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Anti-Semitism in 2006

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Infomaniacs Anonymous

To: bhb9@cornell.edu

this is why the world hates you jews. you keep ordering people what to do, critisize [sic] and think you are the greatest. go fuck yourself, jewbag.

I’ll admit it. I had sort of been looking forward to my first piece of hate mail — but this wasn’t what I had in mind.

The above e-mail was the last in a series of four by a reader displeased with my last column, on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in which I invoked the history of World War II in Europe to demonstrate what can happen when the threats of dangerous men are ignored. The student in question — who should consider himself lucky that this “Jewbag” isn’t vindictive enough to print his name — wrote in his first e-mail that he was “kind of tired” of the “bitching and moaning” over the six million Jews killed by the Nazis. As the grandson of three Holocaust survivors, I’m usually rankled by such comments, but before the student’s anti-Semitic outburst, I was in the mood to cut him some slack — he had accused Jews of manipulating the Holocaust, yes, but he hadn’t accused them of fabricating it, as Ahmadinejad has. And, as I had learned earlier from a post on my column at the Sun website, the Iranian leader wasn’t alone.

“He never said the Holocaust NEVER happened,” the post read. “He said the claims around it are fabricated, and there were nowhere near 6 million Jews who died there. And according to certain reports I've read, it appears it may have been closer to just 2 million, actually.”

It didn’t stop there:

“I don't see why americans should give up their lives to save jews in another country. It’s not fair. I’m just glad that I live in Canada and during WW2, we turned away 100’s of thousands of jews to be sent back to die in concentration camps. :)”

I was struck at first not just by the gall of the two readers, but by something else they had in common: Neither was an American. On second thought, I wasn’t surprised.

The situation of Jews in America has improved vastly over the past century, to the point where anti-Semitism has become a virtual non-issue for most. Only a generation after most country clubs blackballed Jewish families and Ivy League universities capped the number of Jews they would admit, a Jew can come within 537 votes — or, more accurately, one Supreme Court justice — of becoming Vice-President.

Anti-Semitism still exists among some Americans, to be sure. But as far as targeted groups in this country are concerned, Jews have far less to fear than, say, gays, blacks or Muslims. Because of this newfound security, American Jews feel free to laugh at the anti-Semitic antics of TV’s Borat, everybody’s favorite reporter from Kazakhstan.

If I were living today in Europe, however, I doubt I’d be laughing so hard.

Six decades after the Holocaust, anti-Semitism has returned to the continent with a vengeance. Says the recent State Department Report on Global anti-Semitism:

“Beginning in 2000, verbal attacks directed against Jews increased while incidents of vandalism (e.g. graffiti, fire bombings of Jewish schools, desecration of synagogues and cemeteries) surged. Physical assaults including beatings, stabbings and other violence against Jews in Europe increased markedly.”

The report noted that, unlike the religious anti-Semitism that pervaded Europe throughout the Middle Ages or the racial anti-Semitism Hitler used to justify his “Final Solution,” this “new anti-Semitism” has been primarily motivated by an identification of Jews with the State of Israel. While most anti-Israel criticism is not anti-Semitic at its core, most European anti-Semitism these days is rooted in anti-Israel sentiment.

The greatest danger to Jews in Europe, therefore, no longer comes from devout Christians or white nationalists, but from radical leftists and Muslim immigrants who transfer their hatred of the Jewish State to Jews in general. The former express that hatred by likening Israel to Nazi Germany, by accusing Jews of secretly controlling American foreign policy or worse (9/11 conspiracy theories involving Jews abound in Europe). The latter go one step further.

“I’ve been beaten up on the subway several times by Muslim gangs,” says a friend from Amsterdam. “If you wear a yarmulke, as I do, it’s like you’re asking for it.” Amsterdam, according to a recent Dutch government report, will have a Muslim majority by 2020 if demographic trends persist. Several other Western European cities will likely follow. Already the most common name for baby boys in Amsterdam and Brussels is “Mohammed” — which, for Jews like my friend, will mean one thing: “Taxi!”

It could mean more than that. If demographers are correct that most countries in Western Europe will have Muslim majorities well before the end of the century — and if political analysts are correct that Muslim antipathy toward Jews will only intensify as the global War on Terror continues apace — it is conceivable that most of the 2 million or so Jews in Europe will do what nearly one million Jews in the Arab world have done over the past 60 years — they’ll get the hell out. (Fewer than 10,000 Jews remain in the Arab world).

Already in France — home to Europe’s largest Jewish population (and largest Muslim population), where the new anti-Semitism is most pronounced — polls show that most of the country’s 600,000 Jews have considered emigration. Not surprisingly, each of the last five years has seen an increase in the number of French Jews moving to Israel, a trend likely to continue and accelerate.

Some American Jews read about anti-Semitism in Europe and let it depress them; I let it remind me of how fortunate I am as a Jew to have been born here in America. Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks said this summer that she “[didn’t] see why people care about patriotism.” With that statement, she failed to recognize that by virtue of their diverse backgrounds, Americans have different reasons for loving this country.

This is mine.

Ben Birnbaum is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be reached at bhb9@cornell.edu. Infomaniacs Anonymous appears Tuesdays.

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