By Moshe Kantor, JPost—-
“There is no Europe without Jews,” Frans Timmermans, first vice-president of the European Commission, said two years ago.
Unfortunately, the second European Jewish community, in Malmö, Sweden, could soon be dissolved in a few years. Not by choice, not because they wanted to move somewhere else, but simply because they fear for their lives and the safety of their families.
This is scandalous and should become an outrage for every decent European.
For centuries, perhaps even millennia, the Jewish community has been a type of bellwether for the societal health of the European continent.
If one looks back throughout history, when the Jews did not feel safe and were oppressed, enslaved, expelled and massacred, it was usually in places and at times when the continent was facing traumatic and unstable convulsions among the populace.
Whether the Crusades, the Reconquista, the Reformation, or before each of the two World Wars of the last century, each were preceded and accompanied by massive expressions of hate toward the Jews from within and without.
Whole countries, towns and cities were wiped clean of their Jews, either through massacre, forcible conversion or expulsion. Not infrequently, a mix of the three.
After the Holocaust, broken bodies and souls attempted to give the European continent one last chance by returning to the homes they lived in before the war or venturing toward new countries and lands.
Despite antisemitism never being extinguished and keep raising its ugly head on many occasions since, Jews once again adapted to their new surroundings and tried to contribute beyond their numbers to the societies they lived in whether through science, culture and innovation.
Many thought the days of relocation and replacement were long in the past.
However, it appears that we were far too optimistic, as in May, for the first time in many decades, a Jewish community was dissolved due to security concerns, and it does not look like it will be the last. Continue Reading….