Mother tongue: Polish Joined: February 18, 2003 Location: Poland
RE: Is Europe anti-semitic?
Dear Arthur and all,
I felt blessed anyhow with everyone's greetings, whether personalized or not, and I am sorry if I did not pay everyone back accordingly on time. But I did think about all of you I interact with, whether I was eating the little kielbasa I did or not during Christmas. It's pretty cruel to interrupt this vacation for three days now...
the most recent diplomatic moves by the Quartet - the US, the EU, the UNand Russia - to alleviate suffering, while keeping up the ban on dealing with the Palestinians' elected leaders, are totally inadequate:http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1778549,00.html
Expert Mother tongue: English Posts: 7093 Joined: August 12, 2002 Location: China
As much as I love you, Dear Jacek,
Originally written by Jacek Krankowski on December 29, 2003 6:10 PM
Dear Arthur and all...I did think about all of you...whether I was eating the little kielbasa .
When I think of Poland, I think of kielbasa first.
So please sign six Solidnarnosc petitions, sing five Star Spangled Banners plus four Communist Internationals and you are forgiven in the name of the Dad, the Tyke and the Holy Spook.
Mother tongue: Polish Joined: February 18, 2003 Location: Poland
RE: As much as I love you, Dear Jacek,
Originally written by Arthur Borges on June 15, 2006 9:12 PM ....you are forgiven in the name of the Dad, the Tyke and the Holy Spook.
Amen.
Dear Arthur,
It is the second time I have to say today, on this Corpus Christi holiday, that I appreciate being heard. And kielbasa is a very appropriate association because the related Polish verb pokielbasic means to get all muddled up. For God's sake, what are you doing at this hour in the morning?
Mother tongue: Polish Joined: February 18, 2003 Location: Poland
RE: Is Europe anti-semitic?
Originally written by Jacek Krankowski on November 25, 2003 5:28 PM
A rash of doomsday articles in the American and American Jewish press, warning of the approach of a "Second Holocaust," is prompting a rash of, well, bewilderment in Israel, wrote last year http://www.forward.com/issues/2002/02.06.07/news3.html, quoting, among others, Avi Primor, vice president of Tel Aviv University and former Israeli ambassador to Germany, who said that Americans are "overreacting" to the threat of European antisemitism because of lingering psychological scars. "They have a complex that American Jewry did nothing to save European Jewry. During World War II, they didn't act like a strong Jewish lobby. If they'd had AIPAC then, B-52 bombers might have bombed the railroad tracks. So they are trying to do today what they didn't do then, and save European Jewry that no longer needs saving."
Compare the latest:
Originally written by Jacek Krankowski on January 14, 2008 11:59 AM
President Bush said at Yad Vashem that the U.S. should have bombed Auschwitz during WWII to halt the killing ....
...Today, when Israel is exposed to international criticism for its mistreatment of Palestinians and its occupation of territory conquered in 1967, its defenders prefer to emphasize the memory of the Holocaust. ...
I understand the emotions behind such claims. But the claims themselves are extraordinarily dangerous. When people chide me and others for criticizing Israel too forcefully, lest we rouse the ghosts of prejudice, I tell them that they have the problem exactly the wrong way around. It is just such a taboo that may itself stimulate anti-Semitism. For some years now I have visited colleges and high schools in the US and elsewhere, lecturing on postwar European history and the memory of the Shoah. I also teach these topics in my university. And I can report on my findings.
Students today do not need to be reminded of the genocide of the Jews, the historical consequences of anti-Semitism, or the problem of evil. They know all about these—in ways their parents never did. And that is as it should be. But I have been struck lately by the frequency with which new questions are surfacing: "Why do we focus so on the Holocaust?" "Why is it illegal [in certain countries] to deny the Holocaust but not other genocides?" "Is the threat of anti-Semitism not exaggerated?" And, increasingly, "Doesn't Israel use the Holocaust as an excuse?" I do not recall hearing those questions in the past.
My fear is that two things have happened. By emphasizing the historical uniqueness of the Holocaust while at the same time invoking it constantly with reference to contemporary affairs, we have confused young people. And by shouting "anti-Semitism" every time someone attacks Israel or defends the Palestinians, we are breeding cynics. For the truth is that Israel today is not in existential danger. And Jews today here in the West face no threats or prejudices remotely comparable to those of the past—or comparable to contemporary prejudices against other minorities.
