Page 18 - Issue 11

Growing Worldwide Anti-Semitism

As experienced by Kenes Mazkirim participants and Habonim Dror in Israel

Sarah Michaels Levy
During the recent Kenes Mazkirim, we began our first peulah by reading excerpts from
Theodore Herzl’s The Jewish State. In this book, written in 1895, Herzl lays out the Jewish
question as a problem of the entire Jewish people, regardless of the extent to which each
individual community faces overt anti-Semitism, because, as he says, “The Jewish question
exists wherever Jews live in perceptible numbers. Where it does not exist, it is carried by
Jews in the course of their migrations. We naturally move to those places where we are not
persecuted, and there our presence produces persecution. This is the case in every country,
and will remain so, even in those highly civilized – for instance, France – until the Jewish
question finds a solution on a political basis. The unfortunate Jews are now carrying the
seeds of anti-Semitism into England; they have already introduced it into America… We have
honestly endeavored everywhere to merge ourselves in the social life of surrounding
communities and to preserve the faith of our fathers. We are not permitted to do so. In vain
are we loyal patriots, our loyalty in some places running to extremes…”

While reading these words, something happened which we, who planned the peulah, did not
expect: starting with the mazkirim from Turkey, each Kenes participant, representing the
movement leadership of 12 countries around the world, shared their experiences of growing
anti-Semitism in the places they’re from; the anti-Semitic events they described in their
countries all increased dramatically since the recent Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. These
experiences include rallies and football games in Holland with people chanting “Hamas,
Hamas, Jews to the gas”; a rally in Istanbul, Turkey which drew two million people calling for
Israel’s destruction (leading to a 70% drop in the number of chanichim sent to the ken for
weekly peulot); physical violence and vandalism (including swastikas and anti-Jewish and anti-
Israel graffiti) of Jewish community centers, synagogues, and
schools in Brussels, Amsterdam, England, North America,
Australia, and South Africa.

It is important to me to emphasize that regardless of one’s
stance on the Gaza operation (one’s views on the extent to
which Israel was justified in its attack, and its use of force) –
using disapproval of Israel’s actions as a justification for

saying Israel has no right to exist IS anti-Semitic. Believing The ark of the Tiferet Israel
in equality requires the belief that all people, and all nations, Sephardic Synagogue in Caracas,
have the right to self-determination. This means believing after it was ransacked Friday, Jan 30
that both the Jews and the Palestinians have a right to live in
their own sovereign states. A person who argues that Palestinians but not Jews have the
right to a state of their own is making a statement that undermines equality and is anti-
Semitic. One can criticize the actions of any government – we do so in Israel daily, and I
anticipate that we are likely to criticize the government of the Palestinian state once it is
established (in fact, we already criticize the tactics and corruption of the current
Palestinian leadership, even while firmly believing in the Palestinian people’s right to a state).
But using Israel’s actions as the basis for calling Israel’s right to exist into question is the
new anti-Semitism, and this new anti-Semitism is alarming, for two main reasons: first,
because large numbers of left-leaning Jews are joining its ranks, and second, because it