Anti-Semitism, never really dead in Europe, is rearing its ugly head with increasing intensity. And while JTA and the Jewish media have kept a constant watch, the international media appear to be taking note now, too. A Newsweek article this week analyzes a recent Pew survey on sentiments across the continent, with this ominous introduction:
As Europe faces up to its old demons of financial breakdown and job losses, a wind from the past is blowing through the continent. The politics of moderate center-right and left-liberal democracy that took power after 1945 are giving way to a new old populism. The extravagant rhetoric of the demagogic left and right is gaining ground, and the most obvious manifestation is the return of anti-Semitism as an organizing ideology.
Meanwhile, there’s a big brouhaha brewing in Germany surrounding the issue of "Islamophobia." The Center for Research on Anti-Semitism will present its research on the subject at a conference Monday (today) in Berlin titled "Concepts of the Muslim Enemy — Concepts of the Jewish Enemy." Some are taking the center to task for trying to equate anti-Semitism and anti-Islam. Writers in both The Wall Street Journal and the Jerusalem Post address the issue.
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