"Then I'll have to hide that I'm a Jew and never say tell anybody again. Never again."

Jewish kids are feeling the hate and can't pretend it doesn't exist.  Like the Jewish kid from Germany who said that "everybody hates the Jews".


Monica Csango writes in VG about a talk she had a with a little Jewish girl in a Scandinavian country.

"I can be a Jew for a while longer," she said to me.  "But when I hear that there's a Jew-war, then I won't be able to be one."

"What do you mean by that?  What is a Jew-war?"

"Then I'll have to hide that I'm a Jew and never say tell anybody again.  Never again."

Why does the left downplay antisemitism? All forms of racism should be abhorred

By Dean Sherr (The Guardian)

In the aftermath of the Holocaust, antisemitism was impossible to ignore and became a central concern of the global left, but Julian Burnside encapsulated the contemporary shift in thinking when he wrote in the Guardian that “Islamophobia is the new antisemitism”, implying, as many often do, that the old antisemitism has been superseded.

It hasn’t.  Last Wednesday, a lecture at the University of Sydney by retired British Colonel Richard Kemp became the scene of a heated protest. Kemp was accused of supporting genocide, and, during the fracas, noted Australian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions advocate Professor Jake Lynch was filmed waving money in the faces of an elderly Jewish women and the Jewish student trying to prevent the two from coming to blows.

Lynch explained his actions as a response to having been kicked, saying it was a warning that he would sue, and described his restraint as “almost heroic”, though his account has been disputed by witnesses, with Kemp claiming that the woman was attempting to push Lynch away, who initiated the contact.

Irrespective of who struck first, the image of a leftwing academic brandishing money in the faces of Jewish people clearly evokes the crude antisemitic falsehood that Jews are obsessed with money and perhaps neatly encapsulates the shift of the left away from Jews.

Whatever Lynch’s excuses or reasoning, and the elderly woman’s behaviour, it was clearly an offensive and provocative gesture, reasonably likely to offend the Jewish community. In the past, a leftwing professor would surely have anticipated this, but the reality is that antisemitism today is not as pressing an issue to progressives as it once was.

Instead we have a new set of attitudes towards antisemitism: that it is of lesser importance in the west than other forms of racism, like Islamophobia; that it is no longer a serious threat to diaspora Jews; and that the gravity of its existence is diminished because of the existence and behaviour of Israel.

The attacks in Paris and Copenhagen are ample proof that antisemitism still poses a threat to Jews in the west, especially in light of new recordings from Paris confirming definitively that the gunman targeted Jews. In France, Jews make up 1% of the population yet suffer half of all racist attacks. In Australia, 2014 saw a massive increase in reported antisemitism, including physical attacks in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.

But Jews should not be required to parade our suffering, historical or contemporary, in a competition for attention with other forms of racism. Nor should we be expected to tolerate the constant appearance of antisemitic language and imagery at prominent anti-Israel rallies, which does seem to show that the use of antisemitic symbols and language in the west is seen as less threatening, or perhaps “understandable”, when connected with Israel.

That attitude was shown by leftwing Jewish actress Miriam Margolyes’ astonishing performance on a recent episode of the ABC’s Q&A programme. Answering a straightforward question on whether antisemitism garners as much sympathy as Islamophobia, Margolyes’ response was to bring up Israel’s “evil” actions in Gaza as a likely cause of antisemitism. Her solution was for Australians to see that “not all Jews behave in the way Israelis are doing” – suggesting all the Jew has to do is denounce Israel loudly enough, or perhaps wear a sign, that indicates that we aren’t all “evil” like Israelis are, to avoid being victimised.

Ironically, it sounds remarkably like a demand so often made of Muslims. As Australian prime minister Tony Abbott said a week earlier, “I wish more Muslim leaders would say [they are a religion of peace] more often and mean it.” Abbott’s comments were widely denounced by the left and rightfully so, but Margolyes’ comments were not objected to, they were applauded by many in the audience and online.

