Posted on 05/30/21
| News Source: Times of Israel
The full dimensions of Europe’s current surge in antisemitic activity are not yet clear, but by some measures, including those by the British Jewish community, the extent is unprecedented. Meanwhile, the range and density of incidents are unusual.
Local Jewish leaders are responding with sometimes uncharacteristic pessimism.
In light of dozens of incidents in Belgium alone in recent weeks, Joel Rubinfeld, the president of the Belgian League Against Antisemitism, wrote that he doubts whether he will be able to continue living in the country with his wife and two children.
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“I believed I could. Now I doubt I can,” Rubinfeld, a former leader of the CCOJB, the umbrella group of French-speaking Belgian Jews, wrote in an op-ed published Saturday in the Le Vif weekly.
Brigitte Wielheesen, a well-known journalist and counterterrorism expert from the Netherlands, wrote Thursday in an op-ed for the news site Jonet that after years of battling antisemitism, she has concluded that the activity has become useless.
“The fight against this sickness has become hopeless,” wrote Wielheesen, a former secretary of the Interprovincial Rabbinate of the Netherlands. “If Jews are Europe’s canary in the coal mine,” she said, then “that bird is no longer alive.”
Read more at Times of Israel.