Europe grapples with rising anti-Semitism

PARIS - From his synagogue in Ris-Orangis, a small town on the outskirts of Paris, Rabbi Michel Serfaty, a Moroccan-born father of five, has always advocated tolerance and worked with his Muslim and Christian neighbors to foster mutual respect.

But last October, Serfaty came face to face with an ugly new reality: what some believe is part of a new wave of anti-Semitism on the streets of Europe.

As he walked to the synagogue one morning with his 16-year-old son, some young men began yelling at them from their car.

"Vive la Palestine. Long live Palestine. Palestine will vanquish you. We will massacre you," he said they shouted.

Shocked by what he heard, Serfaty said his first instinct was to try to talk to the young men, to reason with them. He walked over to the car, and leaned down to speak to them.

One of them smashed the car door in Serfaty's face. He was knocked to the ground, where he lay unconscious for a few seconds, his lip badly cut.

His encounter was just one of a rising number of attacks against Jews and Jewish targets in some European countries, most of which appear to be the work of Muslim immigrants feeling marginalized by society and angry over Israeli policy in the conflict in the Mideast.

Significant increase in attacks in France "There is a sense of insecurity among the Jewish community in France," said Dominique Moisi, a senior adviser at the French Institute for International Relations. "I think the new anti-Semitism in France, which is sometimes called Judeo-phobia, comes mainly from young Muslims who feel that by attacking Jews physically or verbally they are showing their identity as Muslims."

According to the Institute of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism at Tel Aviv University, "the year 2002 and the beginning of 2003 witnessed an alarmingly significant increase in the number of violent anti-Semitic acts and in other forms of anti-Semitic activity" worldwide.

Attacks, especially in France, seen tied to Mideast politics

PARIS - From his synagogue in Ris-Orangis, a small town on the outskirts of Paris, Rabbi Michel Serfaty, a Moroccan-born father of five, has always advocated tolerance and worked with his Muslim and Christian neighbors to foster mutual respect.

But last October, Serfaty came face to face with an ugly new reality: what some believe is part of a new wave of anti-Semitism on the streets of Europe.

As he walked to the synagogue one morning with his 16-year-old son, some young men began yelling at them from their car.

"Vive la Palestine. Long live Palestine. Palestine will vanquish you. We will massacre you," he said they shouted.

Shocked by what he heard, Serfaty said his first instinct was to try to talk to the young men, to reason with them. He walked over to the car, and leaned down to speak to them.

"What I saw written on their face was hostility and rage," he said.

One of them smashed the car door in Serfaty's face. He was knocked to the ground, where he lay unconscious for a few seconds, his lip badly cut.

His encounter was just one of a rising number of attacks against Jews and Jewish targets in some European countries, most of which appear to be the work of Muslim immigrants feeling marginalized by society and angry over Israeli policy in the conflict in the Mideast.

Significant increase in attacks in France
"There is a sense of insecurity among the Jewish community in France," said Dominique Moisi, a senior adviser at the French Institute for International Relations. "I think the new anti-Semitism in France, which is sometimes called Judeo-phobia, comes mainly from young Muslims who feel that by attacking Jews physically or verbally they are showing their identity as Muslims."

The exact number of attacks, numbers that monitoring groups can agree on, vary.

According to the Institute of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism at Tel Aviv University, "the year 2002 and the beginning of 2003 witnessed an alarmingly significant increase in the number of violent anti-Semitic acts and in other forms of anti-Semitic activity" worldwide.

(Excerpted - this is the format I put in)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3999299/

"There is a sense of insecurity among the Jewish community in France," said Dominique Moisi, a senior adviser at the French Institute for International Relations. "I think the new anti-Semitism in France, which is sometimes called Judeo-phobia, comes mainly from young Muslims who feel that by attacking Jews physically or verbally they are showing their identity as Muslims."

Just a bunch of basically good teenage boys feeling their oats,huh Dominique?? Or as the article reports further down, perhaps it's because they are feeling disenfranchised by the French government.

Always a slick explanation for evil.

Prairie

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