French Jews are bomb-proofing their schools

Rarely does a news article enrage me to the point of cold, speechless anger. But this one did (via No Parasan).

Mr. Barthel walks me through the school, which was built three years ago to what he calls “new specifications for a new reality.”

“All of our windows are made with glass both bomb- and bullet-proof; there are security cameras in all the common rooms,” he says. “You will also notice there is no sign outside of the school that could single it out as a Jewish place.”

[…] Mr. Barthel explains the buddy system instituted at the Benvenuti school for children both arriving and leaving the premises. The students must travel in a pack and are not allowed to wear visible skullcaps or Stars of David anywhere but inside the school. They are also discouraged from dressing in a manner that Mr. Barthel calls “Shalala,” meaning that they asked to refrain from dressing in a style which in North American parlance might be termed “Jappy.”

“The Diesel jeans, the tight bomber jackets, these things can also make them look like Jews,” he says. “They must look more quiet now, for safety.”

Mr. Barthel is the father of two young children. Last year, his children’s school bus, belonging to a Jewish school in Epinay-sur-seine, a northern suburb of Paris, was set on fire. “The bus was empty when it was attacked, but still, nobody did anything about it, not the police, not the government.”

Angry enough yet?

There will soon be few Jews left in France. They are going to be driven out. And the French will stand by and do nothing, as always.

Since 2001, French Jewish immigration to Montreal has increased by more than 700%, an influx of European-born Jews from a single country in numbers not seen since the middle of the past century.

Paris was burning for two weeks this month. But Jewish Paris has been burning for five years — a steady, fiery precursor that went largely ignored by the French authorities. The rise of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000 sparked a wave of mainly Muslim-led, anti-Jewish violence in France that has since brought forth thousands of hateful acts aimed at French Jews and their places of business, study, recreation, prayer and burial.

Jew-baiting is but one bit of the ethnic disaster occurring in France today, but it is a telling bit: chiefly a case of entrenched European anti-Semitism against Arabs — who, let’s not forget, are Semites, too — helping kindle a violent anti-Semitism against Jews.

The poor, disenfranchised Muslim youth who were rioting throughout France this month are the brothers of those who for years have been attacking France’s Jewish population. Almost invariably they are members of a largely North African subculture of extremism — a blister on the skin of France’s overwhelmingly moderate and peaceful Muslim community of six million — a subculture rising up after decades of marginalization, poverty and abuse.

According to the Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism at Tel Aviv University, there were 517 anti-Semitic incidents in France in 2002. In 2004, the French authorities recorded 298 anti-Semitic acts between Jan. 1 and Aug. 20 alone.

And here in the United States, attacks on Jews make up the bulk of religious hate crimes.

Are we seeing a pattern here?

My critics constantly harp that I am exaggerating the existential threat to Jews. I maintain that I am not exaggerating it in the least. How many people and nations are actively and passively trying to destroy Israel? Why is anti-Semitism on the rise worldwide? How is it that calls for the deaths of Muslims are prosecuted as hate crimes, and calls for the death of Jews are ignored or rationalized?

Iran is actively working to get a nuclear weapon, and two of her leaders have openly advocated the destruction of Israel once Iran has the bomb. The world is standing around wringing its collective hands while this goes on, just as it will wring its collective hands and shed crocodile tears if a bomb (G-d forbid!) does go off in Tel Aviv.

Logic tells me that Iran will explode that bomb. Faith tells me that will not happen. But when I read about the appalling Jew-hatred in the world – and that includes the Jew-hatred in Canada – I wonder how on earth Jews have managed to survive this long, in a world that hates us so, and tries so hard to destroy us. I wonder how the world can look itself in the mirror and keep on telling us that the Jews’ problems are of their own volition.

Logic is trumping faith at the moment. My heart tells me that Jews haven’t lasted thousands of years amidst millions of enemies only to see Israel destroyed in a nuclear holocaust. We haven’t built the Third Temple; how can it be destroyed? But logic is telling me that once again, the world is going to fail the Jews and let us burn. Logic, and reading articles like this one.

Jews are fleeing Europe in droves, in fear for their lives and property. Jews are constructing bomb-proof schools for their children, guarded by armed men. Bomb-proof schools. Bomb-proof schools.

The world does not like the Jews.