Let's talk about European antisemitism

[Drogue]

DP

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Lord Nuclear
Stealing other people's land? The UN was the one who created Israel. If you are saying Israel doesn't have the right to exist, I think that borders anti-semitism.

The UN also decided Israel's boundaries. They are not the borders it currently occupies. That's stealing other people's land, whereas it's formation was not, IMHO.

[DanS]

5.6 million out of 14 million is not a majority, 2 million is not 'very few'.

Meh. The real numbers support my perception nonetheless.

[Jaguar]

A majority of non-Israeli Jews.

[Colon™]

About the far-right and antisemetism: ironically the frontman of the Flemish far-right party (which may be the most succesfull one in Europe) is actually sucking up to the arses of the Jewish community. North-Africans and East-Europeans are the big boogiemen, not the Jews.

[Tassadar500]

Originally posted by Drogue

The UN also decided Israel's boundaries. They are not the borders it currently occupies. That's stealing other people's land, whereas it's formation was not, IMHO.

True, but the United States also "stole" land. As did Britan, and France, and Germany, and Russia, and Holland, and Spain, and Portugal, and China, and Japan, and Vietnam, and Greece, and Italy, and Turkey, just to name a few.

[Ted Striker]

I'm sure Canada isn't on that list.

[DanS]

I have no way of judging the content of these articles, but this is the type of article being published in the US.

From the Miami Herald...

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/9880341.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

Posted on Sun, Oct. 10, 2004

IMMIGRATION
French Jews escape to United States
Anti-Semitism is on the rise in their homeland.
BY ELINOR J. BRECHER
ebrecher@herald.com

Philippe Goldenstein, 39, once a bodyguard for France's Grand Rabbi Joseph Sitruk, doesn't scare easily.

So when his yarmulke drew hostility on the streets of his native Paris, where anti-Semitic attacks are escalating, he fought back. ''One Arab on his bicycle called me a dirty Jew,'' he said. ``I had to beat him up.''

But like many French Jews who have settled in South Florida recently, Goldenstein and his wife, Katia, began to fear for their children, now 2 and 3 years old.

''Since the intifada started [in 2002], things are degrading every month a little more,'' he said. ``They are getting violent with the kids. This is not how we are brought up to live.''

The couple emigrated in October 2002, leaving behind family and a busy restaurant. Earlier this year, they opened Weber Cafe, a kosher, 36-seat dairy restaurant in Aventura's Waterways Shops.

''In Paris, we had a big hall for the weddings, the bar mitzvahs, a tea room, my apartment -- I didn't need to come here,'' said Katia, 31. ''But I'm afraid for my children and when my husband goes to shul in a kippa'' -- Hebrew for yarmulke, or skull cap.

She believes that 1,500 years of Jewish life in France is ''finished,'' and that government measures to combat anti-Semitism come ''too late'' for France's 600,000 Jews.

The French Interior Ministry said 2002 was one of the worst years in the past decade for anti-Semitic acts and threats, with 932 reported. Things improved in 2003: 588 acts and threats, with 91 arrests and trials. The numbers are again rising, as they are in Belgium and Holland.

The Interior Ministry reported 510 acts or threats this year: assaults in the streets and subways; schools and synagogues firebombed; cemeteries vandalized. By last fall, French Grand Rabbi Joseph Sitruk was warning Jewish men to cover their yarmulkes with baseball caps.

While France's six million Muslims also have been the targets of racism, authorities blame most attacks against Jews and their institutions on disaffected immigrants from Muslim-dominated countries. The French government has spoken out strongly against anti-Semitism, mindful of the country's troubled history with its own Jewish citizens.

After Nazi Germany invaded France in 1940, the collaborationist Vichy government passed anti-Semitic laws and rounded up thousands of Jews for deportation, among them some who had fled to presumed safety in France from Germany. An estimated 90,000 died.

In a July 8 speech, French President Jacques Chirac said ``odious and despicable acts of hatred are sullying our country. Discrimination, anti-Semitism, racism, all kinds of racism, are again spreading insidiously. . . . They are unworthy of France.''

Ten days later, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made a controversial plea to all French Jews to make aliyah -- literally to ''go up'' -- to the Jewish state ``immediately.''

More than 2,000 have done so this year, according to Jewish resettlement organizations.

It's hard to say how many have come to the United States. French authorities are legally prohibited from tracking emigration by religion, said Yann Battefort, a spokesman for the French Consulate in Miami, where some 10,000 French citizens are voluntarily registered.

Vanessa Brakha, 25, and her husband, Michael, 29, were married 14 months ago and left France soon after, for the sake of their children yet unborn, they said.

GROWING COMMUNITIES

The Brakhas recently opened the strictly kosher Micky's Deli on Harding Avenue in Surfside, adjacent to Bal Harbour. The communities, with a half-dozen kosher restaurants, form the nucleus of French-Jewish life in Miami-Dade County.

Vanessa Brakha once again wears the Star of David with tiny diamonds she'd put away.

Like the Brakhas and the Goldensteins, most French Jews coming to Miami-Dade are Sephardim: of North African or Spanish/Portuguese descent.

Rabbi Yosef Galimidi of Miami Beach's Shaare Ezra Sepharadic Congregation, estimates ''98 percent'' of French newcomers are Sephardim.

''We have had visitors from France inquiring more and more what are the business opportunities, the Jewish schools, the community support. They are looking to Florida for the multiculturalism,'' he said.

Given visa requirements, most of those coming are relatively wealthy.

