Letter to OC Register on Anti-Semitism

On February 27, the Orange County Register published a letter I wrote to the editor on rising anti-Semitism. It was in response to an article written  recently by Rory Cohen in the Register about the situation in France.

http://www.ocregister.com/letters/anti-603361-semitism-technology.html

Creeping anti-Semitism

"The piece by columnist Rory Cohen on anti-Semitism in France is so timely and deserves wider attention [“Stand-up anti-Semitism,” Opinion, Feb. 16].

Religious persecution is now the human rights issue of our time. Anti-Semitism in France is causing Jews to leave in droves. It is not just in France. The same thing is happening in several other parts of Europe, including in Hungary, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden and Norway. In many major cities, Jews dare not walk the streets in Jewish garb lest they be insulted, spat at or assaulted (mostly by immigrants, as well as some neo-Nazi types).

Malmo, Sweden's third-largest city, is a hotbed of anti-Semitism. And the ever-tolerant Swedes turn their backs. In fact, the former mayor of Malmo, Ilmar Reepalu, a fierce opponent of Israel, basically told the city's Jews to leave if they weren't happy.

All of this is just one aspect of Europe's failure to assimilate its immigrant population, one that is largely not accepting of Western ideals of democracy and pluralism. Many have brought anti-Jewish sentiment from their old countries, including in the Middle East and North Africa, and put them into practice in their adopted countries. Cowardly European political leaders have tolerated this intolerance in the very name of tolerance itself. As Cohen pointed out, Europe is experiencing a wave of anti-Semitism reminiscent of the 1930s.

And yet, the world is silent, just as the world was silent in the 1930s.

Unfortunately, we are also seeing a rise in anti-Semitism in the U.S. and Canada. On our own streets, we have witnessed anti-Israeli protests where screams of “Jews go back to the ovens” (Fort Lauderdale) and “Long Live Hitler” (Los Angeles) have been documented on YouTube. The focal point for this ugliness, however, is in our universities, where student groups, backed by anti-Israel professors, fuel the issue putting on seminars and inviting outside speakers who occasionally cross over from anti-Israel rhetoric into blatant anti-Jew rhetoric like the speaker who told a UC Irvine audience in 2001, “You can take the Jew out of the ghetto, but you can't take the ghetto out of the Jew.” That is also readily available on YouTube.

And the universities, for the most part, remain silent.

It is not just Jews. Today, Christians are being persecuted in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, China, North Korea, Pakistan, Nigeria, Iran and many other nations. People are being raped, killed and imprisoned for their religious beliefs. In Iran and other countries in the region, religious persecution also extends to the Baha'i faith.

Where is our president? Where is our State Department? Where is our media? Where are our own religious leaders? They are far too silent. We say there could never be another Holocaust. We may be looking at the beginnings of it – genocide of religious minorities. Sadly, we sit here uninformed by those who should be informing us and happy in our complacency."