Rising anti-Semitism in Europe (multiple stories)

[Behind the Aegis]

Danes alarmed by rising anti-Semitism

Rise in physical, verbal assaults in Denmark is in line with claims by Jewish communities that anti-Semitism is on the rise throughout Europe. Local Jews urge authorities to take action

Claus Bentow and his family only feel completely secure in their apartment in a middle class area of Copenhagen. Here Bentow and his sons can freely wear their skullcaps. Outside they are forced to hide their religious identity. Like other Jewish families, they’ve been advised not to send their children to public schools.

At a special forum designed to raise awareness about rising anti-Semitism, Bentow dismissed official figures that said there was about one attack a week in Denmark. He said the figure was much higher as so many assaults were not reported because of the perceived impotence of police investigations.

The audience listened in sorrow as a boy with a Muslim father and Jewish mother described what happened to him in a Muslim quarter of the city.

"I heard someone call me a Jewish pig, go to hell, throw a stone at me," said 16-year-old Moran Jakob. "I tried to protect my girlfriend of course because they tried to hit her, and one of them took a little knife and stabbed me in the leg."

After Israel’s clashes with Palestinians in Gaza, the Israeli ambassador to Copenhagen has warned visiting Jews to be extremely discreet and not to wear religious symbols in public.

more (including video): http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4351213,00.html

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Germans Lurching Towards Anti-Semitism

In the aftermath of the Holocaust, successive German governments have meticulously upheld their obligations to the Jewish people. Study of the Holocaust is a mandatory component of the German state education curriculum, Holocaust denial is classified as a crime and restitution commitments were honored and even exceeded.

Chancellor Angela Merkel is a genuine friend of the Jews and despite intense political pressures and occasional minor vacillations, has consistently supported Israel, describing its security as “part of my country’s raison d’etre”. However in recent years, as in other European countries, German public opinion has turned against Israel, perceiving it as the principal threat to global stability and peace. This hostility has increasingly assumed overt anti-Semitic tones.

There is growing resentment against Jews, who are blamed for imposing excessive emphasis on collective German national guilt for the Holocaust.

Anti-Jewish hostility is often expressed in the more ‘politically respectable’ demonization of the Jewish nation state, allegedly not related to anti-Semitism although the “Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe” (OSCE) explicitly defines such behavior as anti-Semitic.

more: http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/03/03/germans-lurching-towards-anti-semitism/

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Anti-Semitism in Europe: Jews are outsiders, not equals

Testifying at the U.S. House subcommittee hearing I described how, even after 2000 years, Europe has never really accepted the place either of individual Jews or of Judaism as a religion in its midst, leading to a deeply rooted tolerance for acts of violence against the Jewish community.

Last week I testified at the House Foreign Affairs and Human Rights subcommittee, which was holding a hearing on European anti-Semitism. I arrived in Washington with mixed feelings. If I was certainly honoured to bring my contribution to a congressional hearing, I quickly felt the burden of responsibility on my shoulders.

Anti-Semitism is certainly not a minor issue in Europe today. But I was also slightly worried, as I knew I did not want to be the voice that would simply run the various cliches about the unspeakable dangers of living as a Jew in Europe, or even about the uncompromising hate of Jews of some of Europe's Muslims citizens. As a rabbi based in Brussels, at the heart of Europe, having served Jewish communities in both the United Kingdom and Belgium, and currently a professor of Rabbinic Literature in Rome as well as in Belgium, I felt I had the necessary background and experience to bring a more nuanced view on this issue. But would my subtle remarks be heard?

Over the years, my encounters with anti-Semitism have been many and varied. From witnessing first hand, at the age of thirteen, a deadly terrorist attack against my synagogue in Paris, in which four people perished, to subtler and more recent forms of Jewish hatred, often dressed in a cloak of respectability. My dual citizenship and my patriotism for both France and Israel has been questioned and denounced. I have been told to “return to my country” during one particularly heated lecture during a military session in the French Senate. In a similar vein, a high official in England also kindly reminded me several years ago during, ironically, a meeting on interfaith dialogue, that I should not forget that my place was as a “tolerated minority.” In both of these instances, I was clearly the outsider and not an equal.

