The murder of Rabbi Jonathan Sandler and his three and six-year-old sons, Gabriel and Arieh, and the headmaster's ten-year-old daughter Miriam at a Jewish school in Toulouse, France must be condemned and the perpetrator/s found and brought to justice. "All the House of Israel mourns the antisemitic murders of a Jewish teacher, his two small children, and another ten-year-old child who were gunned down outside of a Jewish day school in Toulouse, France this morning," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
Is it too early to judge? No. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the murders a despicable attack motivated by antisemitism. In another report Meir Habib, Deputy Chairman of the Council of French Jewish Institutions, said, "We have no doubt that the attack was antisemitic -- It is certain. Killing children from close range just because they are Jewish is an unimaginable horror. These are innocent children." Israel's opposition leader Tzipi Livni also responded: "The attack on the French Jewish school is shocking and painful. Israel and the Jewish people are partners in the struggle against antisemitism and hate crimes."
It was an attack on the heart and soul of the Jewish community in France reverberating around the world. For every mother and father who kisses their children goodbye every morning at the school drop-off and understands the vulnerability of that situation, it is heart wrenching to imagine how a place of innocence, safety, and love could be transformed in a moment by a cold-blooded killer.
Thousands of Jewish parents -- like other faith-based parents -- choose to send their children to religious schools. For Jewish parents who send their little ones to a Jewish school, there is a related and disproportionate measure of risk and vulnerability. There is continuous anxiety about the safety of their children -- is the school protected enough? Should additional measures be taken considering recent incidents in the Middle East?
That vulnerability is especially true of societies that have an exceptional number of antisemitic groups intent on intimidating Jews on the one hand and defaming the State of Israel on the other. Jews who are fighting antisemitism are combating not only a clash of civilizations, but a clash of antisemitism. The modern antisemites have fused together historic antisemitism comprised of antisemitic canards like '"Jews make Matzah out of Christian blood" or "Jews control the world" with the new antisemitism, including the depiction of Jews as colonizers of their ancestral land -- Israel -- or equating Israel to an apartheid state.
As antisemitism once again rears its ugly head like an age old evil that has resurfaced from the shadowy depths of history, Jews and those who care about them will continue to stand strong and fight.
Antisemitism in France has been a serious problem since "the beginning of the 2000s," says Ron Azogui, the Chief Executive of the Service de Protection de las Communaute Juive (SPCJ) -- the private French agency responsible for the protection of the Jewish community. Tragically, antisemitism has become such a threat in France that its Jewish community has implemented measures to combat the growing trend by forming its own protection service.
According to Azogui, "The SPCJ observes the existence of a sustained high structural level of close to 500 antisemitic events per year...in spite of effective action by police departments and the justice system in pursuing perpetrators." In his 2011 letter to me, he observed that: "It is crucial that preventive policies be intensified to counter this trend in the long run. Developing programs to educate and raise awareness of antisemitism among the youngest populations constitutes the second necessary facet of a sustained and effective approach to eliminate expressions of antisemitism."
To his credit, France's President Nicholas Sarkozy cancelled his schedule and flew to Toulouse as a show of solidarity with the Jewish community. Giving a speech in front of Ozar Hatorah Hebrew School, he condemned the attack and promised to find the perpetrator.
Although Jews are its primary victim, it must be understood that antisemitism is not a Jewish problem to be treated only by Jews and their institutions. Antisemitism is a problem that must be treated and acted upon by governments, universities, and civil society.
Often times, institutions are not adequately aware or prepared to engage in their own complicity in fomenting antisemitism. It only takes one individual to be inspired to commit an antisemitic act like the one committed in Toulouse. Today's slaughter should be a wake-up call for all individuals and institutions who have yet to take modern expressions of antisemitism seriously.
Added Notation: Dr. Shimon Samuels, Simon Wiesenthal Center Director for International Relations, who is based in Paris, is closely monitoring developments in France as authorities strive to identify the perpetrator and apprehend all those involved in this heinous crime. Rabbi Marvin Hier is urging that all Jewish institutions review their security procedures in conjunction with local law enforcement.
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Oh, it all fits together.
And no, the killing of three soldiers does not garner the attention of the murder of three children and a Rabbi....in Europe.
Quite simply, Israel is a democratic, rule-of-law, reasonably tolerant island of sanity in a worsening sea of Islamic theocracy and lunacy. They are the frontier of western civilization.
We shouldn't be stabbing them in the back.
"The frontier of western civilization" --- that is laughable.
Quite simply, when do those in the mainstream media speak to the abominations perpetrated the state of Israel against the Palestinian people "Islamaphobia", or some other, similarly-valued derivative. When does the term Islamaphobia used in description of the murderous events that have disproportionately affected Muslim communities globally?
I think mourning is justified and necessary. The rhetoric around antisemetism, in an environment where this word glosses over acts of aggression by a militarized, colonial state such as Israel, is highly illegitimate and should be avoided at all costs.
Do you not understand that the global world system, as it is organized through various foreign policy implements, creates the kind of climate for these types of atrocities to occur?
