Tag Archives: hostility

European Jews feel under threat, think of emigrating: EU survey

The Star of David is seen on the facade of a synagogue in Paris France, December 10, 2018. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – More than one in three European Jews have considered emigrating over the past five years because they no longer feel safe amid a surge in anti-Semitism, a European Union study showed on Monday.

The survey in 12 countries that are home to 96 percent of European Jews showed widespread malaise at a rise in hate crimes which Jewish communities blame in part on anti-Semitic comments by politicians that stoke a climate of impunity.

Feelings of insecurity were particularly acute among Jews in France, followed by Poland, Belgium and Germany, the study by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) found.

Facing hostility online and at work or in graffiti scrawled on walls near synagogues, nine out of ten Jews living in nations which have been their home for centuries feel that anti-Semitism has worsened over the past five years, the study said.

“It is impossible to put a number on how corrosive such everyday realities can be, but a shocking statistic sends a clear message … more than one third say that they consider emigrating because they no longer feel safe as Jews,” FRA’S director Michael O’Flaherty was cited as saying in a foreword to the study.

EU officials presenting the report in Brussels on Monday called on governments to do more to combat such hate, including commemorating the history of the Holocaust in which the Nazis killed at least six million Jews in Europe during World War Two.

“What we need now is concrete action in the member states to see real change for Jews on the ground,” European Commission deputy head Frans Timmermans told reporters. “There is no Europe if Jews don’t feel safe in Europe.”

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and British opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn are among the most prominent EU leaders battling accusations of anti-Semitism by Jewish community leaders.

Worries over the hostile rhetoric are underscored by government figures in several European countries showing a spike in violence against Jews.

Following a number of high-profile attacks targeting Jews, soldiers and armed guards at the doors of synagogues or Jewish schools have become a familiar site in Europe.

Eighty-five percent of the 16,395 polled identified anti-Semitism as the biggest social and political problem, while almost a third said they avoid attending events or visiting Jewish sites.

However, 79 percent of those who experienced harassment said they did not report the incidents to authorities.

The results showed a loss of faith in their governments’ ability to keep them safe, the European Jewish Congress (EJC) said, causing Jews to feel torn between emigrating and cutting themselves off from their Jewish community.

“This is intolerable and a choice no people should have to face,” EJC head Moshe Kantor said in a statement.

A government spokeswoman in Germany said the results of the study were shocking, adding that the interior ministry “isn’t looking at it idly.”

 

(Reporting by Alissa de Carbonnel in Brussels and Riham Alkousaa in Berlin; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

‘Get out’: some Mexico border residents reject migrant arrivals

Migrants, part of a caravan of thousands traveling from Central America en route to the United States, sit in a bus while the bus stop for them to get food and water from a store on a highway in Culiacan, Mexico November 15, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

By Lizbeth Diaz

TIJUANA, Mexico (Reuters) – Exhausted after a harrowing journey, members of Central American migrant caravans now face a new threat: open hostility from some Mexicans on the U.S. border.

A small group of residents of an upscale neighborhood in the Mexican border of Tijuana confronted caravan migrants late on Wednesday, throwing stones and telling them to go back to their home countries.

“Get out of here,” a group of around 20 people shouted at a camp of Hondurans near the border. “We want you to return to your country. You are not welcome.”

Migrants shouted back, in a confrontation that belied Tijuana’s reputation as a free-wheeling, tolerant city and lasted into the early hours of Thursday. Dozens of police arrived at the scene.

A caravan of thousands of mostly Honduran migrants who are fleeing violence and poverty at home set off for the United States in mid-October, with the bulk of them still to arrive at the border. Other large bands of mostly Salvadorans have followed behind.

Trump has declared the caravans an “invasion,” and has sent some 5,800 troops to “harden” the border, including with barbed wire.

With some exceptions, Mexico has welcomed the Central Americans, offering food and lodging in towns during their journey. The migrants said they were stunned by the hostile attitude in Tijuana.

“We are not criminals. Why do treat us like this if everywhere we have traveled in Mexico they treated us well?” migrants shouted back. “Think about the children who are here, please.”