Yet, my experiences of anti-Semitism pale in comparison to the renewed forms of violence against the Jewish community in Europe. How not to think of the sheer horror and panic that was inflicted on a small Jewish school in Toulouse in March 2012? There, a radical young French Muslim killed, in cold blood, three children aged 3, 6 and 8 as well as a rabbi, who was both a father and teacher at the school. As a father, how can I not look at my two daughters without a mix of fear and apprehension about what Jewish life in Europe will be for them?

more (may or may not be behind paywall): http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/anti-semitism-in-europe-jews-are-outsiders-not-equals.premium-1.507084

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Alarming rise of anti-Semitic political parties in Europe discussed in US Congress committee

WASHINGTON (EJP)—The issue of alarming rise to prominence of anti-Semitic political parties in Europe was raised at a hearing of the US Congress Subcommittee on Human Rights that examined Wednesday the growing threat of anti-Semitism.

Using Hungary, Greece and the Ukraine as examples of a rise in European anti-Semitic political rhetoric, Andrew Srulevitch, Director of European Affairs for the Anti-Defamation League (ADL, said that the rise to parliamentary prominence of such groups as Jobbik (Hungary), Golden Dawn (Greece) and Svodoba (Ukraine) confirmed the findings of last year’s ADL survey which concluded that, following research across ten European countries, “large swaths of the population (were) subscribing to classical anti-Semitic notions such as Jews having too much power in business, being ore loyal to Israel than their own country, or “talking too much” about what happened during the Holocaust”.

One third of those surveyed were found to harbour traditionally anti-Semitic ideals, revealed Srulevitch.

Conceding that events in the Middle East were frequently used as a catalyst for anti-Semitic incidents, he paraphrased the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) 2011 report on anti-Semitism, which characterised a form of it as “the use of anti-Zionism as a way to circumvent prevailing taboos that still exists around using old anti-Semitism”.

more: http://www.ejpress.org/article/news/65214

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Anti-Semitic gangs are the ugly face of European society

IN North London, in Amsterdam, in Budapest, the taunts, the chants, the sound effects are the same: the hissing noises, the Nazi salutes, the jaunty, upbeat melodies of songs about gas chambers and death camps, and Auschwitz.

Tottenham Hotspur's supporters would be forgiven for thinking twice now about following their team in Europe. Two away legs in their Europa League campaign have been marred by anti-Semitic violence, their presence first in Rome and then in Lyons an excuse for those cities' far-Right groups to take to the streets, hurling missiles, drawing blood, delighting in this new target for their hatred.

That would be a shame, of course. There are countless destinations on the Continent where Spurs supporters can travel in safety, as so many other clubs do. Lazio was always likely to be a flashpoint - elements of the supporter base of Lazio and Roma have far-Right links. Lyons does not have the same reputation, but it is based in a city where neo-Nazi activity is on the rise.

But it would be misleading to suggest that these are isolated cases, that Tottenham just happened to pick the two places in all of Europe where the far Right poses a problem. The experiences of Ajax and MTK Hungaria prove as much. A substantial portion of the abuse hurled by the 50 masked youths who attacked the Smoking Dog pub in Lyons' old town late on Wednesday night would be familiar to the supporters of Europe's two great Jewish clubs.

more: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/anti-semitic-gangs-are-the-ugly-face-of-european-society/story-fncjqghj-1226583861868


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Hungary Jews Emigrate Amid Anti-Semitism and Economic Recession

Three years ago, Fanni moved to Vienna from her native Hungary with her husband. Now she is pregnant.

Though the couple would prefer to raise their child near their Jewish families in Budapest, rising nationalism and an economic recession are leading them to stay in Austria.

“I don’t want to cut my roots, but I see no good future for a child growing up in an increasingly xenophobic environment,” said Fanni, a lawyer, who along with others interviewed for this article asked that their full names not be published.

As many as 1,000 Hungarian Jews are believed to be leaving the country each year, spurring fears among Jewish leaders about the future of Central Europe’s largest Jewish community – some 80,000 to 100,000 people. Immigration to Israel has tripled in the past three years, to 170 in 2012. And many others have sought new lives in Berlin, London and Vienna, the Austrian capital just a two-hour train ride away.

Read more: http://forward.com/articles/171515/hungary-jews-emigrate-amid-anti-semitism-and-econo/?p=all#ixzz2MYZm2daN

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Sharp increase of the number of anti-Semitic incidents in Belgium

BRUSSELS (EJP)---Belgium registered a sharp increase in the number of reported anti-Semitic offences in 2012, according to the governmental agency Centre for Equal Opportunities and Fight Against Racism.

