October 22, 2006

WAR AGAINST THE JEWS (CONT.)

This was posted by Fjordman on Little Green Footballs:

Europe knows not evil

I, a French-born rabbi, have been sitting in a small synagogue in Brussels, celebrating the High Holy Days. Almost 200 years ago to the day, Napoleon convened an assembly of Jewish leaders to help him open the door of citizenship to French Jews. It was the Enlightenment. The Jews of France prepared to receive equal rights and become full partners in the affairs of state. They could call Europe home.

Now I wonder if it was all an illusion. I and other Jews have begun moving toward the sad and frankly terrifying realization that ultimately we may have no home in Europe. It is not that I no longer identify as a European, or that somehow my sense of loyalty to the place of my birth has weakened. No, it is not me who has changed, but Europe. A conflict has emerged between this new Europe and my Jewishness, and I do not know how to resolve it.

MUCH HAS been said and written about the reemergence of anti-Semitism in Europe, but all the discussion hasn't made the phenomenon any more comprehensible to me. I suppose that after the Holocaust, no amount of anti-Semitic madness should surprise us. Yet, I am surprised - and frightened.

I am frightened not just by the anti-Semitism but by the collective European response of indifference and appeasement. Today, Europe worships compromise. It is "fanatical" in its non-violence. It is a Europe that, in the face of Islamist fanaticism, is ready to stay silent.

I fear that my religious tradition is indeed on a collision course with Europe, which seemingly refuses, on principle, all ideas of confrontation. Has Europe not learned that one day we have to confront what frightens and terrorizes us? Or is Europe still looking for a path to the laying down of arms and the dubious compromise?

For us, the Jews of Europe, after witnessing the murder of 6 million of our own, we find ourselves today unable to see eye-to-eye with the political orientation of our old continent. And if what is happening today is not the ultimate wake-up call for Europe, it seems to me that our presence in Europe, 200 years after we were granted citizenship, is reaching its end.