It is surely obvious that mitigating bigotry or racism with victim-blaming is wrong regardless of the victim’s ethnic or religious background. Yet it persists in some left-wing circles that Jews are the exception to this rule – our communal connection to Israel makes us somehow more legitimate targets, unless we denounce the Jewish state.

The problem with this notion is twofold – firstly, because Jews do not wear signs declaring our position on Israel. A proud Zionist Jew can just as easily be targeted at a kosher supermarket as an anti-Zionist one. More than that though, why should we have a duty to detach ourselves from a vital aspect of our cultural identity to avoid victimisation?

The reality is that we are human beings with complex identities, defined by a wide range of societal, communal and ethnic influences. Must we carry the burden of answering for all of Israel’s actions because we were born Jewish? And are we so unlike other ethnic cultures that care for the safety and security of our relatives abroad, that we can be painted as immoral for not abstracting ourselves from their threatened existence?

In a political climate where fear is a weapon as much as a state of mind, where innocence isn’t automatically assumed, and where wars and foreign affairs can fuel prejudice at home, it is natural that many take great steps to defend embattled Muslim communities from the risk of dangerous incitement. In doing so, they recognise that Muslims deserve to have their rights – freedom of association, of safety, of speech – protected, if necessary by the state.

They also recognise that self-determination of cultural and national identity is not something we can impose on other people. Those rights and understandings must be equally extended to Jews without the expectation that we must first denounce Israel, fight it, answer for it, or be ashamed by it.

Even before the Kemp lecture, the student protesters Lynch became involved with declared that they were there to defend Hizb-ut-Tahrir, the extremist group which has been exposed as having spread antisemitic propaganda and incitement against Jews on the streets of Sydney. Hizb-ut-Tahrir, whatever their legal status, cannot be defended by any genuine anti-racist. If the radical left with which Lynch and his fellow protesters are affiliated are prepared to defend their civil rights, they must not excuse their anti-Jewish racism – a duty of which they have thus far failed.

When progressives downplay or diminish the threat of antisemitism in the diaspora because of Israel – or, worse, fuel it – they do not extend to us those equal rights they purport to stand for. Progressives do more than dishonouring their values in this case, they diminish the unique history of Jews in Australian (and western) society, failing to acknowledge and defend us as equal, regardless of our relationship with or opinions about Israel.

The left must act to repair its straining relationship with Jews and once again take up opposition to antisemitism as its cause. Antisemitism is, like all forms of racism, to be abhorred and condemned unequivocally, not reduced and marginalised by games of comparison and mitigation. It is not a partisan issue and it cannot be up to the right to own the unqualified outrage it deservedly generates. The left, and the values it holds, are far too proud and dear to our hearts for that.

France: 80-90% of immigrants to Israel are Sephardi Jews

Via Times of Israel:

Halter is among the most prominent French Jews to urge his coreligionists to stick it out in France, but his campaign is exposing tensions between integration-minded progressives — many of them Ashkenazi, like himself — and a more insular Sephardic majority that favors aliyah.

Sephardic Jews are believed to constitute a disproportionate number of French immigrants to Israel — 80-90 percent, according to Sergio DellaPergola, a sociologist at Hebrew University and one of the world’s foremost experts on Jewish demography. Overall, Sephardim represent about two-thirds of French Jewry.

The overrepresentation of Sephardim, according to DellaPergola, owes to “traumas that many North African Sephardim who settled in France after the 1950s brought with them, from living in Muslim societies where many enjoyed a peaceful coexistence, but where many others were beaten and discriminated against.”

Violent anti-Semitism “brings back very unpleasant memories for Sephardic Jews, who already have a higher propensity to make aliyah also out of religious sentiment as they come from more traditionalist societies,” DellaPergola said.

Hungary: Rock band receives antisemitic comments after announcing Israel concert

see more comments here

Via FAA-Hungary:

Hungarian rock band Tankcsapda  receives serious amount of antisemitic comments after announcing a concert in Israel.

UK: Media warns that Israel will be overrun by Arab droves

The British media is allowed to incite against Israel-Arabs.

Because they don't care that they're racist, antisemitic and Islamophobic.