Edouard Delruelle, who heads the center, mentioned an ibcrease of 30% with his organisation having received 88 complaints of anti-Semitism last year, compared to 62 in 2011 and 57 the year before that.

“The Jewish community is right to be concerned,” Delruelle told Belgian daily La Dernière Heure.

“The figures show that anti-Semitism persists in Belgium. These figures are merely indicative, the tip of the iceberg, because many victims do not report.”

The figures for 2012 include 11 cases of vandalism, 15 verbal assaults on the street, 13 Holocaust denials and 28 insults made online.

more: http://www.ejpress.org/article/news/western_europe/65155

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Opinion: Hungary's Dark Flirtation With Anti-Semitism Rears Its Head

Jewish organisations are closely monitoring the political situation in Hungary. Although the Roma and Sinti communities are the primary target for the extreme right Jobbik party's intimidation, Jews are a close second. Concern is heightened by Prime Minister Viktor Orban's speeches about the Hungarian nation as an ethnically pure group.

At 100,000-150,000 people, Hungary's Jewish population is by far the largest in central Europe. Indeed it may be even larger according to a 2011 research report, Jewish Life in Hungary, published by the London-based Institute for Jewish Policy Research, and carried out for them by two eminent Budapest academics, Andras Kovacs and Aletta Forras-Biro.

The problem of counting heads is complicated by the halachic (religious) status of many in the community who may only have one Jewish parent, or who may be unaffiliated to any communal structure and therefore unwilling to be counted. One thing however is clear, and that is that the significant demographic decline of the community. The 1941 census recorded over 400,000 persons; more if those living in border countries, but of Hungarian origin, are included. The murderous effects of the collaborationist Horthy regime and the deportations to Nazi death camps left only between 190,000 and 260,000, but restrictions on Jewish life under Communism have led to a further fall, which continues because some have no interest in continuing to live as Jews.

While there are functioning communal organisations, led by the Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities (MAZSIHISZ) and the Hungarian Jewish Cultural Association (MAZSIKE), they were established by the previous government and their leadership is in the hands of the mostly elderly, some of whom have held their positions for many years. The renaissance in Jewish life that now affects all the former Soviet Bloc countries also touches Hungary, and consequently there is a growing interest in Jewish culture. Orthodox and secular international groups, many American based, are now focussing money and advice on trying to replace the vibrant religious and cultural life that existed before the War, but it has become a race to see if this effort can keep pace with assimilation trends.

more: http://www.totallyjewish.com/news/national/c-19421/opinion-hungarys-dark-flirtation-with-anti-semitism-rears-its-head/

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Spurs fans hurt in anti-semitic attack in France

Last night, three Tottenham Hotspur fans were injured - in what appeared to be an anti-semitic attack at a bar in the French city of Lyon. Up to 50 masked men smashed the windows of the Smoking Dog pub - which was packed with Spurs supporters on the eve of a Europa League match. Eyewitnesses claim the mob made Nazi salutes during the attack which left three men needing hospital treatment. Tottenham Hotspur is well known for its strong Jewish fanbase. Andrew Warshaw is Chief Correspondent at Inside World Football and a Tottenham fan.

“It’s another terrible example of the resurgence of the antisemitism in certain parts of Europe. And it seems that Tottenham Hotspur who have a very loyal and strong Jewish following in North London have been targeted by these thugs, not just in one city, but now in two, in the space of what? – about three months.”

Well, indeed, it’s the second time in just a couple of months this has happened. Why do you think this has cropped up again?

“A very good question. I think, as I said, maybe, ok, be it a very small minority of people, but it does seem that far-right factions are springing up in various parts of Western Europe. Now it’s a very worrying trend, and I guess although Tottenham is not as well-known in Europe, as some of the other English teams, who regularly qualify for the Champions’ League, it’s quite clear that word has spread amongst these groups that fans of Tottenham are going to support their team overseas. And we know the results of this. I have to stress it is clearly a minority, and I also have to stress that it doesn’t appear to be fans of the Lyon team, just as it didn’t appear necessarily supporters of Lazio team in Rome, where Spur’s fans last got attacked.”

http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_02_22/Spurs-fans-hurt-in-anti-semitic-attack-in-France/