Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf's wife Daisy Kahn recently referred to the treatment of Muslims in America as "a metastasized anti-Semitism." Since Daisy is determined to cast the Muslim community as victims of discrimination in light of the Ground Zero Mosque protests, it might be interesting to take a look at a few examples of anti-Semitism today.
Like most European nations Holland has a small but well established Jewish community (around 30,000) and a growing Muslim community (1 million). The rapid influx of Muslim immigrants have caused a dramatic shift in the structure of Dutch society. The Jerusalem Post reports that anti-Semitism has risen to levels not seem since the Nazi occupation during World War II. The leading daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad published an article in June stating that anti-Semitism in areas of Amsterdam has become the norm rather than the exception. It identified areas in Amsterdam in which Jews with skullcaps or distinctive garb cannot walk in the streets without being affronted, spat at or even attacked.
In May, an outdoor commemoration ceremony for the last transport of 3,000 Jewish children deported during the Holocaust was disrupted by bikers shrieking "Heil Hitler" during the recitation of Kaddish.
Anti-Semitism also manifests itself in anti-Israel demonstrations where cries of "Hamas Hamas -Jews to the gas"; "Jew cancer"; and "Hitler let one get away!" are frequently heard. Football stadiums have become notorious arenas for anti-Israel and anti-Semitic chants. About half of the registered criminal utterances reported on the internet throughout Holland in 2009 were against Jews. It is believed that if full records were accessible, the proportion would be much higher
LAST MONTH, the 280-year-old synagogue in Weesp became the first Jewish house of worship in Europe since the war obliged to cancel Sabbath services after police had warned congregants of threats of violence.
Many school teachers in Amsterdam no longer teach about the Holocaust due to increasing hostility expressed by Muslim students and their parents. A tragic commentary on Dutch society that the history of the Holocaust should be suppressed in the very city where Anne Frank penned her melancholy diary.
The small Jewish community in Holland have not gone out of their way to insult the sensitivities of their Muslim neighbors, they simply wish to be allowed to live in peace.
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