Ted,
You know these suicide bombers hide more than the settlements in the WB. I am real frustrated with the Israelis and their current policies, and I am not anti semitic. I have been a long time coming to that sitution. And my European friends, all 5 of them, one Brit and the rest Germans pretty much have the same attitude as I do.......that while the Palestinians and their suicide bombers are very horrific, the unfairness of the Israel position may very well be the cause of the current mess. Certainly, there is unfairness with both positions but Sharon rubs it in like salt into a wound.
While there are fair minded people who hold that opinion, there are just a lot of anti-semites out there, and they look for "respectable" reason to excuse their anti-semitism.
Do you still have family or friends back in Slovakia? What do they say? What are the Jews in Slovakia experiencing? Any anti-semitism?
There are not that many Jews in Slovakia now. There was time before WWII when their was a sizeable Jewish community, many living in Bratislava and western Slovakia, but they were spread out all over. Bratislava (or Pressburg, as it was called prior to 1919) was a multi-ethnic city at one point, with a mix of German, Slovak, Hungarian and Jewish residents, but the WWII took its toll. First the Jews were deported to the concentration camps, then the Germans escaped the Russian horde.
Anyway, the government during the WWII was an ally of Hitler from very early on (Munich), and most of the Jews were sent to labor camps in Slovakia and Czech Lands, and from to extermination camps in Poland.
Of those that survived, many left to Palestine in 1948, when the communist took over, and more left in 1968 during the temporary loosening of the totalitarian regime, before the Russian invasion.
So there are only 100s to maybe 1000 Jews living in Slovakia. So it's kind of a coincidence that my moms best friends was actually a Jewish Holocaust survivor (and her husband). She used to also be my private tutor of German language (of all things).
As far as violence, since there are so few Jews remaining, there is hardly any, but there were some reports of vandalism against cemetaries, synagogues etc. There are not that many visible Jewish symbols out there. The communist destroyed the Jewish portion of Bratislava - which used to be beautiful, with a lot of architectural treasures. They built this stupid bridge over Danube and road approaching it, and some say that they did it just to erase the Jewish history. Well, the communists did not have much appreciation of history and architecture. They let a lot of treasures just deteriorate, or they even demolished them, replaced them with idiotic concrete buildings.
Anyway, back to anti-semitism. It is wide-spread, especially among the lower classes, and left wingers. But it is still considered fringe ideology, and it is not given any respect by the elected politicians or media. It hasn't penetrated the "mainstream", but I think as soon as the Western European elites give it the green light, the way it is given green light in France, Germany, there will be opportunists in Slovakia who will try to exploit it.
There are numerous conspiracies with Jews being the bad guys in them. Everyone who is successful, and becomes wealthy, there are conspiracy theories about him being a Jew.
Well, surprisingly, or not surprisingly, the people who are anti-semitic are also anti-American, because they see America as dominated by Jews.
Joe |
