“Jews Must Flee Holland in 2011.” This is the title of one of my Arutz Sheva columns in 2011.
2011. ... It seems like a century ago. I could dig through the archives for more similar headlines. But it has actually become annoying to be right in hindsight. Last week’s pogrom in Amsterdam should be the final wake-up call for Dutch Jews, but I doubt it will be.
The Chief Rabbi of the Great Synagogue of Paris, Moshe Sebbag, recently called for departure: “There is no future for Jews in France. I tell all young people to go to Israel or to a safer country.”
“There is no future for Jews in France. I tell all young people to go to Israel or to a safer country.”
Last year, 1,100 French Jews left for Israel. This year, there will be 4,500. Since 1972, over 100,000 French Jews have left (out of half a million). Before 2012, 500 Jews left France every year. Tenfold numbers.
These are impressive numbers, but not enough. I really wonder what a Jew with children and grandchildren has left to do in Europe.
The Chief Rabbi of Barcelona, Meir Bar Hen, also invited the Jews to pack their bags. “This place is lost. Better to leave sooner rather than later” to Israel. Our community “is condemned” both because of radical Islam and the reluctance of the authorities to confront it. “I encouraged them (the Jews) to buy a house in Israel.”
“The Jews have no future in Europe,” echoed Avraham Gigi, Chief Rabbi of Brussels.
What remains of Jewish life in Europe today works like this: synagogues are protected fortresses, schools have no signs but they do have many private police and security guards, houses have removed the outside mezuzah, Jews do not wear a kippah in the street or a necklace with the Star of David, they do not give their Hebrew surname to taxis, they tell their children not to speak Hebrew in public, there are no Israeli flags in their windows.
Is this Jewish life?
Meanwhile, Frederik Sieradzki, spokesman for the Jewish community of Malmö, says that Sweden’s third largest city could lose all its Jews by 2029.
Before the Holocaust, the pessimists ran away and were saved. The optimists stayed and were killed. Who really wants to bet on optimism anymore?
Samuel Hayek, president of the Jewish National Fund, predicted: “Jews have no future in the United Kingdom.” This was said by Hayek, who has lived in the United Kingdom for 40 years and is one of the country’s most famous philanthropists.
What was unthinkable yesterday is plausible today and will be certain tomorrow.
Jüdische Allgemeine is the newspaper of German Jews. Editor-in-chief Philipp Peyman Engel said in an interview with the Welt that “Jewish in Germany is becoming invisible.”
A civilization that loses its Jews inevitably condemns itself to death. But as Ayaan Hirsi Ali wrote in the Die Welt, “the West is on the road to submission.”
Before the Holocaust, the pessimists ran away and were saved. The optimists stayed and were killed. Who really wants to bet on optimism anymore?
Published originally under the title “Europe’s Jews Should Leave Now Before It’s Too Late.”
