Via The Jerusalem Post (Brenda Katten):
(...) Is this freedom enjoyed by Jews living in Europe? Do they feel comfortable openly criticizing their government? Do they write articles in their national press pointing out all that they feel is wrong with their leaders? Is Arfa so content with the German government that she has no need to criticize them publicly? As a resident of Netanya, I wander through its main Independence Square and the language I most hear is French. [Note: approximately 200,000 Franco-Israelis reside in Israel and several thousand make alyah every year - others leave France tp go to the United States Canada...]
Why have French Jews chosen to come here? It is not because they expect to have a more affluent life or to live without the fear of the possibility of war.
They are here because they have the freedom to be Jewish.
Is a higher standard of living compensation for experiencing antisemitism in all its forms? Sadly, history has proven that a well-filled purse in the Diaspora is more attractive than starting life anew in a country with a strange language that requires its 18-year-olds to enlist in defense forces so that others may live. It is considerably easier for an 18-year-old overseas to ponder which university to attend.read more
Have we not witnessed time and again how Jews have chosen to stay in the economic comfort of their country of birth? Too many who initially had the chance to leave Europe prior to World War II chose, instead, to remain, ending their lives in the gas chambers.
Perhaps the paragraph of Arfa’s article that disturbed me the most was, “Unlike the 1930s and 1940s, Jews have a place to go that will always welcome them, and maybe because of Israel’s existence Europe will not repeat the Holocaust.
Now Jews have a state of their own that will have their back, ideally, and that should inspire them to bravely, confidently walk the streets with a kippa… fight court decisions that undermine Jews and Israel… and even bear arms.”
Confidently walk the streets with a kippa? I wonder what Europe Arfa is talking about. When the rabbinate there is advising Jews not to walk the streets with kippot and when it is quite possible that the next prime minister of the UK will be blatantly antisemitic, does she really expect Jews to bear arms in Europe? Most disturbing is the notion that it is okay to let the Jews in Israel ensure that the Jews in the Diaspora have somewhere to escape to without recognizing that a key reason that some young people are leaving Israel could be because they do not want to be the ones to sacrifice their lives for those who choose to live in greater financial comfort elsewhere.
The writer is public relations chair of ESRA, which promotes integration into Israeli society
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