Europe: Jewish leaders skeptical of Europe’s tough talk on anti-Semitism

As world Jewry bowed its head Tuesday during the funerals of the four French Jewish victims of Friday’s terrorist attack at a Paris kosher supermarket, senior European Jewish leaders were in Jerusalem as part of a one-day solidarity trip to Israel.

The leaders expressed frustration with what they see as empty rhetoric on the part of their elected officials, and demanded action to reassure their distraught Jewish communities that anti-Semitism and its more recent variant, anti-Israelism, were being addressed seriously. Emphasizing the value of broad-scale public measures, Michel Gourary, the CEO of the Israeli-Jewish Congress, said European politicians were sending weak signals. “Great expressions of sympathy are not sufficient,” he said, adding that after the murderous 2012 Toulouse attack at a Jewish school politicians had said there will be a “before Toulouse and after Toulouse.” “It was all words, words, words,” said Gourary. [...]

German delegate Nathan Gelbart, the head of Keren Hayesod Germany and a member of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said he was well aware that the Paris attacks could be replicated at any Jewish “soft target” — schools, institutions, synagogues, shops — throughout Europe. He added that it was a “matter of coincidence” that the terrorism occurred in France. “It could be Germany and Switzerland tomorrow,” said Gelbart. 

Gourary, a former Jewish Agency emissary to France, agreed, saying “there is a strong sense of a volcano that will erupt very soon” in Europe. “I’m beginning to question whether Europe is the right place to raise Jewish children and grandchildren,” Gelbart said, adding it may be time to join the Jewish majority and leave behind the feeling of being in a “zoo,” which he claimed many Jews have as a minority in the Diaspora.

More: Times of Israel