Last week, the Jerusalem Post and other news agencies reported that in a Paris suburb, two Jewish brothers wearing kippot (Jewish skullcaps) were attacked while driving their car by Middle Easterners driving another car.According to a case report: “While the vehicle was in motion, the driver and a passenger shouted anti-Semitic slogans at the brothers that included ‘Dirty Jews, You’re going to die!’ … The vehicle forced the brothers to stop their car, and they were surrounded by several men … The men came out of a hookah cafe on to the side street … The alleged attackers surrounded the brothers, then kicked and punched them repeatedly while threatening that they would be murdered if they moved. One of the alleged attackers then sawed off the finger of one of the brothers.”
Attacks on Jews in France and elsewhere in Europe by Muslim immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa, or MENA, are so common that for the first time since World War II, Jews in France fear wearing a kippah or a Star of David in public. So many French Jews are leaving France that two years ago, then-Prime Minister Manuel Valls gave an impassioned speech pleading with French Jews to stay in France.
It has gotten so bad for Jews in Europe that The Atlantic, a liberal magazine, recently featured an article titled “Is It Time for the Jews to Leave Europe?”
In Sweden, attacks on Jews in Malmo, the country’s third largest city, are so common that Jews are leaving the city and the country.
Last year, the Jerusalem Post published an article about a Jewish couple that had lived in Sweden since the middle of World War II. Dan and Karla (not their real names) are Danish Jews who were smuggled into Sweden as children. Their gratitude for Sweden has been immense.
But they have now left their homeland, the country that saved their lives, to live in Spain. They lived in Malmo. In Dan’s words, the immense saturation of Jew hatred in the city was caused by “the adverse effects of accepting half-a-million immigrants from the Middle East, who plainly weren’t interesting in adopting Sweden’s values and Swedish culture. … The politicians, the media, the intellectuals … they all played their parts in pandering to this dangerous ideology and, sadly, it’s changing the fabric of Swedish society irreversibly.”
The Post continued, saying, “Karla, who’d sat passively, occasionally nodding in agreement at Dan’s analysis, then interrupted, saying, ‘If you disagree with the establishment, you’re immediately called a racist or fascist.'” (Sound familiar?)
The British newspaper The Telegraph recently reported: “Jewish people in Malmo have long complained of growing harassment in the city, where 43 per cent of the population have a non-Swedish background, with Iraqis, Lebanese and stateless Palestinians some of the largest groups. The Jewish community centre in the city is heavily fortified, with security doors and bollards on the outside pavement to prevent car bombs.”
An article in the left-wing HuffingtonPost reached a now-familiar conclusion, saying: “Migrants streaming into Europe from the Middle East are bringing with them virulent anti-Semitism which is erupting from Scandinavia to France to Germany. … While all of the incoming refugees and migrants, fleeing Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and other Muslim lands, may not hold anti-Jewish views, an extremely large number do — simply as a result to being raised in places where anti-Jewish vitriol is poured out in TV, newspapers, schools and mosques. … ‘There is no future for Jews in Europe’ said the chief Rabbi of Brussels.”
Yet, despite all this Muslim-immigrant Jew hatred, more than a thousand rabbis have signed a petition to bring large numbers of MENA Muslims into America, and virtually all Jewish organizations outside of orthodoxy and the Zionist Organization of America have condemned President Trump’s administration for enacting even a temporary travel ban (one due entirely to security concerns) on immigrants and refugees from seven (of the world’s more than 50) Muslim-majority countries.
How is one to explain the widespread American Jewish support for bringing in a massive number of people, many of whom will bring in anti-Jew, anti-Israel and anti-West values?
First, they are staggeringly naive believing, for example, that marching at airports with signs that read “We love Muslims” will change those Muslims who hate Jews into Muslims who love Jews.
Second, never underestimate the power of feeling good about yourself that exists on the left (the self-esteem movement originated on the left). And it feels very good for these Jews to say: “Look, world. You abandoned us in the 1930s, but we’re better than you.”
And third, when American Jews abandoned traditional liberal and traditional Jewish values for leftist values, they became less Jewish, less American and more foolish.
Just ask the Jews of Europe.
Most of the Jews whom I choose as friends support Donald Trump, and are the kinds of guys and their wives who are familiar with firearms, and would be prepared to pull out a loaded handgun to deter anyone threatening to cut off one of his fingers.
On the other hand, I live in rural Wisconsin, a state that permits me to own automatic weapons registered with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, an agency of the US Treasury Department.
Happiness is mowing down a line of steel targets with an authentic Thompson Submachine Gun, Model M1A1, which carries a stick magazine of 30 .45 caliber FMJ 230-grain cartridges.
I hope the day never comes when I might have to use that kind of firepower to defend my life, that of my wife, or anyone else in our family. But you never know in advance of such incidents. By the way, back in 1995, when I bought that hardware, I was trained and certified as a gunrange safety officer specifically for automatic weapons matches. That was in Knob Creek, Kentucky, which has regular machine-gun shoots and matches.
Arnold Harris, Outspeaker
Many Jews are supper leftist. They replace their Jewish values for leftist values. Most Jews know nothing about Islam or even about Israel.
This is my concern also. Trump has said many times that the US doesn’t want immigrants who don’t love Americans and share their values. I don’t see it in his executive orders. I hope nevertheless that is his policy.
I am far more concerned about this than a few potential; terrorists getting in.
Dennis Prager’s commentary is, as usual, right on target. In response to his titular question, the answer is, unfortunately, all too obvious: American Jews would much rather be self-righteous than right. They are decidedly confused between orthopraxy (doing good) and orthodoxy (feeling good). Heaven help us!