Is There A future for Jews Outside Israel, the U.S., Canada & Australia?

Mirielle Kroll, an 85 year old Holocaust survivor was murdered by neighbors alleged because she was Jewish. The brutal killing of a Holocaust survivor raises anti-Semitism fears in France. She was stabbed 11 times and then left to die in her house, which the killers set ablaze. This was not the only such incident. An Orthodox Jewish woman in her sixties was thrown out of the window of her Paris flat by a neighbor shouting “Allahu Akhbar.” Thousands march in Paris in memory of murdered Holocaust survivor.

According to a recent NY Times article, In France, Officer Slain After Swapping Places With Hostage Is Hailed as Hero, "France mourned a police officer who died of his injuries after swapping places with a hostage held by a gunman claiming allegiance to the Islamic State."

After the U.S. and Israel, France, with 460,000 Jews has the third highest number of Jew of any country. The question remains, why are they remaining in France or for that matter anywhere in Continental Europe? France has, to be sure, brief intervals of liberalism. The first few years of the French revolutionary period, some of the years of Napolean's reign, and the period from 1945 to the early 1960's come to mind.

However, France is also the land of the DREYFUS CASE ("L'Affaire Dreyfus"), and notable collaboration with the Nazis by the Vichy Government and in the areas directly occupied by the Nazis. The current and recent governments indeed seem well intentioned. Former PM Valls was quoted in an Atlantic Magazine article as follows:
The problem, this time around is not France's government; it is recent Islamist immigrants. It is not possible, unless the Government wants an internal war, to really bring matters under control. French troops cannot surround each synagogue, each Kosher market or now, as we learn from the Kroll murder, each private house.

Other European countries such as Belgium, Denmark and Sweden have experienced similar strife. The Great Debate question is whether the Jewish people can safely exist and build a life and a community anywhere besides Israel, the U.S., Canada & Australia?

I believe the answer is a firm "no."

I respectfully disagree. But I will agree that it will become more difficult in a Europe with an increasing number of illiberal right-wing movements/governments.

JBG said:

Mirielle Kroll, an 85 year old Holocaust survivor was murdered by neighbors alleged because she was Jewish. The brutal killing of a Holocaust survivor raises anti-Semitism fears in France. She was stabbed 11 times and then left to die in her house, which the killers set ablaze. This was not the only such incident. An Orthodox Jewish woman in her sixties was thrown out of the window of her Paris flat by a neighbor shouting “Allahu Akhbar.” Thousands march in Paris in memory of murdered Holocaust survivor.

According to a recent NY Times article, In France, Officer Slain After Swapping Places With Hostage Is Hailed as Hero, "France mourned a police officer who died of his injuries after swapping places with a hostage held by a gunman claiming allegiance to the Islamic State."

After the U.S. and Israel, France, with 460,000 Jews has the third highest number of Jew of any country. The question remains, why are they remaining in France or for that matter anywhere in Continental Europe? France has, to be sure, brief intervals of liberalism. The first few years of the French revolutionary period, some of the years of Napolean's reign, and the period from 1945 to the early 1960's come to mind.

However, France is also the land of the DREYFUS CASE ("L'Affaire Dreyfus"), and notable collaboration with the Nazis by the Vichy Government and in the areas directly occupied by the Nazis. The current and recent governments indeed seem well intentioned. Former PM Valls was quoted in an Atlantic Magazine article as follows:
The problem, this time around is not France's government; it is recent Islamist immigrants. It is not possible, unless the Government wants an internal war, to really bring matters under control. French troops cannot surround each synagogue, each Kosher market or now, as we learn from the Kroll murder, each private house.

Other European countries such as Belgium, Denmark and Sweden have experienced similar strife. The Great Debate question is whether the Jewish people can safely exist and build a life and a community anywhere besides Israel, the U.S., Canada & Australia?

I believe the answer is a firm "no."

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While there still is anti-Semitism, I think that for the most part, the Jews that remain in Europe will survive.

JBG said:

Mirielle Kroll, an 85 year old Holocaust survivor was murdered by neighbors alleged because she was Jewish. The brutal killing of a Holocaust survivor raises anti-Semitism fears in France. She was stabbed 11 times and then left to die in her house, which the killers set ablaze.

... Edited for word count restrictions....

After the U.S. and Israel, France, with 460,000 Jews has the third highest number of Jew of any country. The question remains, why are they remaining in France or for that matter anywhere in Continental Europe? France has, to be sure, brief intervals of liberalism. The first few years of the French revolutionary period, some of the years of Napolean's reign, and the period from 1945 to the early 1960's come to mind.

Other European countries such as Belgium, Denmark and Sweden have experienced similar strife. The Great Debate question is whether the Jewish people can safely exist and build a life and a community anywhere besides Israel, the U.S., Canada & Australia?

I believe the answer is a firm "no."

Click to expand...

JBG:

Racism and religious intolerance have deep roots and long traditions in French and more widely European culture and that will not change in the short run. France at its core is still a tribal Germanic culture which defines itself by how well people conform and integrate into its dominant public culture and which is very suspicious and sometimes quite hostile to ethnic and religious groups which insist on maintaining their "distinct societies" in contrast to the French mono-culture.

