporters that the two other victims had been shot inside the museum. "I hope we will identify those responsible very quickly," he said.
Reynders said he had been nearby when he saw people fleeing and heard shots and rushed to help. When
he saw "bodies on the ground in pools of blood" he called the
112 emergency number and rounded up eye-witnesses to assist the police.
Police quickly cordoned off the area.
"I am shocked by the murders committed at the Jewish museum, I am thinking of the victims I saw there and their families," Reynders said on Twitter.
...
The head of Belgium's Jewish Consistory told La Libre that "it is probably a terrorist act. For us it is an extremely serious act."
He said the museum had received no recent threats and that its staff "are in shock".
Milquet said the government had moved to increase protection at Jewish buildings as well as the Israeli embassy.
Belgium Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo also expressed that he was "very shocked" by the attack.
"All Belgians are united and show solidarity in the face of this odious attack on a Jewish cultural site," he added.
They weren't the only ones who professed shock.
Brussels Mayor Yvan Mayeur told the BBC as stating that the shooting was
likely a terror attack and that the choice of location “isn't a
coincidence.”
About half of Belgium's 42,000-strong Jewish community lives in Brussels.
...
“Two years after Toulouse, and on the eve of the European elections,
this despicable attack is yet another terrible reminder of the kind of
threats Europe’s Jews are currently facing,” World Jewish Congress
President Ronald Lauder said in a statement shortly after the shooting.
The attack was “clearly was targeted at Jews.”
“Tomorrow, we must all work together to ensure that this doesn’t happen
again. If that means to improve security at Jewish sites in Europe, we
have no choice. It must be done. If not, more people may be able to
carry out such terrible crimes,” he added.
But not everyone is shocked. From the first link again.
A Jewish community figure, Joel Rubinfeld, told AFP it clearly "is a terrorist act" after two men were seen driving up and double-parking outside the museum.
The gunman opened fire, allegedly shooting indiscriminately before getting away.
Rubinfeld, who heads the country's anti-Semitic League, said the act was the result of "a climate of hate."
World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder and European Jewish Congress President Dr. Moshe Kantor don't sound too shocked either. Neither does the Anti-Defamation League. This is from the second link.
“Two years after Toulouse, and on the eve of the European elections,
this despicable attack is yet another terrible reminder of the kind of
threats Europe’s Jews are currently facing,” World Jewish Congress
President Ronald Lauder said in a statement shortly after the shooting.
The attack was “clearly was targeted at Jews.”
“Tomorrow, we must all work together to ensure that this doesn’t happen
again. If that means to improve security at Jewish sites in Europe, we
have no choice. It must be done. If not, more people may be able to
carry out such terrible crimes,” he added.
According to EJC President Dr. Moshe Kantor, while details of the attack
are still lacking, it is clear that it is indicative of a “permanent
threat to Jewish targets in Belgium and across the whole of Europe.”
"This is once again, much like the savage murders in Toulouse, a clear
example of where hate and anti-Semitism leads. European government must
send out a clear message of zero tolerance towards any manifestation of
anti-Semitism."
Kantor recently made waves by stating that without a significant
reduction in the fear and insecurity plaguing European Jewry, normative
Jewish life on the continent is “unsustainable.”
“Incidents such as this do not occur in a vacuum, and are the direct
result of a systematic culture of hate and anti-Semitism against the
Jewish community and the State of Israel in so many parts of Europe,
including Belgium,” the Israeli Jewish Congress asserted.
A spokesman for the organization pointed out that according to a recent
Anti-Defamation League Study, 27 percent of Belgians harbor anti-Semitic
sentiments.
According to the ADL, Belgium comes in as the sixty third most
anti-Semitic country out of one hundred territories polled around the
world.
I'm not shocked either. In January 2013, I wrote a post in which Brussels was called 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.
...
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".
Presumably the same Jewish museum at which four people lost their lives today.
Time to make aliya guys.
Labels: Belgium, European anti-Semitism, European Jewish Congress, European Jews, Ron Lauder
Europe's spiritual Holocaust
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg isn't European but he is intermarried.
So are a stunning 85% of newly married European Jews according to the
Rabbinical Center of Europe.
According to RCE's research, over 85% of European Jews assimilate and
intermarry with non-Jews; 80% do not attend synagogues, even on the
central holiday of Yom Kippur; over 75% of Jewish children in Europe do
not receive a Jewish education, and over 90% of European Jewish students
have no connections with the Jewish community.
