Anti-Semitism in Europe
According to recent polls 57 percent of the Jews living in France are thinking about moving to another country. Statistics released by London's Metropolitan Police also show that hate crimes against Jews were up 61 percent in 2015. How should Europe react to growing anti-Semitism?
Immigrants can be anti-Semitic too
Muslim migrants are behind the growing anti-Semitism in Sweden and elsewhere, the liberal-conservative daily Jyllands-Posten suspects:
“From many countries we hear that the Jews are leaving because they fear for their safety. This is unacceptable neglect on the part of Europe regarding a section of the population that carries the weight of modern history on its shoulders, and which despite great suffering has shown an exemplary ability to integrate. … If the Jews who came to Sweden to escape the Nazis are now being forced to leave Sweden and other European states it is because prejudice and political correctness have reduced the Muslims to the role of victims, and governments are not taking adequate action against anti-Semitism.”
Russia definitely not safer for Jews
In conversation with the president of the Jewish Congress at the end of January, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that any Jews who no longer feel safe due to Muslim attacks were welcome to come to Russia. Markas Zingeris, a Lithuanian writer of Jewish descent is disparaging about this invitation on the online portal Delfi:
“However angry the Islamists in Europe might be, citizens of Jewish faith or of Jewish descent will feel safer in France or Britain than in Russia, where people get beaten up with baseball bats just for ‘looking Caucasian’. (An incident like this happened this year in a train near Moscow). I wonder how a European would feel in this Russia where, merely for freely expressing his opinion, he can expect a visit from a bunch of guys behaving like professional killers.”