A Mutating Virus
When antiSemitism is the elephant in the room that is not mentioned.
It is the root cause of the Holocaust - the worst extermination of Jews in a millennia-long list of pogroms. All of them started with Jew hatred. Lord Sacks called antiSemitism a mutating virus. It mutated from religion to race to nationhood. Today, antiZionism is the new face of antiSemitism.
We remember the Holocaust at the time when Jews in the UK suffer from unprecedented antisemitism, driven significantly by migration from places with antisemitism at levels of 97% in native populations.
The Reality on British Streets
I monitor anti-Jewish hate for a charity, and I see a constant stream of awful antisemitic incidents, the majority coming from those who have found their way to the UK from those places.
They are now harassing and attacking Jews in schools, universities, Palestine Solidarity Campaign hate marches, NHS unions, teaching unions, a political party (Socialist Workers Party), attacking Israel related and Jewish businesses, plotting to murder, and murdering Jews.
A Shrinking History
Holocaust education in secondary schools has shrunk by 60% under the pressure from the people who have found their way to the UK from those places.
Two months ago, one of them shouted Heil Hitler in the face of my elderly Jewish friend in London.
Many Jews in the UK today share a feeling of being in 1930s Germany, before the Holocaust. I think this could have been an appropriate topic to talk about on Holocaust Memorial Day. Maybe next year?
The Funeral Metaphor: A Personal Grief Interrupted
Some years ago my mother passed away. There was a funeral in the town. Given the age of most people in the room, you may have had similar sad experiences. At the graveyard, some friends came forward and spoke about my mother, her difficult life, her strengths.
Imagine for a moment that one of our friends would come forward and speak about a terrible loss of her mother and about her life. At my mother’s funeral. And then another friend would come forward and speak about all mothers in the world, and about a European Convention for Mother’s Rights. Try to imagine how I would feel. At my mother’s funeral. Like I feel for your loss too, but why today? Is my mother not worthy of remembrance in her own right, just for one day, at her funeral?
Is it not worthy remembrance on its own?
Today this small tribe mourns the loss of 6 million souls, first blockaded in Europe by Britain to prevent their escape to British Mandatory Palestine, and then exterminated by the National Socialists. All driven by Jew hatred.
Our friends join us, and speak about their pain from other genocides, and about every other type of hatred in the world. And I’m thinking: are the Holocaust and Jew hatred not worthy of remembrance in their own right, just for one day?
When Jewish mothers in Israel died protecting their children with their bodies from the Palestinian terrorists, in the same way Jewish mothers died protecting their children during the Holocaust, is it not worthy of remembrance on the Holocaust Memorial Day?
When Jews are gunned down from Australia to the UK to the US, and synagogues are torched, is it not worthy of remembrance on Holocaust Memorial Day?
When imported and home-grown jihadis, and pro-Palestinian progressives in keffiyehs, here in the UK celebrate massacre of Jews in Israel, and frame it as a “justified resistance”, is it not worthy of remembrance on Holocaust Memorial Day?
When the hate marches and calls to globalize the Intifada, here in the UK, remind us of the brownshirts marches in Germany, is it not worthy of remembrance on Holocaust Memorial Day?
When hate against Jews per capita is hundreds of times higher than any other hatred, here in the UK, is it not worthy of remembrance on Holocaust Memorial Day?
When Jews don’t bother reporting the attacks to the Police because they don’t believe that the perpetrators will be locked up or removed from the UK anyway, is it not worthy of remembrance on Holocaust Memorial Day?
When the Police remove the Jews rather than deal with the threat to them from the jihadis, here in the UK, is it not worthy of remembrance on Holocaust Memorial Day?
When the Muslim Brotherhood (and IRGC), whose ideology and ultimate objectives include extermination of Jews, are free to operate in the UK, is it not worthy of remembrance on the Holocaust Memorial Day?
When children in schools are taught to be kind to one another while the Jewish state, the Israeli Defence Forces, and by reference the Jews, are demonized, here in the UK, is it not worthy of remembrance on Holocaust Memorial Day?
When local councils are under pressure from the BDS campaigners to divest pensions from Israeli businesses, to strangle Israel economically so that it’ll be easier to exterminate Jews there. Is it not worthy of remembrance on Holocaust Memorial Day?
The Echoes of the 1930s
Many Jews see no future in this country and talk about leaving the UK to avoid repeating the mistake of not leaving Germany while they could. Is it not worthy of remembrance on Holocaust Memorial Day?
This event was organised by our local council. We are grateful for this. At the same time please try to imagine the mixed feelings that I believe many of us share.
A Matter for You
I will finish with a story of a Berlin rabbi who was asked about what sort of Holocaust memorial the German state should build. He replied: “That is a matter for Germany. We know how to remember our dead.” Today it is a matter for you!
Some Shocking Statistics
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