Guy and Cortney have both written about and appraised the disturbing reports from across the globe that anti-Semitism has once again reared its ugly head. Canada, Germany and even the United States have seen appalling acts of vandalism and destruction carried out in recent days against Jewish businesses and Jews themselves. But perhaps the worst rioting and targeting of Jews has occurred in places like France. In fact, the safety and security of the Jewish people there feel so threatened that, as Weasel Zippers sharply noted, Jews would “rather live in an actual war zone” than a nation at peace. Indeed. That gives you some idea of the degree to which the Jews of Europe are now fearing for their lives:
More than a thousand Jews have made aliyah (the term used when Jews immigrate to Israel) in the past 10 days, according to the Israeli government.
"I came because of anti-Semitism,” said teary-eyed Veronique Rivka Buzaglo, one of 430 immigrants who arrived from France the day before. "You see it in the eyes of people. I see it in everything," she told HuffPost.
It’s also worth noting, I think, that the HuffPost piece excerpted above was published several days ago. Nonetheless, that doesn’t change the fact that Jews are being increasingly targeted and persecuted with vehemence and impunity in supposedly pluralistic countries. I won’t give anti-Semites such as these the satisfaction of posting their hateful rhetoric here, but it’s clear that they’re emboldened by a dangerous and bigoted ideology. An ideology, as it happens, one only wishes would have been stomped out and extinguished during the last century.