Calling for Jews to Flee Europe Would Give Hitler a “Posthumous Victory”

In the wake of terrorist attacks in Paris, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Natanyahu traveled to France and urged French Jews to flee their country and emigrate to Israel, which he said was their real “home.”

There is widespread dismay in France at the Israeli notion that French Jews are not really French but that their real “homeland” is Israel.

Prime Minister Manuel Valis said, “If 100,000 Jews leave, France will no longer be France. The French Republic will be judged a failure.”

Rabbi Menachem Margolin, director of the European Jewish Association, said that far better than emigration to Israel would be the preservation and protection of Jewish life in the many countries Jews call home. He regretted that “after every anti-Semitic act in Europe, the Israeli government issues the same statement about the importance of aliyah rather than employ every diplomatic and international means at its disposal to strengthen the safety of Jewish life in Europe. The Israeli government must stop this Pavlovian response every time there is an attack against any Jews in Europe.”

Yonathan Arli, Vice President of CRIF, an umbrella group of Jewish institutions in France, says that he believes Jews should remain in France, which is their home. We have had a Jewish community living here for more than a thousand years,” he said, “We went through bombing attacks, the Holocaust, acts of terrorism, and we are not about to leave now. We just want to be safe.”

Writing from Paris in The Forward (Jan. 16, 2015), Laurent-David Samama notes that while some French Jews might be considering emigration, “… others — including young Jews like me — feel that making aliyah is a too-easy escape; it’s simply not the answer. Those of us who remain in Paris, Marseille or Lyon are determined not to let the terrorists win. Throughout French history, Jews have experienced many periods of crisis. We’ve always overcome them, and we will overcome them again. Now more than ever there is another communal faction that believes France needs us to stay here, to play the role of social whistleblower.”

Samadar Bar-Akiva, executive director of JCC Global, a network of Jewish community centers, declared: “… the calls for French Jews to pack their bags and make aliyah are disturbing and self-serving … It will be more constructive to help French Jewry continue the educational and social work they are already doing.”

Uri Avnery, the leader of Israel’s peace movement, Gush Shalom, declared (Tikkun, Jan. 17, 2015): “The blood of four Jews murdered in the kosher supermarket was not yet dry when Israeli leaders called upon the Jews of France to pack up and come to Israel. Israel, as everybody knows, is the safest place on earth. This was an almost automatic Zionist gut reaction. The basic belief of Zionism is that Jews cannot live anywhere except in the Jewish state, because the victory of anti-Semitism is inevitable everywhere. Let the Jews of America rejoice in their freedom and prosperity — sooner or later they will come to an end. They are doomed like Jews everywhere outside of Israel. The new outrage in Paris confirms this basic belief. There was very little real commiseration in Israel. Rather a secret sense of triumph. The gut reaction of ordinary Israelis is, ‘We told you so!’ and ‘Come quickly, before it’s too late.’”

Writing in Mondoweiss (Jan. 19, 2015), Jonathan Cook points to the similar worldview of Zionists and traditional anti-Semites: “Israeli politicians of both right and left have parroted his (Netanyahu’s) message that European Jews know ‘in their hearts that they have only one country.’ The logical corollary is that Jews cannot be loyal to other states they live in, such as France … In this regard, Netanyahu and the far-right share much common ground. He wants a ‘Europe free of Jews.’ The far-right wants the same … One Israeli commentator noted pointedly that Israeli politicians like Netanyahu ‘were helping to finish the job started by the Nazis and their Vichy collaborators: making France Judenrein.”

Editorially, The Forward (Jan. 14, 2015) declared: “Europe needs its Jews as much as some Jews still need and want a place in Europe. Even if immigration to Israel under¬standably increases, it is our duty to redouble support for those Jews who wish to remain where they are. Besides, after so many nations in the last century murdered or expelled their Jews, should we really encourage more Jews to flee?”

After a terrorist attack in Copenhagen, Denmark in February, Prime Minister Netanyahu once again called upon Danish Jews, and Jews throughout Europe, to leave their homes and come to Israel. Denmark’s Chief Rabbi, Jair Melchior, said he was “disappointed” by Netanyahu’s call for immigration. He said: “If the way we deal with terror is to run somewhere else, we should all run to a desert island. Terror is not a reason to move to Israel.”

Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt declared: “The Jewish community have been in this country for centuries. They belong to Denmark, they are part of the Danish community and we wouldn’t be the same without the Jewish community of Denmark.” Jeppe Juhl, a spokesman for the Jewish community in Denmark, stated: “We’re very grateful for Netanyahu’s concern but having said that, we are Danish — we’re Danish Jews but we’re Danish— and it won’t be terror that makes us go to Israel.” (Times of Israel, Feb. 9, 2015)

Claude Lanzmann, the widely respected French Jewish filmmaker, best known for his Holocaust documentary film Shoah, said that following Benjamin Netanyahu’s advice would have only one result, giving Hitler, who did his best to rid France and all of Europe of Jews, “a posthumous victory.” •