Imagine the following exercise: Would you feel safe, accepted, welcome today as a Muslim or an "illegal immigrant" in the US? As a "Paki" in parts of England? A Moroccan in Holland? A beur in France? A black in Switzerland? An "alien" in Denmark? A Romanian in Italy? A Gypsy anywhere in Europe? Or would you not feel safer, more integrated, more accepted as a Jew? I think we all know the answer. In many of these countries—Holland, France, the US, not to mention Germany—the local Jewish minority is prominently represented in business, the media, and the arts. In none of them are Jews stigmatized, threatened, or excluded.
If there is a threat that should concern Jews—and everyone else—it comes from a different direction. We have attached the memory of the Holocaust so firmly to the defense of a single country—Israel—that we are in danger of provincializing its moral significance. Yes, the problem of evil in the last century, to invoke Arendt once again, took the form of a German attempt to exterminate Jews. But it is not just about Germans and it is not just about Jews. It is not even just about Europe, though it happened there. The problem of evil —of totalitarian evil, or genocidal evil —is a universal problem. But if it is manipulated to local advantage, what will then happen (what is, I believe, already happening) is that those who stand at some distance from the memory of the European crime—because they are not Europeans, or because they are too young to remember why it matters—will not understand how that memory relates to them and they will stop listening when we try to explain.
In short, the Holocaust may lose its universal resonance. We must hope that this will not be the case and we need to find a way to preserve the core lesson that the Shoah really can teach: the ease with which people—a whole people—can be defamed, dehumanized, and destroyed. ...
This article is adapted from a lecture delivered in Bremen, Germany, on November 30, 2007, on the occasion of the award to Tony Judt of the 2007 Hannah Arendt Prize
Member Mother tongue: Romanian Posts: 48 Joined: November 23, 2007 Location: Romania
RE: Is Europe anti-semitic?
I've had the patience to read this article posted long time ago by Ana Maria. Information that it contains are very interesting. A thing is clear for me: not always people (nations) are responsible for the acts commited in the name of such or such politics. The leaders are the sole responsible for this politics. Most of us have the force and capacity to understand each other, although they belong to different cultural, political and religious societies. I think in many cases some of us are victims of manipulations and of a "vicious" information, both having a well defined purpose; that to maintain a particular mood among the people. So "antisemitism' is only a word of general meaning, the reality behind it shows that not always those who criticize Jews are from the start "antisemitic". To take only one example: Paul Apostle (one of famous and potent men of 1st century of the Jewis society) had a virulent "antisemitic" message. A message that was in fact adressed not to the Israeli people, nor to society one, but to the leaders who led the people astray theaching it faulse teachings.
When I read the little 'blurb' in the Danish news, I thought that it can't be as serious as all that, but sadly, it is true.
What can we do to change this downward spiral?
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Unfavorable Views of Both Jews and Muslims Increase in Europe
18 September 2008, Thursday
Ethnocentric attitudes are on the rise in Europe. Growing numbers of people in several major European countries say they have an unfavorable opinion of Jews, and opinions of Muslims, which were already substantially more negative, have also grown increasingly so compared with several years ago.
A spring 2008 survey by the Pew Research Center's Pew Global Attitudes Project finds 46% of the Spanish rating Jews unfavorably. More than a third of Russians (34%) and Poles (36%) echo this view. Somewhat fewer, but still significant numbers of the Germans (25%) and French (20%) interviewed also express negative opinions of Jews. These percentages are all higher than obtained in comparable Pew surveys taken in recent years. In a number of countries, the increase has been especially notable between 2006 and 2008.
Great Britain stands out as the only European country included in the survey where there has not been a substantial increase in anti-Semitic attitudes. Just 9% of the British rate Jews unfavorably, which is largely unchanged from recent years. And relatively small percentages in both Australia (11%) and the United States (7%) continue to view Jews unfavorably.
Opinions about Muslims in almost all of these countries are considerably more negative than are views of Jews. Fully half of Spanish (52%) and German respondents (50%) rate Muslims unfavorably. Opinions about Muslims are somewhat less negative in Poland (46%) and considerably less negative in France (38%). About one-in-four in Britain and the United States (23% each) also voice unfavorable views of Muslims. Overall, there is a clear relationship between anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim attitudes: publics that view Jews unfavorably also tend to see Muslims in a negative light.
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For God's sake, what are you doing at this hour in the morning?
