My last post surveyed the huge uptick in antisemitism in the US in the past few months.
But if you want to know how thing will look into the future, look at Western Europe. Because everything that happens to Jews there ends up happening to Jews in the US afterwards.
SkyNews has a depressing video feature of how bad things are for the Jews in Belgium nowadays.
A Holocaust survivor in Belgium says she knows Jewish people who have packed their bags ready to flee amid a spike in antisemitism.Regina Sluszny, 84, from Antwerp, says incidents have rocketed since the outbreak of the latest conflict between Israel and Hamas."In Antwerp, the Jews are much more visible with these black coats and big hats, and bunches of boys go by, and they just try to throw the hat on the floor, or when they drive with the bicycle, they try to push them from the bicycle," Ms Sluszny says."We really feel it - that it's much, much worse than it was before."Ms Sluszny says some people are so scared, they've packed bags in case they have to flee.
A text graphic in one of the videos, not mentioned in the article, says that Sluszny had been discussing her family history in Belgian schools for years - but this year teachers found this Holocaust survivor's presence to be "offensive."
In France, already a scary place for Jews, antisemitic incidents quadrupled after October 7.
Among the victims of abuse in the UK is Jack Christie, 25, who says he had never felt threatened by antisemitism until recently. While on a train home after a march against antisemitism in November, Mr Christie and his friends were targeted by a man who used racial slurs and threatened to assault him.“There was nothing to do with the conflict, just a few people holding signs about antisemitism like ‘never again means now’,” he told The Independent. “Some people were wearing kippahs on their heads and there were quite a few visibly Jewish people on the train.“I was talking to my friend and then next to me I hear someone say ‘pigs’. The guy next to me was on FaceTime and says, ‘I’m on the train with a bunch of dirty Jewish pigs, scumbags and baby killers’.He went on to accuse other passengers of “supporting killers”, being “donkeys” and branded them “child molesters”.“No one said anything to spark a reaction, it was out of nowhere,” Mr Christie said, adding that it has made him not want to be openly Jewish on public transport anymore. “It wasn’t even about Israel, it was just plainly antisemitic.”
It was not that long ago that synagogues in America didn't need to have combination locks, bulletproof glass and heavy planters or gates in front to stop potential truck bombs - but synagogues in Europe had been fortresses years before that.
Jews in the US and Canada have a crystal ball as to how things are going to be. Just look across the pond.
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