Reducing this to some kind of Samuel Huntington-esque 'War of Civilizations' is dubious at best, and preposterous at the worst.
The measures through which Israel has been historically propped up since its inception by foreign Western states has contributed to unrest between these ethnic and religious groups. The prevailing discursive tendency to make this about Islam vs. Judaism misrepresents the way statecraft, nationalism, and foreign policy intersect in the ongoing colonial actions of the state of Israel. It has also, very self-evidently, tainted the debate around these kinds of issues and prevented any rational discourse that seeks to come up with solutions to current world problems.
Any support for the current manifestation of the state of Israel is support for a genocidal colonial regime. Most recently, Israel settlers have taken upon themselves to block access of Palestinians to water. This is the cruelest and most inhuman of acts, and is a unprincipled violation of various international human rights statutes.
The fact is, when you create massive unrest in one of the world, and when that unrest surrounds a targeted group, that will have spill over effects in other parts of the world.
This is an example of that spill over effect.
Besides, we still don't know the facts, and it all looks as though it has NOTHING to do with anti-semitism.
Please hold on to your propaganda once you have all the facts. You sound ridiculous indeed.
It is especially cruel and evil to attack school children for their faith and race. It is also evil to attack people based on their race. It is time that minority communities in France and Canada to work together to end this form of hatred from both within and without.
that's just horrible !!
I have no problem with the Jews.
I however have a problem with Israel.
This creates a problem of the moment anyone is anti-Israel becomes antisemitic. I think this is a problem even among Jews, because if they say anything disparaging about Israel they become "self-hating Jews."
So yeah, I have no problem with Jews; but I do have a problem with Israel constantly taking aggressive stances with it's neighbors, it's attitude towards Palestinians. I have problems with the blind devotion and dedication western nations have towards Israel. More so these days because they want to nuke Iran, which is just going to start World War III when allies from both sides are drawn into the battle due to the "We got your back" idiocy.
However, these criticisms automatically paint me as antisemitic, when the religion has nothing to do with it on my end. No one is allowed to have a dialogue about the wrongs Israel is committing, not even the Jews.
DO you support the right of Jews to have their own state?
If not, then you are antisemitic.
If you are merely unhappy with the way we have expressed ourselves, that's one quite another thing.
In the same way, those who are against Kurdistan are anti-Kurd, and those who are against Palestine are anti-Palestinians. Self-determination is a basic right, especially to an oppressed minority.
Often, Israelis tend to feel like every disagreement with Israeli governmental policies is an attack on the fundamental right for them to exist as a nation in their own country.
You compare Israel to Kurdistan, when was the last time you saw the US throw 700 billion tax payer dollars at the Kurdish independence movement? .
Lets all face reality here, Israel would have as much support world wide as the Basque independence movement were it not for the political pressure pro-Israel supporters wield through their fiscal power. Everyone knows this, the US does not do things out of the goodness of its heart, it does things for financial gain so clearly there is plenty of it considering this tiny tract of land in the middle of the desert garners so much attention.
I am thoroughly against nations created to allow religious groups to create their own political system.... but that is because I am completely against religion. I am fine with it existing with its false promises and outdated mythologies, but when people that believe talking snakes made naked people in the jungle eat fruit and those same people have nuclear weapons, I tend to get a tad worried. So no, being against Israel does not mean being anti-semetic.
We are not bombing every country near us or slaughtering people like Syria is!
We are simply striving to survive in a area full of violence and hatred against our tiny country! and IF we strike, it is to *protect* our citizens who are being bombed by Hamas cowards who hide behind women and children! Sadly, the media portrays the opposite and makes Israel look bad. You want to assume the worst about Israel? Go ahead, maybe you need to come here and see for yourself how Arab-Israelis live here. They have the same right Israelis have, they are treated the same! MY DENTIST is Arab-Israeli!
Do yourself and others a favor and get your facts right first before judging and preaching coming to conclusion according to what you see on CNN or whatever media outlet you watch ! It's because of people like you that antisemitism is born. You say you don't have a problem with Jews? Well, let me tell you right now, that IF you have an issue with Israel, you are automatically antisemitic.
Sorry to burst your bubble.
It'd be interesting to see all these talking heads choking on their own feet,should it come out that the shooter was some mentally ill Jewish person...will it still be antisemitic then?
Zionism is only good sense.
The fact that Christians hold the reigns of power and have a history of treating us very badly scares me, but I deal with it anyway.
And at least my fear is based on history and facts, while yours is based on the fear of the other or some theoretic ideas about insularity and community.
"Many good people, who feel no hatred at all towards the Jews, but who detest the persecution of the Palestinians, are now called anti-Semites. Thus the sting is taken out of this word, giving it something approaching respectability.... Not only does Israel not protect Jews from anti-Semitism, but quite to the contrary - Israel manufactures and exports it around the world."
It is a terrible tragedy and people died, can you please wait to start pushing your agenda on us, until they at least find the gunman.
That made them targets.
What in the world makes three little kids and a Rabbi a target if it isn't Jew hatred????