RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-force-behind-europes-populist-tide-frustrated-young-adults-1529250781?cx_testId=16&cx_testVariant=cx&cx_artPos=0&cx_tag=pop&cx_navSource=newsReel#cxrecs_s

A youth revolt is upending Italian politics, and it could be a harbinger of things to come.

Western Europe’s largest anti establishment government came to power earlier this month, driven largely by young Italian voters. Struggling with a persistent lack of job prospects over the past decade, they voted in droves for two parties in the country’s March 4 elections, the 5 Star Movement and the League, an anti-immigration party.

The result laid bare a stark generation gap, with older Italians, who often have to support their grown children, continuing to vote for mainstream parties.

The same pattern appears across southern Europe, and the forces behind the divide show few signs of slowing. Almost 30% of Italians age 20 to 34 aren’t working, studying or in a training program, according to Eurostat, more than in any other European Union country. Greece is second at 29%, while Spain’s rate is 21%.

“Italy is collapsing and yet nothing has changed in this country for at least 30 years,” said Carlo Gaetani, a self-employed engineer in Puglia. Ten years ago, when he was in his early 20s, he voted for a center-left party that he hoped would push for economic development in southern Italy. When Italy descended into a crippling recession, he felt betrayed by the traditional Italian left-wing parties. He has seen friends struggle to find jobs, and said his own business opportunities are limited to the stagnant private sector, because commissions for the public sector are usually awarded to people with connections he doesn’t have.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12519/ramadan-europe

In France, the government, which previously vowed to reduce foreign influences on the practice of Islam in the country, approved visas for 300 imams from Algeria and Morocco to lead Ramadan services in French mosques.

“Every message, no matter how poisonous the message is, should have the right to be expressed.” — Ahmed Aboutaleb, Mayor of Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

“The Turkish minister of foreign affairs tried to teach me a lesson about my Islamic identity. It is going too far if a foreign state, which is far away, tries to teach the mayor of Rotterdam about Dutch law and how I should apply it.” — Ahmed Aboutaleb, Mayor of Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Muslims across Europe are marking the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month, which in 2018 was observed between May 17 and June 15, in accordance with the Islamic lunar calendar.

Ramadan, a major topic for public discussion in Europe this year, received considerable media coverage, a reflection of Islam’s rising influence.

Muslim leaders sought to leverage the media attention to showcase Ramadan — a time when Muslims abstain from eating and drinking between sunrise and sunset, to commemorate, according to Islamic tradition, the revelation of the Quran to Mohammed — as the peaceful nature of Islam in Europe.

European multiculturalists, normally strict enforcers of secularism when it comes to Christianity, made great efforts to draw up guidelines, issue instructions and carve out special privileges to ensure that Muslims were not offended by non-Muslims during the festival.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/06/death_of_susanna_antisemitism_never_goes_away.html

Having recently visited the Jewish Museum in New York City, I learned of a series of paper engravings titled “In the Eruv of Theresienstadt.”

In their diabolical way, the Nazis fooled the world concerning the ghastly concentration and extermination camps. During World War II, “small bits of information about the extreme and horrific episodes perpetrated under the Third Reich reached an unbelieving world. The Nazis needed to answer the world’s growing concern, yet they wanted to continue implementing their final solution” of exterminating the Jewish people. So the “Nazis decided to use Theresienstadt to solve the growing outside pressure. Through deceit and subterfuge, the Nazis transformed Theresienstadt into a model ghetto.”

Those who survived the horrors of the Holocaust remembered. Fritz Lederer (1878-1949), who was trained at the Weimar Academy of Fine Arts, “designed sets for theater productions in Theresienstadt” – yet another incongruity. After the war, though, he created “oppressive scenes of the camp, including the ‘The Eastern Fortress,’ ‘The Only Exit from Eruv,’ and the ‘Little Fortress’ depicting the prison where many inmates were tortured and murdered.”

The term eruv refers to the symbolic boundary established in some Jewish communities, demarcating a space considered the shared private property of all members, within which certain practices normally forbidden on the Sabbath may be performed. Lederer’s use of the term eruv in the context of Theresienstadt is laced with irony. The only way out of this eruv was by death or deportation to an extermination camp.