Tensions began brewing several days ago when residents complained about a group of 80 or so LGBT migrants who broke away from the caravan and arrived in an upscale part of the Playas de Tijuana neighborhood, near where the stones were thrown.

A popular party town for U.S. tourists, Tijuana has a history of absorbing visitors, including Chinese immigrants in the 19th century. It has a large American population and some 3,000 Haitians settled in the city, just south of San Diego, in 2016 after failing to cross the U.S. border.

But the arrival of hundreds of members of the caravans has stretched to the limit migrant shelters that were already overflowing with people. While Tijuana’s traditional generosity was also on display, with the government setting up a new shelter and citizens offering food and clothing, a harder attitude also emerged.

Reuters gained access to a WhatsApp chat group called “Citizen Blockade” where some 250 members using strong language discussed strategies to harass the migrants or block their arrival.

Tijuana’s city government opened a shelter for 360 people of an estimated 810 that arrived this week, and officials warned there was little room to house more than 2,000 more who are expected to arrive this week.

Irineo Mujica, representative of the organization Pueblos Sin Fronteras, which is advising the migrants in the caravan, said the migrants wanted to seek asylum in the United States.

Their arrival adds to already long lines of people who have been waiting their turn at the Tijuana crossing. Last week, Trump suspended the granting of asylum to migrants who cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.

“We are looking for solutions, not confrontations,” Mujica said following the clash with Mexicans as a helicopter hovered above, surveying the scene from the American side.

(Writing by Michael O’Boyle; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Alistair Bell)

Anti-Semitic acts surge in France, government promises action

FILE PHOTO: People attend a gathering in memory of Mireille Knoll, an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor stabbed to death and burnt in her Paris apartment in an apparent anti-Semitic attack, in Marseille, France March 28, 2018. The banner reads "No to hate". REUTERS/Jean-Paul Pelissier/File Photo

PARIS (Reuters) – Violence against Jews and other acts of anti-Semitism have surged in France in the past nine months, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said on Friday, promising stepped-up action against perpetrators.

Citing new government statistics, Philippe said acts of anti-Semitism had risen 69 percent in the year to September, compared with the same period in 2017, an increase he said should worry everyone in France. In the two previous years there had been a downward trend in the figures.

“Not remaining indifferent means taking better care of victims, acknowledging their complaints and more efficiently punishing those who carry out attacks,” Philippe said in a post on his Facebook account.

Jewish community organizations have reported particular hostility in low-income French suburbs with large Muslim populations. France has both Europe’s largest Jewish community of 400,000 people and biggest Muslim population of 5.7 million.

In recent years there have been a number of high-profile attacks targeting the Jewish community, most notably the killing of four Jews in a kosher supermarket in January 2015.

That attack, carried out by an Islamic State-inspired militant, prompted an increase in Jewish emigration to Israel.

In March, an 85-year-old Jewish woman was stabbed to death and set alight in her apartment in Paris by two attackers, who were charged with murder motivated by anti-Semitism.

There have also been a number of Jewish tombs desecrated, anti-Semitic graffiti scrawled on walls near synagogues, or on the doors of homes and businesses owned by Jews.

“We have seen a very strong increase in anti-Semitic messages on the internet,” said Francis Kalifat, president of Crif, an umbrella organization representing French Jews.

“We have also seen a development of hatred towards Israel that translates into a virulent anti-Zionism, which has, like the president said, become a reinvented form of anti-Semitism.”

Philippe said the government would appoint special magistrates and prosecutors to tackle the problem and launch awareness programs in public schools.

The government will also act to curb hate on social networks, said Interior Minister Christophe Castaner.

“The feeling of insecurity is real and justified,” Mario Stasi, chairman of France’s league against racism and anti-Semitism, told BFMTV. “Some Jews are leaving areas within France to seek haven elsewhere.”

Also on Friday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said her country had a moral duty to fight a resurgence of anti-Semitism there. She was speaking at a synagogue in Berlin to mark the 80th anniversary of the “Kristallnacht” pogrom against Jews in Nazi Germany.

(Reporting by Inti Landauro; Editing by Luke Baker/Mark Heinrich)