'We're very worried by rise of Nazis in Europe'

[Behind the Aegis]

Jews in Italy have seen walls smeared with swastikas and had pig's heads delivered to their doors in recent months, but the head of the Jewish Community, Riccardo Pacifici, insists Italy remains a much better place to be Jewish than many other European countries.

His grandparents perished at Auschwitz and his father spent months oscillating between life and death after being seriously injured in a bomb attack on a Rome Synagogue in 1982.

Riccardo Pacifici has also endured years of threats against him - including a thwarted bomb plot - and in January he was the recipient of a pig’s head.

Against the backdrop of an anti-Semitic revival across Europe, the 52-year-old president of Rome’s Jewish Community has leapt to the defence of Italy’s Jews as they face persistent hostility, mostly from right-wing extremists, whether in the form of swastikas being daubed on walls or as the target of online hate speech.

The harassment is also prevalent in football: SS Lazio hooligans have long been notorious for making Nazi salutes and unfurling anti-Jewish banners during games, while late last year they emblazoned stickers across Rome showing Anne Frank, the Jewish teenager who died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, wearing an AS Roma shirt in a bid to ‘taunt’ their rivals.

The memorial day for the victims of the Holocaust - January 27th - is also a time for extremists to make their feelings known: this year, boxes containing a pig’s head were also sent to Rome’s Israeli embassy and synagogue while anti-Jewish slurs cropped up on walls across the city in the days leading up to the anniversary.

In February, a human rights report by the US State Department revealed that 26 percent of Jews in Italy experienced anti-Semitic harassment in the 12 months up to November 2013.

more: http://www.thelocal.it/20140326/italy-is-an-island-of-happiness-for-jews

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From the comment section:

SirWillemV • a day ago

Europe has been perverted into a nigger loving filthy porno homo godless degenerate society in which ethnic White Europeans are oppressed and dispossessed by the jew Zionist multicult homosex Government...

"World Judaism", Heidegger writes in the notebooks, "is ungraspable everywhere and doesn't need to get involved in military action while continuing to unfurl its influence, whereas we are left to sacrifice the best blood of the best of our people".

In another passage, the philosopher writes that the Jewish people, with their "talent for calculation", were so vehemently opposed to the Nazi's racial theories because "they themselves have lived according to the race principle for longest".

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The rise of Nazis or Nazi-like groups is discouraging and happening throughout Europe.

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. Seems there are 4 words considered vile enough

for maximum name calling.
wonder when they will throw that 5th word in the mix? ( the "R" word)

[uriel1972]

2. If that's the news from a 'better' place in Europe...

What hell are the Jews in the worse places going through? It makes me shudder. The world is going to hell in a hand-basket it seems.

[rationalcalgarian]

3. My grandfather had stories

In mixed company he would talk about the great beer he would get in Holland and Belgium as he trudged through Europe after D-Day. After a couple of drinks, he might drift off into talking about some of the lovely ladies he got to know as a liberator. In the quiet of a late evening, he would tell me that his greatest joy was seeing a Nazi head explode after he put a bullet through it. Then he would smile, the smile of a man who did something distasteful for a good reason and a good cause. No PTSD for that guy; he was good with it. So am I.

[ColesCountyDem]

7. My uncles had similar stories.

My Bubbe, their mother, was a Polish Jew who emigrated to America before the First World War. Two of her siblings, my Uncle Moshe and my Aunt Rachel, also emigrated later, but her parents, her 8 remaining siblings, her aunts, uncles and cousins all remained behind in Poland-- over 130 people in all. All but three perished at the hands of the Nazis: my Uncle Noam and his two children, who were hidden by a Catholic neighbor-- a farmer-- in his root cellar, at great peril to himself and his family.

To a man, my uncles enlisted in the Army, and all eventually fought in Europe. Like your grandfather, they would occasionally talk about shooting Nazi soldiers, but never with regret.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, some of my cousins emigrated to Poland and Ukraine. While there is anti-Semitism in both countries, they say the extent is greatly exaggerated in the American press. In particular, they report, the vast majority of Poles are DEEPLY ashamed of their role in the Holocaust. My cousins in Ukraine also say that the neo-Nazi 'movement' or political 'elements' do exist, but their numbers are greatly exaggerated in the Western press. Like our own 'wing nuts', most Ukranians not only do not share their views, but view them with great distaste.

[BlueMTexpat]

4. We already have powerful fascists in the US

and their power continues to grow and transform. They have held back from anti-Jewish rhetoric/actions in the US for the most part because that would so clearly "out" them, but they don't hesitate to use code words, invective, overt slurs or outright violence against other ethnic, racial or religious minorities, women and the gay community.

It's not simply in Europe where there is concern about HR and the rise of the radical RW. We must be aware that the trend is much closer to home, if not already at home.

[LeftishBrit]

5. Yes, it is a big worry

Fortunately the BNP are doing badly at the moment; which doesn't mean that the Far Right in the UK is dead.

It is much worse in some other countries - Eastern Europe is generally worst; but there are plenty of problems even in Western Europe, e.g. currently the National Front's worrying successes in France.

HopeNotHate is a very good organization opposing the Far Right in Britain. It also sometimes discusses problems elsewhere in Europe:

http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/international/article/1828/a-far-right-revolution-as-regional-france-opens-its-doors-to-a-reconstructed-national

[Behind the Aegis]

9. I am more surprised by France.

I know France has had a huge problem with Jews, but for a time, it seemed as if things were getting better. This upsurge in the anti-Semitic right has been a bit disconcerting. I may be wrong, but it seems the far-right in the UK is more anti-Muslim, than anti-Semitic, but it is the opposite in France. The far-right in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria seem to be "balanced" in their hate for Jews and Muslims (though Germany seems to be focused on Turks). Spain is more anti-Semitic, than Islamophobic, but that tide could turn.

[LeftishBrit]

10. Actually France has a significant problem with both Islamophobia and antisemitism

As so often, I think both are secondary to general xenophobia; but that does not make much difference to the people who experience it.

France isn't by any means the worst country for problems with the Far Right; but it's not the best either, and has suffered from the poisonous LePen family and their supporters for at least 40 years.

[Behind the Aegis]

11. It has problems with both, for sure, but it seems to be the opposite of the UK.

I don't know if it is second to xenophobia, tied to it, or just a reaction to immigration issues. Germany's Islamophobia is tied tightly to immigration of Turks and Indonesians. I figure the same is true of France's Islamophobia. The one thing they all have in common, is anti-Semitism and anti-immigration sentiments. Xenophobia is always an issue, but more often than not, it always seems to be tied back to one group, the Jews.

[roguevalley]

6. hitler had eleven years to poison a generation of kids. it has to be coming from that

[Enthusiast]

8. That's some ugly shit.