So will a conference on anti-semitism really make any difference?

[YaddaYaddaYadda]

I know I've posted a few times about anti-semitism (and I'm sure some people think I should give it a rest) but it's something that's really worrying me at the moment. There's a conference - see here starting today to look at developing strategies to combat the rise in anti-semitism but will it really make any difference? The optimist in me hopes so, the cynic in me doubts it...

I'm just finding this totally depressing reading. In Berlin every form of Jewish infrastructure for children had police posted outside. I saw a kindergarten with security camera's, concrete walls with barbed wire on top and the ubiquituous policemen with guns. It may have been lovely INSIDE but imagine sending your little toddlers to some place that looks like a high security prison.

I thought it was just Germany because of their history, I didn't realise it was like that for Jewish people in the UK too.

don't know why I slipped an apostrophe into cameras btw

Need more coffee I htink

What do you mean though, "I will not deny that anti semitism AMONGST NON MUSLIMS is on the rise."? WIt is also on the rise in wesrten cultures where Islamic culture is rising. It is a corrolate.

This is an interesting book also www.amazon.co.uk/While-Europe-Slept-Radical-Destroying/dp/0767920058 Again, it's only one side of the story - I've read a lot of books from manyt perspectives, but I specifically wanted to begin to read books that I was, to be honest, a bit scared of. There's a list of interesting reviews if you scroll down, again, from different persoectives.

Sorry not to get back last night - had some really marvelous news but hey ho...
About the muslim bookshops in our area.
Yes some of the posters are just anti isreali sentiment and of course I have no beef with that on a political level as I have my own views on the cirrent situation.
But there are also utterly anti-jewish ones.
One showed a cartoon of a baby in an I Heart Al Quaida bonnet pushing another baby in a skull cap off a cliff.
Another had swastika and a star of david intertwined.
As I say there were also pamphlets calling the jews a cancer, saying Isreal should be 'wiped off the face of the earth'.
Whoever said it is against the law is correct - but who is going to report it? The jews have left the area.
I considered it but, and I'm going to be totally frank, I would be very worried about repercussions.

Having thought about Shez' conyention that the majority of muslims are not anti-semetic, though I can only say what I see in my local Muslim community, I am sure she is right.
However there is a very vocal and extreme minority who are happy to express their hatred on this subject and a number of others and are most definitely tolerated iyswim.
Though fear of reprisals may also be a factor here as it would be for me.

What do you mean repercussions Litchick?

sherazade

"they are talking about muslims of course. No need to beat around the bush" Who is they? Do you mean me? If so I'm confused, as I was making no oblique references, but being very direct. So the allusion to equivication is not warrented here.

In my years on MN, I have been called all the names under the sun by reactionary posters who engage their fingers before their brains. I have very very rarely ever called anyone racist without looking at their posts very carefully and then aiming my argument at such posts and not the person writing them. So you will not have been called antisemetic by me.

But the reality is that there is a problem of radicalism in the Muslim youth, in exactly the same way that non-Muslim youths are suceptable to radicalism. The focus of the radicaliusm of muslim youth has at least one constant thread - Jews. I know it is distasteful but it is not racist to acknowledge this. Is is essential that it is acknowledged by Muslims and non-Muslims alike if we want to try to improve matters. Turning the other cheek is, IMHO, an immoral act.

Acknowledging it is not attacking Muslims per se, but is targeting a specifc problem in Islamic culture, especially for a disaffected and easily led youth.

i never said that anti semtitsim is SOLELY on the rise amongst non muslims. i said i wont deny it IS rising amongst non muslims. i said it also exists amongst muslims, but on the scale that some people think, and it is MINORITY view that the majority of us are sick of and ashamed of. i never said anywhere that those youths should be ignored/ we should turn the other cheek or brush it under the carpet. i said that those youths need to be disciplined and education and that i understand the anxieities faced by jewish communities. oh and I wish I wouldnt have to spend half my time on mumsnet correcting the people who misquote me. I for one am actually DOING something about the gap between Jewish and muslim communities, by dedicating my evening tonight (and twenty quid between me and dh) as well as having to wodner how to control my 2 and 3 year old dds by taking us all to a conference between a rabbi and a muslim, as well as partaking in jewish /arab dialogue (very very contructive might i add) at university. So count me out of the 'turn the other cheek' club.

but not on the scale,meant to say.

Yes, but it is rising most sharply amongst Muslims, on the continent.