All means are kosher when it comes to bashing Israel.


The Times wrote as follows in a post-election editorial:   (h/t UK Media Watch)

he [Netanyahu] offered young Israelis no sense of how the country should evolve if it rejects a two-state solution. Matching the prospect of an Iranian bomb, Israel is faced with a demographic time bomb. The birth rate among Arab families in Israel is so high that at some point Arabs will form a majority. The choice will be even more uncomfortable than the one posed on election day. It will be between Israelis having a Jewish state or a democratic one.

After UK Media Watch complained, this was changed to: "The birth rate among Arab families in Israel has been high enough to cause fears that at some point Arabs will form a majority."


Replace "Arab" with "Muslim" and "Israel" with "Britain" and you have a BNP editorial.  Way to go Times!

Belgium: Ghent invites Jew-hater to racism debate

Dyab Abou Jahjah - Hezbollah member

Via HLN:

City of Ghent Alderman Resul Tapmaz (Sociliasts) invited  Dyab Abou Jahjah to a debate about racism.

Abou Jahjah founded the AEL (European Arab Leadgue).  The group led riots against the Jewish neighborhood in Antwerp a few times.  Abou Jahjah later joined Hezbollah to fight against Israel.  He came back to Belgium and was offered a job as columnist in the country's most prestigious daily.

See here for more about Abou Jahjah and the respect he gets in Belgium.

See here and here for more about the antisemitism of Ghent's leaders.

UK: Group of Jewish girls terrorised by man threatening to kill them

Via BBC:

Jewish school children in London say they are being forced to hide their religious identity because of fear of being attacked.

With levels of anti-semitism on the rise, children as young as eight have been targeted, including a Hasidic boy who was pelted with stones and a group of Jewish girls who were terrorised by a man threatening to kill them. 

Sixteen-year-old Elisheva Hersh, who was verbally abused for being Jewish, told Inside Out she feels being Jewish is risky so she tries to hide it.

Greece: 70% of Greeks think Israel is comparable to the Nazis

Via Independent Balkan News Agency (h/t glykosymoritis):

The research findings on the “prejudice of the Holocaust and Anti-Semitism in Greece”, were presented on Thursday at the British embassy, with the main conclusion the “alarming rise of anti-Semitism and perceptions about the Holocaust, among the Greek public opinion”.

(...)

The survey was conducted in January 2015 under the auspices of the University of Thessaloniki and co embassies of Britain, Canada and Romania, while the presentation was done under the auspices of the British Presidency of the International Alliance for Holocaust commemoration (IHRA).

The survey aims to answer two main questions: 1. What the Greeks know about the Holocaust and 2. taboo subject: how antisemites are the Greeks, said the research associate of the survey professor at the University of Macedonia Nikos Marantzidis – who spoke through skype in the workshop – adding that we are interest to influence through education the younger generation, to change things and not stay only in reflection, thinking how shocking are the findings.

To the question “What comes first to mind with the word Holocaust”, around 50% chose the option “Auschwitz”, while the rest chose “Distomo, Zalogo, Arkadi”, coming from the Greek history. In addition, to the question, what history issue must be included in compulsory education among the Asia Minor Catastrophe, the Civil War, the Pontian Genocide and the Holocaust, the Holocaust gathered smaller percentages.

When asked if Israel does to the Palestinians that the Germans did to the Jews during the Second World War, 70% of respondents answered positively, although there were four other answer options.

Via Ekathimerini (h/t Glykosymoritis):

A large number of Greeks have limited awareness of the Holocaust or even hold anti-Semitic views, according to a new survey which traces the roots of attitudes to a strong sense of victimization among the public.

The same study found that prejudice or hatred against the Jews cuts across the country’s left-right political spectrum, which is similarly attributed to the fact that victimhood, the idea that Greeks have suffered without full responsibility for their misfortune, is a universal trait of the country’s political culture.

(...)

“The Holocaust... is perceived as something that does not belong to Greek history and thus its teaching becomes less pivotal in public education,” experts said.

