BRUSSELS, Belgium - Diaspora Affairs Minister Natan Sharansky
said he believes anti-Semitism is most prevalent in Europe, and it is affecting Jewish university students.
He said countries like France, the U.K., Belgium and Sweden are the “stars” of anti-Semitism, and added that there is also “another form” of anti-Semitism that reaches Europe from the Middle East.
“This is a vicious kind of anti-Semitism, which is aired through Arab television stations in Europe and through sermons in mosques,” Sharansky told EJP.
The former Soviet dissident imprisoned for his Zionism, who is in charge of Diaspora affairs, was in Belgium at the end of a 10-day tour of European universities.
The tour, which aimed to promote modern democracy, was organized by the European Center for Jewish Students.
New nationalism
Anti-Semitism is one of the main concerns for Jewish students all over Europe, though problems differ from one country to the other.
“Things have calmed down in the last two years. We have few complaints from Jewish students,” said Jonathan Brandeis, a student at Brussels’ Free University and the head of the Belgian Union of Jewish Students.
Two years ago there were regular incidents at Free University, including banners comparing Zionism with racism and threats against Jewish students.
Brandeis, 22, attributed the easing of the situation to the good contacts the student group has with university authorities.
“Today, Jewish students do not encounter more problems than the Rwandese or Muslim students,” he stated.
In France, which has seen a sharp rise in anti-Semitic acts in the last two years, few violent acts were reported against Jewish students, according to Jonathan Arfi, the head of the French Union of Jewish Students.
However, he said he feels the emergence of what he describes as “a new nationalist thinking” among non-Jewish students.
“Jewish students are seen as a threat to French secular Republican values,” Arfi said. “Authors and victims of anti-Semitic acts are seen as equally guilty. The general mood on campuses is ‘Jews and Arabs should solve their own problems, it’s not our concern.’”
Verbal attacks
In Germany, the main problem appears to be a lack of Jewish identity among Jewish students.
“Most of them do not feel proud to be Jews and don’t care about Judaism,” said Kati Goos, a member of a Jewish student association in Berlin.
She said 90 percent of Berlin’s Jewish students are from Russia.
“They were never able to acknowledge their Jewish identity, and now they have to assume their Judaism,” she said.
A political science graduate from Berlin’s Free University, Goos, 29, said she feels anti-Semitism on campuses “is as bad as you make it.”
“I have been verbally attacked for wearing a magen David, but I think that the main problem is that people do not know what Judaism is,” she said.
Academic boycott
In Hungary fighting anti-Semitism is also a concern for Jewish students.
“There have been no physical attacks, but people often make comments like ‘go back to Israel,'” said Zsuzsa Hunwald, the president of the Hungarian Jewish Students Organisation.
Anti-Semitism in universities is also expressed through the academic boycott of Israel and pro-Palestinian rhetoric.
Thus, the School of Oriental and African Studies in London was recently accused by Jewish activists of censorship after attempting to ban a senior Israeli embassy official from taking part in a debate this month.
This week, the school named London Mayor Ken Livingstone, who made headlines for his alleged anti-Semitic remarks, as its honorary president.
Article published by arrangement with European Jewish Press
, a pan-European news agency based in Belgium
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