The Brakhas came on E-2 visas, requiring a $150,000 business investment. Vanessa holds a master's degree in finance and was an assistant communications director for Estee Lauder, the cosmetics company. Michael ran a successful Paris restaurant.

Some Jewish immigrants saw the handwriting on the wall years ago, like Laurent and Nicole Kadouch, who came in the mid-1990s. The couple, of Moroccan, Algerian and Eastern European ancestry, own an Aventura town house.

''Thank God I had the chance to leave,'' said Laurent, 41, an Aventura importer and kitchen designer.

But he also disagreed with Sharon's advice and said French Jews ``are very divided about it. They have a bad reaction because it made them more isolated. They already cannot be open about their Judaism.''

Franca and Luciano Benmoussa, both 63, immigrated 18 years ago: ''After 12, 13 years of anti-Semitism in France, we have enough and decide to leave for our children,'' now 35 and 33. ``We have a very Jewish name.''

They own Piccolo Cafe in North Miami Beach and have become U.S. citizens.

The problem is not that the government hasn't instituted tough laws, said Shimon Samuels, director for international liaison at the Paris office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. ``They don't filter down to the judges in the courts.''

SAD CASE

He cited the case of a 15-year-old Jewish boy from Sevran who was beaten by Muslim fellow students at a public school. Not only did a judge overrule the school's decision to boot the assailants, he assessed the victim's family the court costs.

''So what is the alternative?'' asked Samuels. ``They will leave to a place where they feel more secure.''

He added that ''breadwinner'' commuting is now so common between Israel and France that ``you can't get a flight on a Sunday evening from Tel Aviv to Paris, or on Thursday from Paris to Tel Aviv.''

But Florida ``is a different story. That's a real migration. Getting a green card and the logistics are more difficult.''

Katia Goldenstein said she and her husband came on L-1 visas, originally designed for international corporations seeking to transfer foreign executives to the United States. To meet visa requirements, the original Weber Cafe in Paris must remain open. They left it with relatives -- which Katia misses: ``I am here alone. I have two babies. I don't speak English. I cry every day.''

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
I'm sure Canada isn't on that list.

They try to get on the list through Hans Island .

[Ted Striker]

In this case I have to agree with DanS, we have most of the Jews.

They have a disproportiante amount of influence relative to their numbers also. I'm not saying that's a BAD thing, just the way it is.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
I'm sure Canada isn't on that list.

Canada is the worst of the lot. All of their land is stolen.

[Ned]

Just speculation, but, Europe has a very long history of anti-Semitism based on religion, primarily. Clearly that reached a peak in the 1930's. But, in the aftermath of WWII, only Germany was required to undergo "re-education." (I wouldn't be surprised that Germany is the least anti-Semitic country on the continent.) The rest had to simply keep their feelings and attitudes disguised. As others have said before, the Arab-Israeli conflict in combination with an increasing Muslim population give cover for expression of anti-Semitism and, at least in my view, are the primary motivation behind Europe's pro-Arab stance.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
I'm sure Canada isn't on that list.

The whole country is stolen land!

[Spiffor]

Thanks for the articles, DanS. They're interesting

[Heresson]

Originally posted by DanS
I've never viewed Europe as a continent to be antisemitic. Some countries seem more antisemitic than others. Poland seems pretty damn antisemitic, while the UK doesn't seem antisemitic much, for instance.

There are pretty some antisemites in Poland. I didn't think it's anywhere around significancy until I entered fora of Gazeta Wyborcza. It's one of the most (up till recently the most, and lets put it this way: the most popular of the decent ones) popular daily papers in Poland. The chief of the paper is Jew, and there are other Jews working there, and perhaps that's why there are a lot of antisemitic remarks on this forum. I do think that 99% of them come from a limited group of people. Certainly this forum does not reflect the overall picture. I find it strange that so many people seem to have far right-winged views there. Either they're making artificial crowd (which is easy, You don't have to register), or this site has been invaded by Poles of Canada and/or USA.
On the other hand, I'm not suprised with that people dislike Jews sometimes. I recall my first threads here in which I had to fight against ones puting Poland in one row with Germany and Austria...
Jews often show a great deal of unnecessary antipathy, ignorance and lack of tact in Polish-Jewish relations,
and it's often a cause of a mild dislike of Jews that You'd probably label as antisemitism.
Not that a true antisemitism does not exist. I've had a moderate pleasure of riding in a bus next to an elderly man who tried to convince a lady sitting next to him to his theories. The lady was seemingly tired of this and was trying to make him stop, but He did not. He had an interesting theory. You see, in year 2003, some artist put an artificial palm tree on a crossroad of two main streats in Warsaw. The guy claimed that it was done
- to commemorate 35th anniversary of emigration of Polish Jews in order to settle on Golan Hills
- to make the artist (Jewish of course) pleased, so that the view from his window reminded Tel Aviv
(oh, and the burgermeister is Jewish as well according to this guy).
And recently, the artificial leaves of the ppalm tree were taken away. I don't know why, I thought it was because they got dirty or covered with snow or whatever.
The guy did know why. You see, the palm tree got "circumsised" to commemorate the rule of the circumcised and to stand there (untranslatable, unfortunatelly, lets say it means: to offend) "na pohybel"
citizens of Warsaw and of Poland.
I'd gladly to continue journey in the fiary-tale world, but I had to step out of the bus
Anyway, such guys are definitely just weirdoes, and He himself claimed with a smile that people always react
like this lady to his stories,
but such people exist.
Having that said, I don't think the affairs look too bad.
There are pretty some reknown people of Jewish origin.
Current Polish ministry of foreign affairs (Rotfeld) is Jewish, for example.