Israel calls for "Lost Jews" to come home

Sophie Team Observers — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 10:09:53 +0200

The Israeli authorities have launched a video campaign calling for people to report on Jews in danger of marrying non-Jews.

Launched on Wednesday September 2, the campaign has already received over 200 calls. People have left names, phone numbers, Twitter and Facebook names of "lost" Jews, most of them living in France, the US and New Zealand.

Jews and Europe

Sophie Team Observers — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 12:51:57 +0100

This comment was sent to us by Joel Schalit, one of our Observers for Europe. It was also published on Jewcy.com.

To say that Jews have a complex relationship with Europe would be a gross understatement.

Nevertheless, since the end of the era of decolonisation in the 1960s, when France and the United Kingdom divested themselves of most of their former territorial holdings, European feelings about Israel underwent a transformation. Once regarded as a typically post-WWII liberated zone, somewhere in between the West and the Middle East, since 1967's Six-Day War, Israel's ongoing territorial struggles, and its policies towards the Palestinians came to embody everything that post-war Europe was trying to dissociate itself from.

This change in popular opinion about the Jewish state has traditionally been understood by many Jews to be motivated by racism. Similarly, this shift has always smacked of the worst kind of hypocrisy. How could the Europeans adopt such a position towards us given that they invented modern colonialism, and were the perpetrators of multiple acts of genocide, not just against Jews, but also against countless other indigenous peoples under their rule? Sadly, the European experience of Nazism, and the rise of liberalism in Western Europe after the Second World War has never been enough to explain this to us.

The advent of large-scale Muslim immigration to Europe since the 1960s has done little to mitigate such criticisms. If the Europeans weren't anti-Semitic hypocrites seeking to displace their own post-colonial guilt onto our shoulders, they were surely under the influence of their new Muslim populations, increasingly radicalised over the years by their deepening religiosity. The European equivalent of America's Jewish population, of course they would influence European opinion strongly. Considering EU relations with wealthy Arab states, the situation becomes that much more transparent, or so the story goes.

These sorts of anxieties are to be expected, but the situation has always been far more complex. Anti-Semitism still exists, but it is by no means the only explanation. That Europe would turn out to be a place of greater debate about Israeli foreign policy, albeit one of conflict over it, given its history, is beyond question. However, anti-Semitism is not a fact of European state policy, and has not been since the Second World War. Jews, similarly, are more enfranchised within European society than ever. Just look at the cabinet members of the present British and French governments, or the growth of Germany's Jewish population as examples. Or, for that matter, all of these states' support for Israel, despite the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians, and despite the fact that popular opinion in many EU states is extremely critical of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.

Completing a book last autumn here in London, which addresses, in part, Israel's struggles with Europe (and vice versa) I have spent a great deal of my free time taking pictures of local Israel-related graffiti, and in addition, in Italy, where my wife and I are about to move. As disturbing as some of these pictures are, shooting them provided a perverse kind of relief from the abstraction of writing about the politics we instinctively attribute to such difficult signs and symbols. Not all of them, might I add, are negative, either. Israel, or so it appears, is more a part of Europe than ever. If I could somehow distil it all down to a single memory card, or so I continue to believe, perhaps I'll get an eventual handle on it all.

Brixton Market, London.

Israel postcards displayed in kiosk. Near Dei Transite, central Milan.

Corso Vittorio Emanuele, Milan. Azione Giovani is the youth movement of Italy's far-right National Alliance. Like many contemporary conservative Europan parties, the NA professes support for Israel, but, as in the case of this poster, suggests a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Brick Lane, London.

Tamils abroad "living a collective depression"

Sophie Team Observers — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 11:09:24 +0100

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are today facing extinction, cornered in the country's north-eastern jungle territory by the Sri Lankan regular forces. One of our Observers, a Tamil refugee in France, tells us of the torment endured by his community, which faces unending reports of casualties.

Civilians are the first victims of the military offensive. According to the Sri Lankan army, there are at most 70,000 people left in the narrow band of territory still disputed by the two camps. Humanitarian organisations put the number at 200,000. The Tamil rebels says that between 50 and 100 civilians are being killed each day. The Tigers say they are ready to accept a ceasefire, but without giving up their arms. The government, who's looking to obliterate the possibility of a counter-offensive, rejected the EU's call for a ceasefire and continues to pound the guerrilla.

diaspora

Israel calls for "Lost Jews" to come home

Jews and Europe

Tamils abroad "living a collective depression"