UK: Former Racial Equality Chairman says Jews are twice as wealthy as others

Via Campaign Against Antisemitism UK:

In a series of radio and television interviews, Trevor Phillips, former Chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, has been repeatedly claiming that “Jewish households are twice as wealthy as the rest”. This statement clearly plays on the racist stereotype of the wealthy, miserly Jew, at a time when antisemitism is at alarmingly high levels.

Phillips is apparently trying to suggest that not all racial or religious stereotypes are wrong, but his statement about Jewish people is incendiary and wholly irresponsible; we can reveal that it is based on a survey which only 98 Jewish people responded to.

Europe is obsessed with Israel while ignoring threat of Islamic tsunami

Guy Bechor writes @ Ynet: EU totally unprepared for Islamic tsunami

Paris pro-Hamas demonstration

The European Union has been so obsessed with the Israeli issue over the years that it has ignored its own demographic collapse. Between half a million to a million Muslim refugees and infiltrators will flood the shores of Italy and the European Union, the official in charge of the EU's borders has estimated. [...]

The EU thought it was a fortress which is immune to the troubles of the world, and is now realizing, anxiously, that this fortress has been completely breached. The moment an infiltrator penetrates the fortress through the sea, he is free to continue to any country in the EU according to the Schengen Agreement. The Islamic State controls part of eastern Libya, mainly the city of Sirte, and at least two seaports. In other words, the Islamist organizations' dream of obtaining an exit in the Mediterranean Sea has already been fulfilled, and ISIS or other organizations will punish Europe by flooding it with millions of refugees.

Brussels 2008

What Hamas failed to obtain in Gaza, an independent seaport in the Mediterranean Sea, ISIS has succeeded to obtain in Libya. [...]

The European Union thought it was far from the Middle East, and that it could therefore navigate it while being protected. Now, the Middle East is starting to navigate Europe. This stems from a complete misunderstanding of reality among the leaders of the "European Union." Over the years, they kept on meddling in the Israeli issue, out of the groundless assumption that it is the heart of the Middle Eastern conflict, and that if it would be "solved," it would lead to stability in all the rest.

They were obsessed and are still obsessed with the Israeli issue, neglecting all the other arenas: Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, Lebanon and others. We are the EU's heart's desire, a self deception of an imaginary reality. But the Muslim Middle East is now a pan-European problem, which has to do with more than 20 million unsatisfied Muslims who are already living in the European Union and have no intention of leaving. On the contrary, they will double their numbers within several years. More.

Hungary: Graves vandalized at Jewish cemetery, human remains scattered

Via Artuz 7:

Approximately 20 graves in the northeastern Hungarian city of Gyongyos were vandalized today (Sunday), in what Jewish community leader Peter Weisz described as being "unprecedented."

The desecration included the spreading of human remains, and elicited the condemnation of  Prime Minister Viktor Orban for the "barbaric deed", who then vowed to launch a program this year to renovate neglected cemeteries.

Turkey: New documentary reveals that Jews masterminded the oppression of humanity

Via Al-Monitor:

On March 16, A Haber, a Turkish “news channel” that acts more like a propaganda outlet for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his incumbent Justice and Development Party (AKP), broadcast a sensational “documentary.” Titled “The Mastermind,” the two-hour film was billed as an expose of the great international conspiracy targeting Erdogan’s “New Turkey.” It was also a sequel to "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," the early 20th century anti-Semitic hoax claiming to describe a Jewish plot for global domination.

Erdogan himself introduced the very term "mastermind," or "ust akil," to Turkish political language some five months ago, as I explained in Al-Monitor. No wonder the A Haber documentary (available here in full) begins with Erdogan telling his followers in a speech: “Don't be misled. Don't think that these operations are against my persona, our government, our party. Friends, these operations are rather directed against Turkey itself — its unity, its peace, its economy, its independence. And as I have said before, behind all these steps there is a mastermind. People ask me, ‘Who is this mastermind?’ Well, you have to figure that out. And actually, you know what it is.”