You are not being corrected, but being asked to further qualfy what you mean, because making at statement like "I will not deny that anti semitism AMONGST NON MUSLIMS is on the rise." then begs the question, will you not deny it is an the rise also amonst Muslims, becasue crime stats across Europe tell us that this is the case.

You know, this kind of nuance might be tiresome, but if we are all having the sophisticated debate we want to be, it's very necessary to get into the nitty gritty of it and not just trot out meaningless slogans. Trying to actually understand what is being suggested, rather than think the worst becasue we are being challenged. I know it's difficult not to just get tired and angry. But that's the path of least resistance. I thought we were trying not to be reactionarty here.

and I never counted you in the turn the other cheek club. I was mearly expressing my opinion.

that there are more hate crimes towards jews from muslims now than ever before?- i dont know now as i dont have the stats at hands to prove or disprove it. but i am just telling you that in my OWN experience, that i have NOT noted a rise amongst my family, peers, mosques,communities and friends.

sherezade - agree with every word of your 8.57 post.

I too grew up being called all sorts of racist names ( as detailed in my earlier post). I have also been accused of anti semitism when I criticise Israel on this board ( and always by the same poster - wonder who!) but it really doesn't bother me. It is a boring and dimwitted way of deflecting criticism. What does bother me is when posters make sweeping comments about Muslims and Islam and are allowed to get away with it.

Anyway I can see where this thread is going.

Who?

Well anyway, I hope Yadda has a look at those two links, especially the first one. If this about to become about specific posters grievences rather than a discussion of the bigger issues, it's also just about to become just another rancid fart into cyber space, which is a pity.

I would love to have a lot of unbiased and specific information on this 'problem'. I'm not sure where it would come from though because even the sincerest poster will be getting some of their information from sources which have an agenda and/or a personal bias.

Some people have described that they feel they are in hostile territory and any moment will have to run for their lives. I think the implication that the UK government might start rounding up jews is ridiculous. If people really think like that then I'd expect their dealings with non-jews to be wary and uncomfortable for both sides. Perhaps some of the 'subtle' anti-semitism is actually just that discomfort showing through. I would certainly avoid the company of someone with that attitude.

As for the anecdotes they sound unpleasant indeed, but how many cases of open abuse have there been and how many of those were anti-semitism and how many simple bullying/nastiness.

Take the attacks on cemetaries. Our local cemetary is always getting vandalised by drunks and kids and that is just vandalism.

If the same people do the same thing to jewish graves then it is counted as anti-semitism? Sometimes it might be, but you'd expect as many cases of ordinary vandalism as anywhere else yes? The anti-semitic attacks would have to be in addition to the 'normal' ones.

Some posters are including as evidence the opposition to the current Israeli government. That is an entirely different thing. The attempt to class all opposition as anti-semitism is not making them any friends since it's so transparent an excuse.

There will be people in this country who have lost family to the Israeli attacks (and vice versa) for them it will be personal, but their attitudes don't prove a wider problem on their own.

Sorry, onager, but you come across as denying that anti-semitism exists and is a real problem. I'm not even Jewish, and I can see that it clearly does and is.

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/08/police-patrols-antisemitism-jewish-community

Well pardon me. of course every crime against jews is anti-semitism even if the criminal didn't know they were jews. There is a special kind of force making it happen.

I thought it was a discussion, but if the admission price is a closed mind then you can have my seat.

Of course not every crime against a Jew is anti-semitism. I'm not even particularly thinking about 'crimes' when I think about anti-semitism, I'm thinking of the kind of subtle but hateful remarks that fly casually out of the mouths of otherwise liberal thinking, educated people that I know when they are discusisng Israel, the American government, business - oh, a whole host of topics (even schools - I heard a very well educated, liberal woman I know casually warn another mother off a school the other day as 'it's run by the Jewish mafia' - cue knowing guffawing. replace 'Jewish' with 'Muslim/Balck/Asian'. Sounds really nasty, doesn't it?

I hear it all the time.

I'm certainly not close minded. Open mouthed, maybe.

Oh for a country where decent hard working atheist families can live in peace without getting between warring factions of religious fundamentalists with an institutionalised hatred for each other and a flimsy grasp on reality.

uk.reuters.com/article/usTopNews/idUKTRE51G6SR20090217

France

Sweden

centre for social cohesion

Canada

one on Al Jazeera

Sorry, I don't see your point. Were you making one?@onager