"• In May, a Jewish woman with a baby was attacked at a Paris bus station by a man who shouted 'Dirty Jewess' at her.
• In March, a Jewish teacher leaving a kosher restaurant in Paris had his nose broken by a group of assailants who also drew a swastika on his chest.
• One week earlier in March, an Israeli man was attacked with a stun gun outside a Paris synagogue.
• A week before that in March, a 28-year-old Jewish man was beaten on the Paris metro to chants of 'Jew, we are going to lay into you, you have no country.'
In January, anti-government demonstrators shouted 'Jew, France is Not Yours' as they marched through the streets of Paris."
Yesterday, a Washington Post article entitled "A ‘new anti-Semitism’ rising in France" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/a-new-anti-semitism-rising-in-france/2014/06/19/1da8ae34-1a71-4f50-893a-9842af51e3ce_story.html?hpid=z1) by Anthony Faiola, described the popularity of the anti-Semitic French comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, who makes light of the Holocaust and created an inverted Nazi salute (the "quenelle") which has taken hold throughout Europe. The article continues:
"In Western Europe, no nation has seen the climate for Jews deteriorate more than France.
. . . .
This month, authorities arrested Mehdi Nemmouche, a 29-year-old French national, and charged him with the May killings of four people inside a Jewish museum in Brussels. The attack was the deadliest act of anti-Semitism in Western Europe since a gunman killed seven people, including three children at a Jewish day school, in Toulouse in 2012. Nemmouche allegedly launched his attack after a tour of duty with rebels in Syria, prompting fears of additional violence to come as more of the hundreds of French nationals fighting there make their way home.
In a country that is home to the largest Jewish community in Europe, the first three months of the year saw reported acts of anti-Semitic violence in France skyrocket to 140 incidents, a 40 percent increase from the same period last year.
. . . .
A recent global survey by the New York-based Anti-Defamation League suggested that France now has the highest percentage in Western Europe — 37 percent — of people openly harboring anti-Semitic views. That compares with 8 percent in Britain, 20 percent in Italy and 27 percent in Germany."
It should come as no surprise that 75 percent of French Jews are considering emigration (see: http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-News/Poll-Three-out-of-four-French-Jews-mull-leaving-France-352779)
Worrisome? Absolutely, but it obviously doesn't trouble America's Presbyterian Church, which voted on Friday to divest from three US companies, Caterpillar, Motorola and Hewlett-Packard, which, according to the Presbyterian Church, profit from the sale of equipment used in the occupation of Palestinian territory. As reported in a Times of Israel article entitled "Presbyterian Church votes in favor of divestment" (http://www.timesofisrael.com/presbyterian-church-votes-in-favor-of-divesting-from-israel/) by Rebecca Shimoni Stoil:
"[Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism] referenced the Church’s sponsorship and dissemination of 'Zionism Unsettled,' a booklet condemned by a number of Jewish groups and complimented by former Klansman David Duke for its use of the term 'Jewish supremacism' to describe Zionist thought."
Remarkable how the Presbyterian Church should be so preoccupied with the West Bank at a time when more than 100,000 civilians have been murdered and millions more have been forced to flee their homes in neighboring Syria.
A ballooning number of "honor killings" perpetrated against women in Gaza and the West Bank (see: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/03/upsurge-palestinian-honour-killings-gaza-201432372831899701.html)? The Presbyterian Church doesn't give a damn.
The murder and persecution of gays in Gaza and the West Bank (see: http://www.timesofisrael.com/gay-palestinian-to-hcj-boot-me-and-theyll-kill-me/)? Again, of no concern to the Presbyterian Church.
Even more remarkable, the Presbyterian Church apparently does not care about intimidation and harassment of Christians in Gaza and the West Bank (see: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/2838/palestinians-christians and http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/26/us-palestinians-christians-conversion-idUSBRE86P0J420120726 and http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/04/gaza-christians-safety.html#).
After all, hatred of the Jews must always come first.
Yes, revulsion clouds my thinking. Yesterday, I spent some time trying to decipher the Presbyterian obsession. I came up this the following possibilities:
ReplyDelete- American Calvinist supersessionism (America as the New Israel)
- Paulism of Presbyterians
- the denial of robbing of American Indians. This is complicated. I have no doubt that behind BDS nonsense are the Naazis and Naazi collaborators and their children, who practice the so called reverse or relative Holocaust denial ("yes, something bad happened, but similar things happen all the time AND look what Jews are doing" - bring the biggest microscope, focus on a tiny dot on the map and ...spend the rest of life attacking ... Jews of course. A dream life). American Calvinists and some Afrikaners in South Africa seems to do similar things.
When you see American Calvinists sitting on Indian soil and Calvinists in Africa sitting on African soil attacking Jews for being in Judea, you know there is a problem
- plain corruption. Oil money
There is yet another component of story which is unclear to me - the role of gays in this barbarity. I know that the gay community is one of the most aggressively antisemitic at this moment. The Presbyterian crowd votes for gay marriage and against Jews at the same time. It just happens that the only Presbyterian person I've known for years, is someone who is active in gay community (after a forced exit from the closet) and Presbyterian promotion of antisemitism.
I will never forget the moment when the person I knew as a liberal husband of a woman he brought from a foreign country under false pretenses was sitting in my living room as a gay activist and was clearly converting ME to ... antisemitism (but Thomas Friedman says, but Rhonda - a "Jewish" red diaper who went to Iran do denounce Israel on Iranian TV - says, etc.) Yes, he is now firmly an ex-friend and I am firmly a former Democrat. How typical this fellow is for the deciding group in the Presbyterian church? How typical this hypocrisy and bigotry is. I don't know. But judging by the facts it is at least widespread.
If there is a mystical aspect to all this, which I believe there is, love for Israel must now, definitively and clearly, be expressed with an end to all capitulation and appeasement. How can Jews expect to have their prayers heard when Israel's govt continues to debase the land with prisoner swaps, the release of murderers, allowing rabid anti-zionist stances to prevail and be voiced within the Knesset, etc. Perhaps we are hated for our capitulation, our apparent weakness. At this point, we need help from above but we must act first.
ReplyDeleteI (anonymous 1:47) must admit that I wasn't aware of the complexity of the Presbyterian scene in America
ReplyDeleteI find this comment by a Presbyterian in one of Jerusalem Post discussions:
"PLEASE understand that this is Presbyterian Church (USA). They are extreme Left Wing to the point that I personally believe they are more of a Secular/Marxist Club than a True Church. They have NOTHING to do whatsoever with other Reformed Churches in These United States: Presbyterian Church in America, Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Orthodox Presbyterian Church, etc. Each of these Churches split off from the Presbyterian Church (USA) many years ago due to such utterly repellant actions such as this. We (I am an Ordained ARPC Minister) support Israel with all our hearts. Please do not let the action of this group of fools effect your attitude towards your friends who love and care about you very, very much. "