Dear World by Blake Ezra

[The essay below was written by Blake Ezra, who blogs at The Times of Israel.]

My friend, Bob Poris, wrote a comment which I thought was an excellent introduction to Mr. Ezra's article:

"I wonder why people all over the world accept the current anti-Semitism being acted out on the streets of so many nations that sat by until too late to stop Hitler, who used hatred of Jews to create WW2 and many millions of deaths.  Now, with less than a million or so Jews in all of Europe, we see it starting again, as Jews leave Europe in fear for their lives.

"Do we need another Holocaust to awaken us?  Some other race, religion, class, political party, etc., always becomes a victim after the Jews leave.  Always!  You can see it happening now throughout the Arab world.  It is spreading as the rockets fall again into Israel as has been the custom for years!"

* * * *

Dear World, I'm writing to you from a place of despair and confusion.  When I say 'world', I don't simply mean the planet upon which we all live but I address personally whoever is reading this.  As a Jewish person, I have a question for you.  It's a genuine question to which I can't find a suitable answer through my own thoughts... What do you want from us?

I'm writing from London, where only yesterday a black Islamic flag was flown from an estate in Tower Hamlets, and a passer-by was shouted at by a group of Muslim youths, "Fuck off Jew, you're not welcome here."  In the past month, in the supposedly liberated and forward thinking capital of England, a Swastika has been daubed onto a Jewish home, protestors have carried placards with slogans such as 'Hitler Was Right', and an independent arts venue has imposed sanctions upon an apolitical Jewish Film Festival.

In Scotland, a property sales consultant called Richard Ladd, a professional suit-wearing gentleman who deals with the public each day, tweeted "Shut up you ugly Jewish c***.  If only Hitler was still around to sort you out" to a Jewish footballer.  In France, rioters have looted and burned Jewish shops, and attacked synagogues.  In Germany, two Jewish people were attacked only for being Jewish, and an Imam in Berlin told his congregants, "Count the Jews and kill them to the very last one."  In Belgium, a cafe has displayed a sign banning Jews from entering, and four people were indiscriminately murdered on the street outside the Jewish Museum in Brussels.  Flags of Hamas and Hezbollah, both of whom call for death to Jews, have been flown in cities including Sydney and Vancouver.  The cover of Newsweek Magazine recently featured the headline, 'Why Europe's Jews Are Fleeing Once Again'.  World, shockingly I really could go on for much longer, but hopefully you get the picture...

I don't feel safe as a Jewish person in my own city as this moment in time, and this is a sentiment shared by many of my co-religionists, regardless of their level of religious observance or political affiliations -- it is solely due to the religion into which they were born.  It is truly difficult to believe I'm writing such a post, condemning the most vicious forms of racism with masses of people in numerous countries genuinely calling for death to Jews, whilst using a military situation in the Middle East as their excuse to make these ferocious desires appear somewhat justifiable.  Perhaps Lord Rabbi Sacks, a respected thinker and former Chief Rabbi of the UK, summed it up better than I could in the British House of Lords last week:  "My Lords forgive me, if I say that I did not expect 120 years after the Dreyfus Case and 70 years after the Holocaust, that the cry of 'Death to the Jews' would be heard again in the streets of France and Germany."

Please continue reading here.