In 1543, Martin Luther
wrote in his treatise "On the Jews and Their Lies" that Jewish prayer
houses should be set on fire, and any part that doesn't burn should be
buried in dirt for eternity. In the early morning hours of Nov. 10,
1938, in the heart of enlightened Europe, an angry mob set fire to more
than 1,000 synagogues in Germany – an incident known as Kristallnacht.
Hundreds of years of hateful anti-Semitism led to the demise of six
million of our fellow Jews.
Now, on Europe's soil,
the old anti-Semitism is making a comeback, this time led by extreme
Islam and its efforts to launch a global jihad; An insane holy war that
is trying to sabotage the world order, and is getting closer to
obtaining nuclear weapons and stores of chemical arms. Many of the tens
of million Muslims currently living in Europe support the effort to
impose Islam on the entire continent, be it privately or vocally.
Mosques are filling up Europe's streets and they often serve as
greenhouses of radicalization, cultivating intense hate.
It is now becoming ever
more apparent that Europe is no longer a safe place for Diaspora Jews,
and quite frankly, it never was. France is a tangible and familiar
example, but the same is true of Belgium, England, Germany, Denmark and
other European countries.
History has proven that
every time tensions rise between Christians and Muslims, the Jews are
the first to pay the price. The blows being traded these days are
between two warring civilizations, a tectonic clash threatening human
dignity and even humanity's lifespan.
The State of Israel
must make every effort to bring Europe's Jews to Israel. Israel is the
only place on Earth where Jews are free to live their lives, under the
rule of no one but themselves. I recently met a new immigrant from
France. In Paris he owned a thriving toy import business, and he was a
very wealthy man. After the 2005 riots in Paris and in other cities he
came to the conclusion that France is powerless to protect him in a true
crisis. Jews were being persecuted in Toulouse, Lyon and elsewhere, and
there, too, the police were powerless to stop these attacks.
The State of Israel was
established, among other reasons, to serve as a home to all the Jews of
the world. Unfortunately, most of the immigrants who have come to
Israel since its establishment have come here due to a crisis or threat.
The number of immigrants hailing from developed countries is very slim —
no more than several thousand per year. The Jews of Europe and the U.S.
have traditionally felt safe and preferred to contribute to the
absorption of Ethiopian Jews and Jews from the former Soviet Union in
Israel rather than immigrating themselves. But now, times have changed.
The government of Israel must prepare to absorb many new immigrants,
including some without any means.
The Jews of the world
know that the future of the Jewish people is in Israel. Diaspora Jews
are living on borrowed time, in the spiritual sense certainly, and
unfortunately, I fear, in the physical sense as well.
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