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{"id":17022,"date":"2015-02-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-02-09T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=1848"},"modified":"2015-02-09T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-02-09T00:00:00","slug":"europes-jews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2015\/02\/europes-jews\/","title":{"rendered":"Europe\u2019s Jews"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n<\/head>

T<\/span>he essays in Edward Alexander\u2019s forthcoming\u00a0Jews Against Themselves<\/em><\/a> are an excoriating assault on Jewish \u201capostates\u201d\u2014Jews who, in the words of Maimonides, separate themselves \u201cfrom the community\u201d or \u201chold aloof from the congregation of Israel\u201d and is \u201cindifferent when they are in distress.\u201d In Maimonides\u2019s opinion, such no longer \u201cbelong to the Jewish people\u201d and they have \u201cno share in the world to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alexander\u2019s apostates are Jews who are not only indifferent to the distress of Jews in Israel, but who join the anti-Israeli chorus. The genus comes in many species, and Alexander offers a brief taxonomy: \u201cJewish progressives against Israel; Jewish queers against Israel; Haredim against Israel; Holocaust survivors against Israel; children of Holocaust survivors against Israel; Jewish Voice for Peace; grandchildren of Holocaust survivors against Israel; survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto against Israel; J Street; Jewish postmodernists against Israel; Jewish Berkeley professors against Israel; post-Zionists against Israel; Jewish members of MESA (Middle East Studies Association) against Israel; Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods (JBIG, also called, seasonally, London\u2019s Jewish Christmas carolers against Israel); and so on and on, ad infinitum<\/em>, ad nauseam<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

These apostates have emerged at a time that Alexander considers the most dangerous for Jews since the Holocaust. Especially in Europe, which Alexander labels the \u201cdark continent,\u201d laws that discriminate against Jews and violence against Jews has become commonplace: \u201cFor several years now, primarily in Germany but also in other European countries, the campaigns against circumcision (\u2018bodily mutilation\u2019 or \u2018violation of the rights of children\u2019) and kosher slaughter (\u2018cruelty to animals\u2019) have been gaining ever-wider support, and this among people who show no concern whatever about tonsillectomy or the way in which lobsters are killed.\u201d Six months ago, Israel\u2019s response to Hamas bombings \u201cbrought tens of thousands of violent, often murderous, anti- Jewish rioters into the streets of London, Belfast, Paris, Oslo, Amsterdam, Antwerp, and Berlin. . . . {T}here were larger demonstrations in support of Hamas in European cities than in any Arab capital.\u201d<\/p>\n

T<\/span>he attack on the kosher shop in Paris last month was hardly an isolated incident: \u201cFrench Jewry, the largest Jewish community in the European Union, is now rapidly shrinking as a result of the country\u2019s intense and frequently violent antisemitism, emanating not only from Muslim \u2018activists,\u2019 but from all parts of the political spectrum in the land of \u2018Liberty, Equality, Fraternity\u2014or Death\u2019 . . . Michel Gurfinkiel, writing in the Jewish Chronicle (June 27, 2014), predicted French Jewry\u2019s rapid decline, by the end of 2014, from half a million to 400,000. French Jewish immigration to Israel now approaches 6,000 to 7,000 annually, and emigration to other countries is also rising rapidly.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Whatever reservations, philosophical and political, one might have about Zionism and the state of Israel, the current situation of Europe is alarming, and the final result may be more alarming still.\u00a0Alexander quotes Roger Cukierman\u2019s comment that \u201cJews will leave in large numbers and France will fall into the hands of either Shari\u2019a Law or the National Front.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"