Jews Begin to Wonder: Is Anywhere Safe?
Earlier this month, Guy Wolf, the president of the Jewish Cultural Centre in Liège, Belgium, awoke to alarming news: overnight, an IED was detonated outside his local synagogue, blowing out the windows and setting the front doors and nearby cars alight.
The attack on the historic temple was the first such incident in the city since the Holocaust, according to local officials. Though Wolf had heard about a rise in antisemitic attacks in other cities, he was taken aback that it happened in Liège. There are only about 500 Jewish people in this city of half a million, the synagogue isn’t particularly active and the Jews are well-integrated. “If you attack the Jewish community here,” Wolf said, “you are attacking the city of Liège, because we are completely inside of it.”
This is an increasingly urgent question for Jewish communities as antisemitism rises across the globe, and particularly in the West where Jews have lived in relative peace since the end of World War II. But a spasm of antisemitic violence and hostile rhetoric stemming from conflicts in the Middle East is making many Jews feel increasingly isolated from their homelands and their neighbors.
In addition to the attack in Liège, the following incidents happened in just the past three weeks:
Four Jewish charity ambulances were firebombed in north London.
An armed man rammed a vehicle into Temple Israel in Michigan while 140 children were inside the school.
Three synagogues in Toronto were hit by gunfire within days of each other.
Four people were arrested after an arson attack damaged a synagogue in Rotterdam.
A Jewish school was attacked in Amsterdam.
Two Jewish men overheard speaking Hebrew were beaten outside a restaurant in San Jose, Calif., by men shouting “Don’t mess with Iran.”
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