I'm listening to BBC World Service Radio, here in Hong Kong, to a program called "Heart and Soul" about Jews in Poland.
The key message: "It's cool to be Jewish in Poland".
How amazing is that? In the rest of Europe, especially in France and Germany, anti-semitism is rife. One of the interviewees, for example, says she moved to Kraków because of anti-semitism in Germany. Another says "it's better here [in Kraków] than in France, the UK, Russia".
Even in the US, the land of hope and respite for so many Jews, FBI hate crime statistics for 2012 show that "62.4 percent were victims of an offender's anti-Jewish bias", the highest of any group (vs 11.6 % for Muslims, lower than the 12.5% in 2011 giving lie to the alleged growing prevalence of "Islamophobia" in the US).
I wonder why it's cool to be Jewish in Poland, whereas it's dangerous to be Jewish in much of the rest of Europe. Could it have something to do with the fact that there are almost no Muslims in Poland? For, despite Obama's claim that Islamic anti-semitism is a recent phenomenon, it's actually rooted deep in the doctrine of Islam from the beginning and is embedded throughout the Koran. I have read Bostom's "The legacy of Islamic Antisemitism", mentioned in the link above. It is meticulous in quoting from primary sources about the anti-semitic hatred of Muslims from the beginning of Islam in the 7th Century.
Still, just wondering... If there are any other thoughts of why Poland should be a refuge for European Jews, or better yet, that it's cool to be Jewish in Poland, I'd love to hear them.