The sobering figures led Rabbi Shimon Elitov, a member of the Israeli
Chief Rabbinate Council, to say "assimilation in the shocking numbers
that we see is worse that the physical Holocaust that we saw."
In order to provide European rabbis with tools to respond to the
threat, Rabbis Moshe Braverman and Doron Kornbluth ran a workshop at the
conference to give pointers on how to deal with the phenomenon.
It sounds like the situation is well-past workshops. Massive action is needed - and even that may not help.
Deputy Religious Services Minister Eli Ben-Dahan presented a different
counter-measure to the difficulties of Jewish life in Europe, calling on
European Jews to leave and immigrate to Israel or face disappearing. In contrast to the 85% assimilation rate, Ben-Dahan argued that in Israel the rate is a mere thousandth.
Perhaps it's a Heavenly decree that so many
French Jews are
fleeing to Israel. And given that the cause of that flight is Muslim anti-Semitism -a phenomenon that is rising in many other European countries, perhaps ultimately European Jewry will either flee to Israel or be lost.
Labels: aliya, European Jews, French anti-Semitism, intermarriage
Interview with Prof. Wistrich on "prevalent shades of anti-Semitism" by Hansjörg Müller
In September, Prof. Robert Wistrich was interviewed about the most prevalent shades of anti-Semitism by Hansjörg Müller, the editor of the Baseler Zeitung, a popular German newspaper in Basel, Switzerland. The piece appeared in the September 12 edition of the paper. With Mr. Müller's permission, Prof. Wistrich translated the piece into English. It appears below.
Q: In your encyclopedic work, A Lethal
Obsession. Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad (Random House,
2010), you present Islamist antisemitism as an existential danger to modern
civilization. Could you explain?
A: In my view, Islamic antisemitism is by far
the most dynamic and threatening form of antisemitism existing at present in
the contemporary world. It combines the scourge of Islamist terrorism, the
spread of jihad, hatred of the West, Holocaust denial, and the genocidal
“anti-Zionism” which is state-sanctioned in Iran. The dramatic triumph of the
Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the alarming growth of militant Salafist
movements across the Arab Middle East have greatly increased the level of
threat worldwide.
Q: Is there a historic connection between
European fascism and Islamism?
A: The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in
1928 by Hassan al-Banna, had a radical totalitarian vision of societal
transformation, a leadership cult, and visceral hatred of Jews not so different
from that of fascism and National Socialism. Moreover, the charismatic founder of the Palestinian Arab national
movement, Haj Amin el-Husseini, was a fanatical genocidal anti-Semite who
actively collaborated with Adolf Hitler during World War II. This
“annihilationist” tradition of Jew-hatred has continued in the Palestinian
Hamas movement (an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood) to this very day. Its
Sacred Covenant is one of the most nakedly anti-Jewish texts of the entire
post-Holocaust era.
Q: You have
described the impact of the Nazi legacy on radical Islam, but what about
classical right-wing antisemitism in present-day Europe?
A: Populist
right-wing tendencies are especially strong in Hungary, Austria, the
Netherlands, Belgium, parts of Scandinavia, and the Baltic States, in Eastern
Europe, and even here in like Switzerland. Nor are France, Germany, or Italy
immune. Against the background of an alarming world economic crisis, the
possible collapse of the Euro-zone, the specter of globalization, and a massive
migration from the poorer southern countries to Europe, these negative trends
will probably grow. Antisemitism is part of this wider syndrome.
Q: In your
newest book, From
Ambivalence to Betrayal. The Left, the Jews, and Israel (University of Nebraska Press, 2012), you are
often severely critical of Western leftist attitudes to Israel and the so-called
“Jewish Question.” How do you explain left-wing hostility?
A: The Left
is suffering from acute amnesia. It has forgotten, for example, that Egyptian
president Nasser and his Arab allies openly threatened to throw the Jews into
the sea in 1967. To this day, Hamas, the Hezbollah and their Iranian backers,
not to mention other Arab states, constantly broadcast their intention to
eradicate the Zionist “cancer” from the Middle East map. So I ask people on the
Left — is that a “progressive” position? Hardly. The Left has also forgotten
that there was an uninterrupted Jewish presence in the Holy Land long before
the birth of Islam — and despite endless harassment, along with Roman,
Byzantine, Crusader, and Muslim persecutions and massacres, this Jewish settlement
continued until the emergence of the modern Zionist movement.
Q: Why do
you think so many leftists are pro-Islamist today?