It is implied that the documentary is a response to Erdogan’s call, that it has “figured out” the identity of the mastermind, which many Erdogan supporters already know: It is “the Jews.” Theirs is the mind, the documentary tell us, that “rules the world, burns, destroys, starves, wages wars, organizes revolutions and coups, and establishes states within states.”

(...)

Then we hear from a series of Turkish “experts” who explain how “the children of Israel” want to dominate the world, subjugate other peoples and thus surround the world like a “giant octopus.” A “historian” asserts that Darwin proposed his theory only to depict non-Jews as “animals” — an idea that he believes is rooted in Judaism. At every stage, the film reminds us how the Judaic “mastermind” has oppressed humanity for thousands of years, making the world a stage for a perpetual war between good and evil.

more

Germany: Antisemitic EnDgAmE movement protests in Hannover

h/t WichtelWatch Oldenburg and RedShift Magazine.  Pics via Neue Presse.


The new organization EnDgAmE (Engaged Democrats against the Americanization of Europe) is an even more antisemitic offshoot of last year's weekly Peace Protests.  Protesters include conspriacy-theory nuts from both the extreme left and the extreme right.

EnDgAmE recently held a demo in Hannover.  about 250-300 people showed up.

Speakers include Christoph Hörstel (former consultant to Neturei Karta) and Fuad Afane.  Afane said that the "Jew is not the enemy of mankind, Zionism in the enemy of mankind."  Other speakers also spoke against Israel, the victims of yesteryear who are the perpetrators of today.

But there was no lack of coded-antisemitism as well, as speakers spoke of the puppet-masters  controlling politicians.

There were a few Palestinian flags.

Counter-protesters are from the German Left who oppose antisemitism and anti-Americanism.

UK: Racist 'banged on Tube window while shouting anti-Semitic abuse'

Via the Evening Standard:

A frenzied racist banged on the window of a Tube train while shouting anti-Semitic abuse at a passenger.

Transport police today appealed for anyone who saw the shocking incident, which happened on a Victoria line train between King’s Cross and Euston on February 26, to contact them.

Pc Michael Willoughby said: “A man in his late 20s or early 30s began shouting anti-Semitic abuse and making offensive gestures at another passenger.

“The man left the train at Euston, but remained on the platform, banging on the window and shouting more racist abuse, until the train departed.”

UK: Dwindling Jewish community in Wales ‘Feeling Vulnerable’

 Algemeiner reports:

The Jewish community in Wales, UK is dwindling in number and its members are feeling vulnerable in light of the record number of antisemitic attacks taking place in the UK, the BBC reported recently.

Newport synagogue

There are only 2,064 Jews currently living in Wales, according to the most recent census. Cardiff, the country’s capital, holds the largest Jewish community in Wales with less than 500 members, down from 5,500 in the 1960s. In Newport, which has a synagogue that dates back to 1859, only six Jews remain.

“When I look to the future I see decline, I see Newport and Swansea virtually ended like Merthyr did a few years ago,” said Stanley Soffa, chairman of the Jewish Representative Council for South Wales. Fear of antisemitic attacks is apparent among Jews in Wales. Soffa said the community fears “the person who will do something unpredictable.”

“It could just be a comment in the street, it could be desecration of a cemetery, it could be daubing something on a synagogue, it could, of course, be much more serious than that,” he told BBC Wales News.

“We do not fear action such as we’ve seen in Paris, but we have to be vigilant and careful. It only takes one person to pull a knife and to stab another and so we don’t want people to put themselves in a difficult position if they can help it. Security has obviously increased and the police have been very good.”

Figures released in February showed antisemitic incidents in the UK reaching the highest level ever recorded, the BBC reported. The Community Security Trust, a Jewish security charity that runs an incident hotline, recorded 1,168 antisemitic incidents against Britain’s 291,000 strong Jewish population in 2014, compared to 535 attacks in 2013. [...]

Professor Nathan Abrams from Bangor University, who specializes in European Jewish diasporas, believes demographics are behind the decline of the Jewish population in Wales. The older generations who are dying are not getting replaced by younger members. More.