Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Alarming Resurgence of anti-Semitism

A survey on  anti-Semitism  conducted on behalf of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights in nine European countries found that 26% of Jews have suffered from anti-Semitic harassment at least once in the past year, 34% experienced such harassment in the past five years, 5% reported that their property was intentionally vandalized because they are Jewish, about 7% were physically hurt or threatened in the past five years.

40% to 50% of Jews in France, Belgium and Hungary said they were considering emigrating as they no longer felt safe.

Its not just in Europe.

During a study on anti-Semitism on college campuses, the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise discovered , that “78% of Jewish students report witnessing or personally experiencing anti-Semitism"
According to an article by Andrew Loeb,  Top Ten Surprises About Campus Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitic incidents take on many shapes and forms, ranging from direct physical confrontation to verbal abuse to property vandalism. At UC Irvine since the early 2000s, Jews have been verbally ridiculed with neo-Nazi slurs, confronted with threats to physical violence if they did not remove their Star of David necklaces, and a Holocaust Memorial was defaced with a swastika. At UC Berkeley, one of the top universities in the nation, Jessica Felber was taking part in a counter-protest to an anti-Israel demonstration when she was rammed with a shopping cart by one of the anti-Israel protestors. These incidents represent the seeming extremes of what occurs on college campuses, but other forms of anti-Semitism occur as well, such as academic biases from professors in classes dealing with Middle Eastern topics. 
 In Canada, comfort seems to be found in denial, as both police and Jewish community  members insist that the firebombing of two kosher restaurants in 48 hours, and an attack on a home in a Jewish neighborhood, were not anti-Semitic acts.

Never Again.  Its up to all of us to ensure that these are more than just words.  Kol Yisra'el arevim zeh ba-zeh



1 comment:

Gary Fouse said...

As one who teaches at UC Irvine and has seen the problem first-hand, this is not surprising. I have cross-posted your article.

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2013/07/more-on-campus-anti-semitism.html

It is hardly surprising that JVP denies the problem at UC. In 2011, they came to UCI where Matan Cohen (an Israeli, no less studying in the US) told us that those who support Israel should not feel comfortable expressing their views on US campuses.

They are a despicable group.