A: The
Western Left and the Islamists both share the myth that Israel is a “white,”
Western, and colonial intrusion in the Middle East. They both have embraced a
radically distorted view of Palestinians as defenseless “Jews,” downtrodden,
and ruthlessly abused by fascist Israelis. Behind this demonic imagery there is
an antisemitic view of Israel and America as twin embodiments of
capitalist-imperialist evil. Needless to say, this mythology is totally
disconnected from empirical reality.
Q: In light
of your current trends, do you see any future for European Jewry? If you were
living here, would you stay or go?
A: I
personally believe that the long-term future of European Jewry is bleak. I
would not wish to decide for European Jews what future they should choose, but
I am convinced that the land of Israel is the only possible spiritual and
political homeland for the Jewish people.
Let us also remember that it was in the city of Basel that Theodor Herzl
first proclaimed to the wider Jewish and Gentile world in 1897 the birth of
modern Zionism. In his diary he prophesied that within fifty years a Jewish
State would inevitably arise. Many people at the time dismissed him as a
charlatan or a dreamer. But his prophecy came true and for that we should be
thankful.
Labels: anti-Semitism, European anti-Semitism, European Jews, Islamic anti-Semitism, Leftist anti-Semitism, Red-Green alliance
Herzl must be rolling over in his grave: World Zionist Organization wants Jews to settle in France
About eight years ago, I had a long layover in Zurich on the way back from the US. A friend who is a rabbi in Basel, Switzerland invited me to take the train to come visit him and to see the town. While we were going about town, he showed me a hotel balcony, and told me that
Theodore Herzl (pictured) stood on that balcony to address the Jews who came to the first Zionist Congress. This is from Herzl's
Jewish Virtual Library biography (his
Wikipedia article has been rewritten by the politically correct crowd).
Herzl first encountered the anti-Semitism that would shape his life and the fate of the Jews in the twentieth century while studying at the University of Vienna (1882). Later, during his stay in Paris as a journalist, he was brought face-to-face with the problem. At the time, he regarded the Jewish problem as a social issue and wrote a drama, The Ghetto (1894), in which assimilation and conversion are rejected as solutions. He hoped that The Ghetto would lead to debate and ultimately to a solution, based on mutual tolerance and respect between Christians and Jews.
...
In 1894, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French army, was unjustly accused of treason, mainly because of the prevailing anti-Semitic atmosphere. Herzl witnessed mobs shouting “Death to the Jews” in France, the home of the French Revolution, and resolved that there was only one solution: the mass immigration of Jews to a land that they could call their own. Thus, the Dreyfus Case became one of the determinants in the genesis of Political Zionism.
Herzl concluded that anti-Semitism was a stable and immutable factor in human society, which assimilation did not solve. He mulled over the idea of Jewish sovereignty, and, despite ridicule from Jewish leaders, published Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State, 1896). Herzl argued that the essence of the Jewish problem was not individual but national. He declared that the Jews could gain acceptance in the world only if they ceased being a national anomaly. The Jews are one people, he said, and their plight could be transformed into a positive force by the establishment of a Jewish state with the consent of the great powers. He saw the Jewish question as an international political question to be dealt with in the arena of international politics.
But don't tell that to the World Zionist Organization. They want Jews to
settle in France... and Hungary... and Austria... and Switzerland... and everyplace else that Herzl lived.
The idea of the trip, which took the Israeli 20-somethings through four countries in five days, was to consider whether and how Herzl’s Zionist ideals can help Israel resolve the troubles it is facing now. But the trip also was about helping young Israelis move beyond an Israel-only view of world Jewry, organizers said.
Deborah Laks, a Costa Rica native who now lives in Tel Aviv, said the tour convinced her that Jews can make a home in Europe.
"What I've seen of young Jews and what they're creating in Europe - they're more useful here than they would be in Israel," Laks told JTA. "If they go to Israel, who's going to do it here?"
The bus tour started with Herzl’s birthplace in Budapest before moving on to Vienna, where Herzl studied law; Basel, Switzerland, where the First Zionist Congress was held; and Paris, where Herzl covered the infamous Dreyfus Affair as a correspondent for an Austrian newspaper.
"Zionism in its very essence is a concern with Jewish peoplehood. That's not going to happen only in the land of Israel," said David Breakstone, vice chairman of the World Zionist Organization which helped organize the trip. Funding came from Habonim Dror and the participants themselves.
Before the trip, Breakstone said, many participants believed they would see only “abandoned synagogues and Jewish graveyards. But the focus of our trip is Jewish future and Jewish revival, not persecution and the Holocaust. We certainly weren't trying to encourage anyone to devalue the importance of aliyah, but I think it's important that they understand that those who do not move to Israel are not necessarily abandoning a Jewish future."
