![]() ![]() The claim was made by Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle. It links to an article in the Daily Mail. If you check the Drudge Report right now, you’ll see a screaming headline: One argues that "there are still grounds for hope that Europeans could yet avert the hideous prospect of a posthumous triumph for Hitler and his latter-day avatars." A more striking point of contrast came from Jewish journalist Claire Berlinski in a powerful blog post that she wrote at Ricochet soon after the attacks in Paris: The essay is accompanied by a number of responses. Ever since then, wherever I’ve lived, I’ve been on the lookout for the yogurt’s expiration date. “We have no future in Morocco as long as we’re free to go, we must go.” So we left, leaving behind most of our money and belongings. “We’ve passed the yogurt’s expiration date,” he said. Then one day, out of the blue, Father told us we were leaving. It went on like that for two or three years. My father, a close friend of King Mohammed V, had access to everybody in the government. Right after Morocco won its independence from France in 1956, my family joined the country’s ruling elite. The incidents range from hate speech, anti-Semitic graffiti, and verbal threats to defacement of synagogues and other Jewish buildings, to acts of violence and terror including arson, bombings, and murder." He quotes a French Jew of Moroccan origin who worries that tolerance for Jews in Europe is expiring: Last year, an essay by Michel Garfinkel, " You Only Live Twice," argued that Jews experienced a Golden Age in Western Europe during the years after World War II, but that "since 2000, 7,650 anti-Semitic incidents have been reliably reported to the Jewish Community Security Service and the French ministry of the interior this figure omits incidents known to have occurred but unreported to the police. The moments captured on the video would be disgusting even as anomalies, and the statistics about anti-Semitic attacks in France suggest they're only getting more common. "Leave this area right now." Is this what life is like for Paris' Jews? "A few more minutes and this would have been a lynching," the bodyguard told me as we were getting into the car. They made it clear to us that we had better get out of there, and we took their advice. ![]() Two youths were waiting for us on the next street corner, as they had apparently heard that a Jew was walking around their neighborhood. "I think we've been made," the photographer whispered at me. They swore at me, yelled "Jew" and spat at me. Over at a nearby street I was lambasted with expletives, mostly telling me to "go f*** from the front and the back."Īt a nearby cafe, fingers were pointed at us, and moments later two thugs were waiting for us on the street corner. "What do you care? He can do whatever he wants," another, seemingly unfazed merchant, answered. What is he doing walking in here wearing a kippa?!" one Muslim merchant yelled. "Look at him! He should be ashamed of himself. "We've had reports that you were walking around our neighborhood-you're not from around here." In one of the mostly-Muslim neighborhoods, we walked into an enclosed marketplace. Walking down another neighborhood, a driver stopped his car and approached us. Moments later, passing by a group of teens, one of the girls remarked, "Look at that-it's the first time I've ever seen such a thing." Walking by a school in one of Paris' neighborhoods, a boy shouted "Viva Palestine" at me. "What is he doing here Mommy? Doesn’t he know he will be killed?" the boy asked. Walking into a public housing neighborhood, we came across a little boy and his hijab-clad mother, who were clearly shocked to see us. He used the phrase “we are at war” six times to emphasize the threat of COVID-19 to his country as he announced a lockdown well-nigh unprecedented since World War II in its restrictions on personal freedoms.Areas known as tourist attractions were relatively calm, but the further from them we walked, the more anxious I became over the hateful stares, the belligerent remarks, and the hostile body language. ![]() It sounded like a cry from some past bellicose era or a Hollywood movie, but instead it was French President Emmanuel Macron speaking in a March 16 national address. Instead of parades, remembrances and one last great hurrah for veterans now mostly in their 90s, it’s a time of coronavirus lockdown and loneliness, with memories bitter and sweet - sometimes with a lingering Vera Lynn song in the background.įor so many who went through the horrific 1939-1945 years and have enjoyed relative peace since, Friday felt at times as suffocating as the thrill of victory was liberating three-quarters of a century ago. On the 75th anniversary Friday of the end of World War II in Europe, talk of war is afoot again - this time against a disease that has killed at least a quarter of a million people across the globe. ![]()
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