There is also a very strong and intolerant secularist movement in France which started as a reaction to the dominance of the Roman Catholic Church over every aspect of French society in the post-revolutionary period. This secularism has morphed and snow-balled into institutional intolerance of any public expression of any religion or separate ethno-religious community in public life, including both Islam and Judaism. Thus France is split into a tri-polar situation of three solitudes where religious and ethnic intolerance are strong and growing. This intolerance is found in the secular society of public life. It is found where religious intolerance is still alive in religious communities with strong cultural and religious traditions which reject full integration into the dominant French secular culture. It is found where religious intolerance and racial xenophobia are strong in a rising tide of rejectionist and fascist or proto-fascist political and cultural movements being once again birthed from stagnant economic opportunity, cynical political opportunism and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a very powerful few.

The three faceted intolerance effects and affects Jewish, Islamic and more marginal Christian communities, to name but three, as well as the remnants of the mainstream Roman Catholic faith. All are under attack for openly practicing their faith and for rejecting the French mainstream mono-culture.

Are Jews more insecure in France and Europe today than in Israel, the USA, Canada or the ANZAC countries? No, I don't think so. Israel is surrounded by enemy states and peoples who present a very real threat to Jews living there. The Israeli state itself is by its militarism and policies of destabilising the region endangering Jews living in Israel and curtailing the religious freedoms of the more orthodox Jewish communities which reject violence, military service and even the idea of the state of Israel existing.

The firearms free-fire zone of American public life kills and injures Jews caught in the crossfire just like any other Americans unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. In both Canada and America anti-semitism is alive and strong in both private and public culture even if its hold over official public institutions has lessened in the last half century. I can't speak to Australia and New Zealand out of my own ignorance but I would expect them to align roughly with Canada on the threat level to Jews.

Irrespective of religion, we all live in a perilous world where social trends, shifting cultural currents, societal imperatives and basic human intolerance of "the other" threaten injury to reputation, property and the lives of those who stand apart and visibly live their own lives in contrast to a different and dominant culture around them. It's a tragic dimension of the very flawed human condition that so many of us target "the other" for hostility based on ignorance, prejudice, bigotry and vestigial tribalism. These are human vices owned by us all and are not limited to the French, the Europeans, the British Commonwealth or the Americans.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.

Rogue Valley said:

I respectfully disagree. But I will agree that it will become more difficult in a Europe with an increasing number of illiberal right-wing movements/governments.

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I think the more serious problem is Islamists. The existing governments quail before maintaining law and order with their Muslim population. The politicians are great at crying at funerals; busting up "no-go zones" not so much.

rocket88 said:

While there still is anti-Semitism, I think that for the most part, the Jews that remain in Europe will survive.

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I would say "don't try that one at home." The Russians who got out of modern-day Russia and occupied territories such as Poland in 1892-1914 did a lot better than those that remained.

Evilroddy said:

JBG:

Racism and religious intolerance have deep roots and long traditions in French and more widely European culture and that will not change in the short run. France at its core is still a tribal Germanic culture which defines itself by how well people conform and integrate into its dominant public culture and which is very suspicious and sometimes quite hostile to ethnic and religious groups which insist on maintaining their "distinct societies" in contrast to the French mono-culture.

There is also a very strong and intolerant secularist movement in France which started as a reaction to the dominance of the Roman Catholic Church over every aspect of French society in the post-revolutionary period. This secularism has morphed and snow-balled into institutional intolerance of any public expression of any religion or separate ethno-religious community in public life, including both Islam and Judaism. Thus France is split into a tri-polar situation of three solitudes where religious and ethnic intolerance are strong and growing. This intolerance is found in the secular society of public life. It is found where religious intolerance is still alive in religious communities with strong cultural and religious traditions which reject full integration into the dominant French secular culture. It is found where religious intolerance and racial xenophobia are strong in a rising tide of rejectionist and fascist or proto-fascist political and cultural movements being once again birthed from stagnant economic opportunity, cynical political opportunism and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a very powerful few.

The three faceted intolerance effects and affects Jewish, Islamic and more marginal Christian communities, to name but three, as well as the remnants of the mainstream Roman Catholic faith. All are under attack for openly practicing their faith and for rejecting the French mainstream mono-culture.

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So far, so good. But not much agreement beyond here.

Evilroddy said:

Are Jews more insecure in France and Europe today than in Israel, the USA, Canada or the ANZAC countries? No, I don't think so.

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You and I strongly disagree.

Evilroddy said:

Israel is surrounded by enemy states and peoples who present a very real threat to Jews living there. The Israeli state itself is by its militarism and policies of destabilising the region endangering Jews living in Israel and curtailing the religious freedoms of the more orthodox Jewish communities which reject violence, military service and even the idea of the state of Israel existing.

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Israel is thriving. It's success is downright miraculous. Its various enemies are learning, one by one, that Israel is far better as a friend or neutral than an enemy. Egypt and Jordan have treaties. Saudi cooperation has been far quieter. But the Sunni lands have learned, often the hard way, that Israel is tough as nails. Iran will have to learn as well.

Evilroddy said:

The firearms free-fire zone of American public life kills and injures Jews caught in the crossfire just like any other Americans unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

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The U.S. may be a lot of things but one of them is not a "free-fire zone." When I leave work today in a moderate size city I feel quite safe.

Evilroddy said:

In both Canada and America anti-semitism is alive and strong in both private and public culture even if its hold over official public institutions has lessened in the last half century. I can't speak to Australia and New Zealand out of my own ignorance but I would expect them to align roughly with Canada on the threat level to Jews.

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Canada, Australia and New Zealand have their share of anti-Semites as they have their share of believers in UFO's or global warming. Overall Jews, like others, can do pretty much what they want.