Download Report

ANTI-SEMITISM TODAY
 Thursday 16 April, this past week, was Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah
– Day of Remembering the Catastrophe). Exactly 70 years ago, the same period as the
period of Babylonian Exile, the Allied Forces announced that the war against Nazi
Germany was over. A war in which it is estimated that up to 6 million Jews lost their
lives – approximately two thirds of all the Jews who were living in Europe at that time.
 According to the great historian of the Holocaust, Raul Hilberg, the phrase “Never
Again” first appeared on handmade signs put up by inmates at Buchenwald in April, 1945,
shortly after the camp had been liberated by U.S. forces.
 During 2014 the Kantor Center registered 766 violent anti-Semitic acts perpetrated with
or without weapons and by arson, vandalism or direct threats against Jewish persons or
institutions such as synagogues, community centers, schools, cemeteries and monuments
as well as private property. This is a 38% increase, compared to 2013.
 A survey in 2013 by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights
showed that almost a third of Europe’s Jews have considered emigrating
because of anti-Semitism, with numbers as high as 46% in France and 48% in
Hungary. Quietly, many Jews are asking whether they have a future in Europe.
Question: Has the world stuck to its commitment to “NEVER AGAIN”
allow something like the holocaust to happen?
Jonathan Sacks
Emeritus Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth
• Anti-Semitism has returned to Europe
within living memory of the Holocaust.
Never again has become ever again.
• The assault on Israel and Jews world-wide is part
of a larger pattern that includes attacks on
Christians and other minority (groups) — a
religious equivalent of ethnic cleansing.
• Historically ... anti-Semitism has (always) been
the early warning signal of a society in danger.
That is why the new anti-Semitism needs to be
understood—and not only by Jews.
RECENT INCIDENTS OF ANTI-SEMITISM
 January 9, 2015 - Paris - Four Jewish men were killed by terrorist Amedy
Coulibaly after Coulibaly stormed a Kosher supermarket and took shoppers
hostage. French police eventually killed Coulibaly, and rescued the remaining
hostages. Coulibaly was an accomplice of brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi who
carried out the terrorist attack at the Charlie Hebdo newspaper, killing 12 people,
2 days before. The Kouachi brothers were also killed by French police.
 February 14, 2015 - Copenhagen - A gunman opened fire at the Great
Synagogue, killing a member of the Copenhagen Jewish community who was
guarding a celebration at a Jewish community building near the synagogue, and
wounding two police officers.
 March 17, 2015 - St. Pölten (Lower Austria) – A man wearing a Star of David
necklace was attacked at shopping mall by a group of young men, who swore at
him for being Jewish and then began to beat him with their fists and feet. The
victim took himself to the hospital.
 March 21, 2015 - Johannesburg - Three visibly Jewish teenagers were attacked
in a shopping mall by three men. One of the attackers punched one of the teens
while another shouted: "You f***ing Jew" and "Your f***ing people are killing our
innocent children.”
UN World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination,
Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (27 Aug – 8 Sep 2001)
Durban, South Africa
Joëlle Fiss was born in Brighton, UK, and
moved to Geneva, Switzerland, where she
studied at the Graduate Institute of
International Studies. She served as chair of
the European Union of Jewish Students, 19992001. She is currently working in Brussels,
Belgium, as a policy advisor for the Alliance of
Liberals and Democrats for Europe in the
European Parliament.
This is the story of a group of young Jews who return from Durban, puzzled and
disoriented. For the first time in their lives, they have been subjected to racism—by
people who staged antiracist speeches. Thousands of people united to isolate, offend,
and intimidate them—all in the name of antiracism. Their perceptions shift. Nothing
seems to be the same. A new phenomenon, Judeophobia, an abstract notion until
then, brutally imposes itself as a new political reality before their eyes.
(Abstract from the booklet “The Durban Diaries” by Joëlle Fiss)
Video taken two days ago on Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel, during the two
minutes of silence, in which practically the entire country came to a standstill.
Protest of the masses after the
Charlie Hebdo events in Paris,
France, on the 7th of January
2015, which claimed the lives of
12 people: “I am Charlie” – (Fr:
"Je suis Charlie")
Never again has become ever again (Jonathan Sacks). Simply taking sides with the Jews every
time they hit the news, is not the solution. It has become politically and socially “incorrect”
to take sides with the Jews and Israel, anyway. Moreover, in South Africa we do not have a
“Jewish” problem only – we also have a “Xenophobic” problem, which is very real and very
severe! What should we do?
Taking a lead from the “I am Charlie” slogan – “I am a child of
Yahweh” – what does this mean?
 As children of Yahweh we are under his authority, above all else
 Only the peacemakers will be called children of Yahweh
 Children of Yahweh should love and pray for those who oppose them
 Children of Yahweh are those who are led and driven by the Spirit of Yahweh
 Children of Yahweh who suffer like Y’shua will also be exalted like Y’shua
 Children of Yahweh are not known and understood by this world because
they do not know and understand Yahweh
 Those who do not do righteousness and do not love his brother cannot be a
child of Yahweh
 Children of Yahweh are strengthened by the the constant knowledge “He who
is in you is greater than he who is in this world – this second “he” incidentally, is
not the spirit of anti-semitism, but the spirit of anti-messiah. This knowledge
should both be our biggest strength and our biggest passion.