RUTHFULLY YOURS

Ihttps://www.futureofjewish.com/p/that-was-my-melbourne-synagogue-set?utm_campaign=email-half-post&r=126wpb&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

I saw the footage, and my stomach churned.

Mask-wearing arsonists set a synagogue ablaze in a predawn attack Friday in the Australian city of Melbourne, police said, sparking widespread condemnation.

The fire broke out at 4:10 a.m. local time in the Adass Israel Synagogue when some congregants were already present, police said, gutting much of the inside of the building in the southeast Melbourne suburb of Ripponlea.

The flames that consumed that synagogue were not just destroying bricks and mortar; they were attacking something far more sacred. That building was a beacon, a house of prayer, a place where my people have gathered to celebrate, to mourn, to stand before God in all our flawed humanity.

And now, it is charred rubble.

But the pain extends far beyond the local Jewish community in Melbourne. The attack feels personal — because it is personal. To strike at one synagogue is to strike at us all.

For Jews, community and continuity are lifeblood. The synagogue is not merely a physical structure; it is the embodiment of our collective spirit. It is where generations have come to hear the same ancient words read from the Torah, where the melodies of our ancestors find new life in each recitation of the Shema¹. When a synagogue is set aflame, it is not just a local tragedy. It is a desecration of the sacred, a violation that rips through time and across oceans.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/12/05/germanys-appeasement-of-islamists-has-got-to-stop/

What was Berlin’s chief of police thinking, when she warned Jews and gay people to hide their identities in certain parts of the city?

In an interview last month in the Berliner Zeitung, Barbara Slowik said: ‘There are areas of the city, we need to be perfectly honest here, where I would advise people who wear a kippah or are openly gay or lesbian to be more careful.’ She also said that while she didn’t want to blame any one group for this, ‘there are certain neighbourhoods where the majority of people of Arab origin live, who also have sympathies for terrorist groups… and are openly hostile towards Jews’.

The interview has since caused a huge stir in Germany. Sigmount A Königsberg, a leading Jewish-community activist, praised Slowik for ‘so correctly and clearly’ naming the main perpetrators of anti-Semitism in modern Germany. Berlin’s CDU mayor, Kai Wegner, also backed his police chief: ‘She addresses the problems openly, as I expect from her.’ But there has been plenty of outrage, too. The left-liberal Taz newspaper slammed Slowik’s ‘alarmism’ as a gift to right-wingers and conservatives. There is nothing ‘brave’, it argued, in giving voice to what it characterised as anti-Muslim prejudice.

Slowik’s intervention echoes a similarly bleak warning, made several years ago, by the German government’s anti-Semitism commissioner, Felix Klein. In 2019, he said that he wouldn’t advise Jews to wear the kippah ‘everywhere, all the time’ when out in public. His remarks caused widespread shock and outrage, with many arguing that Germans must never allow there to be ‘no-go areas’ for Jews.

It’s a damning indictment of the German state that now, five years later, the woman whose primary task it is to ensure the safety of Berlin’s streets, is also advising Jews – and now gay people, too – to hide who they are.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/03/israel-gaza-apartheid-state-genocide-oxford-union-debate/

An Oxford Union debate on Israel in which a speaker described the Oct 7 attacks as “heroism” broke the law, dons have told Lord Hague, the university’s newly elected chancellor.

Baroness Deech, Prof Sir Vernon Bogdanor and the philosopher Prof Peter Hacker are among 300 signatories of an open letter decrying the “inflammatory rhetoric, aggressive behaviour and intimidation” witnessed during the event last Thursday.

The Oxford Union debated the motion: “This house believes Israel is an apartheid state responsible for genocide.”

It came after Jonathan Sacerdoti, the son of a Holocaust survivor who was the opposing speaker, wrote a piece for The Spectator accusing the Oxford Union of “disgracing itself” by allowing “the forces of bigotry, hatred and mob rule” to breach a “once proud institution”.

In the letter, the signatories said: “We unequivocally condemn the incendiary remarks made by some speakers in support of Hamas and terrorist violence. Such statements are not only morally reprehensible but also in clear violation of the law.”

https://dianebederman.com/why-are-we-surprised-about-jew-hatred-in-quebec/

While Second Cup CEO Peter Mammas was at a theatre watching Gladiator II with his children, he learned about a franchise owner in Montreal spewing vile antisemitism. Without hesitation, he took decisive action to shut it down immediately. Contrast this with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was at a Taylor Swift concert with his children as Montreal faced chaos. He did nothing. Leadership is defined by action in moments of crisis. One acted. One didn’t. Let that sink in.

In my not so humble opinion, Quebec is the most Jew hating province in Canada. I think it comes by it honestly. Quebec was settled by the French. Or should I say colonized?

Let’s take a peek at the Jew hatred from France, which, sadly continues today under the leadership of Macron. French President Emmanuel Macron called for an arms embargo on Israel as she fights for her life against Jew hating terrorists. And “France supports the International Criminal Court, its independence and the fight against impunity in all situations.” (Arrest warrants have been issued for Netanyahu and Gallant for crimes including “wilful killing”, “extermination and/or murder”, and “starvation” during the war in Gaza.) Canada’s French-Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, also stands with the ICC. A recent biography of Pierre Trudeau, long-serving prime minister of Canada and Justin’s father, revealed that in his twenties even he was part of fascist, nationalist, and anti-Semitic movements, before he evolved into a committed democrat and civil libertarian. Hmmm