The trip was also meant to help participants forge a personal connection with Herzl's life and writings.
"For us, it's very important that Herzl be understood not just as this incredible historical figure that started the Zionist movement, but also as a man of values whose ideas continue to be compelling today," Breakstone said.
I'm sure this is going to disappoint a certain Muslim reader of this blog, who wants all the Jews to be in Israel so that we can be more easily exterminated.
But for the rest of us, is this really what the World Zionist Organization is supposed to be promoting? Is anti-Semitism really dead in France or Switzerland? Are those places where Jews belong? (I can ask the French family upstairs and the one in the next building that question). Granted, all of you who live in the diaspora are unlikely to make aliya tomorrow, but is the diaspora really where our future is?
I don't have a problem with Israelis learning about Herzl and even going to retrace his footsteps. I have a problem with Israelis being told that Europe is the place to be. It's not.
Labels: European anti-Semitism, European Jews, Theodore Herzl
What's a naqba?
In the late 1940's and early 1950's, we had a population exchange in our region. But while one half of that exchange - the Arabs fleeing what became the State of Israel - was largely self-inflicted, the other half of that exchange - Jews fleeing Arab countries - happened perilously, with the fleeing Jews forced to leave all of their property and possessions behind. Michelle Huberman describes that Jewish flight
here.
It would be nice to believe the myths that they left their homes in pursuit of the Zionist dream, but 95% of my encounters have been with elderly people who have told me the horrors of escaping raging mobs with nothing but a single suitcase in their hand. On May 15th their testimonies will be heard.
Matti Haron will be telling us how his grandfather lived as a Muslim in Iran and even went on pilgrimage to Mecca to hide his Jewish identity. For centuries, Jews were dhimmis, a subjugated minority who could only achieve true equality if they converted to Islam. Many of my North African Muslim friends have told me about having Jewish grandparents. One wonders what percentage of Muslims had Jewish ancestors who chose or were forced to convert to Islam to have an easier life?
Why don’t we know any of these stories? We are told that Jews and Muslims coexisted happily together through the ages. Here in London trying to tell the truth through film showings and testimonies at Jewish events is an uphill struggle. A blogger friend was told by one of our Israel advocacy organizations – “Jews from Arab countries are not sexy news.” She was stunned. “By 'sexy' I suppose he meant topical” she told me, “yet hardly a day goes by without some Palestinian, somewhere, telling how his land was 'stolen by the Zionists', as recently as... 63 years ago. Hardly topical, and yet the news media lap it up.”
It is too late to save the Jewish communities of the Arab world. Hardly any Jews are left. But the turmoil in the Arab world gives us a golden opportunity to press for the rights of all non-Muslim minorities, and to insist on the legitimacy of Israel, which gave safe haven to the beleaguered Jews of the region. As far as the Israel-Arab conflict is concerned, acknowledging that there was suffering on both sides is the key to reconciliation.
Read the whole thing.
Yet there is something that bothers me about Huberman's piece. Huberman refers to the flight of Jews from Arab countries as a naqba (or nakba) an Arabic term that means catastrophe. When Israelis refer to the naqba, they are generally referring to the 'Palestinian' narrative of our war of independence, which sees the founding of the Jewish state as a catastrophe. The 'Palestinian' naqba unfolded very differently than the plight of Jews from Arab countries.
As I noted above, the 'Palestinian' naqba was largely self-inflicted (most of them fled voluntarily). What's worse is that the 'Palestinian' naqba continues to this very day due to the Arab countries' unwillingness to do what Israel has done and to resettle their brethren. Instead, the 'Palestinians' who fled from what is now Israel are held hostage in the vain hope of one day undoing the events of 1947-1949. That so many people are held hostage to a hostile dream born out of hatred is truly a human catastrophe.
For Jews from Arab countries, the 'catastrophe' does not continue. They are resettled here in Israel, and their suffering is not passed on from generation to generation except as stories describing their experiences. They endured a difficult time, but that time did not result in a catastrophe for them. They are - thank God - resettled in their homeland.
If I would call anything a 'Jewish nakba' - as Huberman titles her piece - it would be the plight of the Jews who perished in the Nazi crematoria of Europe, who had no place to go thanks to British connivance with the Arabs that refused to open the gates of the one country of the World that was willing to take those European Jews in and resettle them. That was (and is) a catastrophe, because those Jews, their would-be descendants and their communities are no more.
Labels: European Jews, Holocaust, Jews from Arab countries, naqba, Palestinian refugees
