By Alex Benjamin
Last year’s Rosh Hashana (“Jewish New Year”, September 16-17, 2023), Jews across Europe gathered, unaware of the imminent evil lurking beyond the horizon, beyond all understanding in its cruelty and barbarism.
Sound familiar? It is. Two generations ago, we were faced with unfathomable and unimaginable horror. A horror that we say of today: “Never again”.
Yet, here we are, again.
Jewish communities across Europe are under daily threat, hiding their identities, creating nicknames when shopping online, hiding their kippot (skull caps) under hats, tucking their Star of David necklaces into their clothing, removing their mezuzahs from their front doors. That is, those who have decided to stay in Europe.
Recently, I was training activists from across Europe. Our room was packed with around 90 dedicated individuals. I was delighted to see this.
That is, until I walked past a larger conference room in the same venue, with well over 400 people in it. Mostly young families. They were getting application forms stamped and ready for moving to Israel. It was a sobering moment. Our future is leaving.
The Jewish Agency – the organisation that arranges for families and individuals to make aliyah (emigrate to Israel) is reporting record numbers of families applying across Europe. In France, since October 7, the agency has seen an almost 400% rise in applications.
Think about that for a minute. Increasing numbers of Jews are happier moving their families to an Israel at war than staying in a supposedly peaceful Europe.
Little wonder then that a palpable anger is present in our communities. We have all watched as antisemitism has been given free rein on campus, at protests, in the media and outside synagogues. And we have often been met with silence and equivocation from those in positions of power.
These same voices who proclaim ‘never again’ – who signed up to the IHRA working definition of antisemitism – are, by and large, the same people who have largely been absent when it matters most.
Three quick examples: At anti-Israel protests in London, people were flying Nazi swastika flags. When concerned Jews approached the police and said it was antisemitic – which it was – the police replied that flying a swastika was “context-dependent”.
Can you imagine the police ever saying this to a member of any other ethnic minority? But once you get over the anger, you begin to understand the police don’t know what the IHRA definition is, let alone how to deal with antisemitism in plain sight.
Meanwhile in Belgium, in Humo magazine, a shock-jock writer, Herman Brusselmans, writing about the Gaza war, says he gets so angry at the war that he wants to stick a knife in the throat of every Jew he comes across. We are taking him, his editors and the publishers to court.
It seems an obvious case, doesn’t it? But after debates in national papers, and a political class which has largely avoided talking about the magazine and writer, we can’t be sure of even this outcome.
Lastly, in Antwerp, a city council-supported theatre refused to rent the hall to a Jewish school for an event – non-Israel-related – because the artists using the theatre were appalled at what is going on in Gaza.
That’s just three. Every day across the continent, in countries that have adopted the IHRA definition, there are equally bad cases.
The day-to-day experience of European Jews is nothing short of heartbreaking. Equally heartbreaking is the ambiguity and lip service shown towards us by governments and institutions. The guardrails to protect Jews are in danger of collapsing as the antisemites shake them violently.
Those in power stand and watch, making excuses about context and freedom of speech, despite the IHRA definition that they signed up to telling them the antisemitism is clear-cut.
Regarding Israel, there isn’t even the pretence of erecting a guardrail. It is open season on the world’s only Jewish state. Those who assassinated Bin Laden, who flattened Mosul, who caused hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties in Iraq in their collective fight against ISIS, tell Israel to de-escalate, to ceasefire, to accept.
Israelis are pilloried in public opinion for doing what anybody else would do. Nicolas Sarkozy understands: “Israël a été agressé et a le devoir de se défendre” (Israel was assaulted and has the duty to defend itself). Macron doesn’t, deciding instead to call for an embargo on arms sales to Israel.
And the Jewish people in Europe? We are told that the hate against us isn’t as clear-cut as homophobia or racism against other groups.
In this upside-down world, it is not up to the Jews to decide what antisemitism is. It is instead up to the antisemites themselves to set the terms of reference and decide if they are being antisemitic or not.
This Rosh Hashana, October 3 and 4, Europe’s Jews gathered again, battered, bruised, but also wiser.
“Never again” is conditional. We didn’t know that before October 7.
Alex Benjamin is Vice-Chairman of the European Jewish Association for Content and Communications.