# Anti-Semitism in Europe **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 12, 2015, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-semitism-in-europe/709583 "2015-01-12T00:45:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Waymore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-semitism-in-europe/709583/1 "2015-01-12T00:45:21Z")
I’m hoping to get some input from European Dopers specifically, but everybody’s input is appreciated. [Anecdotal reports](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2903600/Every-single-French-Jew-know-left-Paris-Editor-Britain-s-Jewish-Chronicle-claims-people-fleeing-terror-hit-French-capital.html) show there’s growing apprehension among European Jews. In the wake of the recent attacks in Paris [four Jews were killed in a kosher grocery](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/paris-attacks-four-hostages-killed-in-kosher-grocery-store-named-9970135.html) and a [Jewish neighborhood](http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/paris-jewish-stores-closed-attacks) had all its shops closed out of fear of attack. [The State Department](http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/40258.htm) also reports that anti-Semitism is a serious problem in Europe. > [@](#): > > Global anti-Semitism in recent years has had four main sources: > Traditional anti-Jewish prejudice that has pervaded Europe and some countries in other parts of the world for centuries. This includes ultra-nationalists and others who assert that the Jewish community controls governments, the media, international business, and the financial world. > Strong anti-Israel sentiment that crosses the line between objective criticism of Israeli policies and anti-Semitism. > Anti-Jewish sentiment expressed by some in Europe’s growing Muslim population, based on longstanding antipathy toward both Israel and Jews, as well as Muslim opposition to developments in Israel and the occupied territories, and more recently in Iraq. > Criticism of both the United States and globalization that spills over to Israel, and to Jews in general who are identified with both. Have any of our European members seen evidence of this? Do you agree that this is a major issue, or do you feel like it’s being blown out of proportion? ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-semitism-in-europe/709583/2 "2015-01-12T01:25:46Z")
[This NPR article](http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/07/24/334494986/despite-mideast-turmoil-more-french-jews-are-moving-to-israel) gives a figure of 5,000 Jews leaving France for Israel this year, and establishes that anti-semitic violence among Muslims in France is a cause, though not the unique cause. And [this article](http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2015/01/09/the_kosher_grocery_shooting_follows_a_string_of_anti_semitic_attacks_in.html) documents a string of anti-semitic crimes in France, with the “vast majority” committed by Muslims. So while it’s not Kristallnacht Part 2, it is a serious and growing problem. ---
**Author:** ![Waymore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-semitism-in-europe/709583/3 "2015-01-12T01:35:49Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > [This NPR article](http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/07/24/334494986/despite-mideast-turmoil-more-french-jews-are-moving-to-israel) gives a figure of 5,000 Jews leaving France for Israel this year, and establishes that anti-semitic violence among Muslims in France is a cause, though not the unique cause. And [this article](http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2015/01/09/the_kosher_grocery_shooting_follows_a_string_of_anti_semitic_attacks_in.html) documents a string of anti-semitic crimes in France, with the “vast majority” committed by Muslims. So while it’s not Kristallnacht Part 2, it is a serious and growing problem. The idea of a “phobia” is that the fear is unreasonable. Seems like European Jews can’t be accused of Islamaphobia. ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-semitism-in-europe/709583/4 "2015-01-12T02:33:06Z")
Historically, the French acceptance of Jews has been, um, sinusoidal. ---
**Author:** ![Waymore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-semitism-in-europe/709583/5 "2015-01-12T07:51:57Z")
Bump ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-semitism-in-europe/709583/6 "2015-01-12T16:53:40Z")
The Spanish-born-in-Spain people I know who are anti-Semitic are just xenophobic. They hate everybody who is Not-Them (including people from the next village over), specially those they perceive as being “better off” than them or “stealing” from them, with equal pasion. Since all of them are zero-sum believers, they equate being better off than them with stealing from them, and by “better off” it may mean economically but also emotionally or health-wise or… in other words, they are people who’d be envious of their own shadow because it’s thinner than they are. With most of the immigrants I know, it hasn’t come up; when it has come up, it’s been with Hispanics and the only two who didn’t have rational attitudes were bad or horrible in other respects. The bad one believed that the moon landings were faked (got slammed with a chorus of “that’s a _movie_, you moron!”); the horrible one considered that “becoming a whore is the best thing a woman can do” - note that the %(&/&%)/& in question had a 13yo daughter. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-semitism-in-europe/709583/7 "2015-01-12T17:30:08Z")
FWIW, one of the big heroes of the supermarket standoff was a Muslim employee working for the kosher company, who risked his life to save other employees (at least some of whom I presume to be Jewish). I wonder if that incident can help to serve as a unifying moment. ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-semitism-in-europe/709583/8 "2015-01-12T17:39:36Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > FWIW, one of the big heroes of the supermarket standoff was a Muslim employee working for the kosher company, who risked his life to save other employees (at least some of whom I presume to be Jewish). I wonder if that incident can help to serve as a unifying moment. It probably won’t.