European Anti-Semitism Disclosed in Portland

EVER AGAIN, narrated by Kevin Costner, was shown at Portland State's Smith Memorial Student Union Bldg on Halloween day with a follow-up panel discussion by four professors. The film was made by the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. I attended. The film was not sugar coated. It showed the growing anti-semitism in England, Germany, France, Holland and Belgium that was becoming out of control. What frightened me was the viciousness of the anti-semities and their hatred.

This has been brought about by skinheads from Eastern Germany as well as the many Muslims moving into these countries. The Muslims are against Israel, and demonstrate against Jews that they find. They are encouraging the stabbing of Jews. One scene showed about forty adults beating up Jewish children in a demonstration. One moving scene was that of Daniel Pearl and his father.

Professor Aomar Boum, anthropologist, a young Muslim Berber from Morocco, was one of the panelists. He was the most positive of the four in hoping for communication between Israel and Palestinians. He is writing a book about Muslim attitudes towards Jews. Coming from Morocco, his experience with Jews has been good. I just hope he can influence others to rethink their positions towards Jews. Being as old as I am, I am more in agreement with the other more pessimistic panelists, but there is always hope.

We can see that this is the reason that Israel is important to us all. When countries turn against us, we have a haven to flee to called home. The problem that creating this home has caused has also turned people into anti-semites. The fact is that we have suffered anti-semitism in eras when we had no Israel, so that it is not the whole cause. The cause is "who we are."
Today I received an email about the rising anti-semitism in England from my cousin a few miles away. It cited many things happening similar to those in the movie. Suddenly people are aware of what's happening.

Ann Coulter's Speaking Against ADL's Apathy Towards Israel

Then I just received Ann Coulter's article "How Long Before the ADL Kicks out all its Jews? The title is silly but her article is not. I hate to say it, but she makes some valuable points. The fact is that Israel is in danger of being eliminated. The ADL is not facing the truth, and is pussyfooting around with other less important issues. Anti-semitism is rampant (as reported yesterday during the discussion) in Eugene, Oregon on the U. of Oregon campus. A group or groups there are busy villifying Israel, which of course causes Jewish reprocussions. To condemn Israel is the same as condemning any Jew in the USA. The Anti-Defamation League is busying itself with other issues. Our young people are too busy to be concerned with Israel. We haven't stressed its values to our own children. The one group that it matters to happen to be a group we have not identified with in the past: the right-winged Republicans.
It seems that the ADL has chided my favorite radio personality, Dennis Prager because he found fault with Keith Ellison, who wanted to take his congressman's oath on the Koran and not on the bible. Dennis Prager has done more on his now defunct radio show for Israel than any organization I can think of. He discusses, writes, sends information to those interested, and has since been off the air in Gresham/Portland, Oregon. I just found out from Victor Sharpe, historian, writer and musician, that Dennis now has his 3 hour daily radio program on the local am 9.10 station KTLK starting after a 9am news and going till noon. After Dennis is Michael Medved, also another supporter of Israel. So I agree with Ann Coulter in this. ADL, get on the stick and start supporting Israel and those who support it.
Thank you to Hadassah's Portland Chapter and the Harold Schnitzer family Program in Judaic Studies at PSU. Also thank you to Rabbi Aron Heir from LA, and the PSU faculty Linda Maizels, the anthropologist Aomar Boum and Victoria Belco for their panel participation. After viewing such a shocking movie, we needed to talk about it and hear their viewpoints.