Long Beach Jewish Life September 2014 | Page 30

The Deputy First Speaker of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, also came out against Israel when she spoke at an anti-Israel event. A supermarket in central London has removed all kosher food from its shelves and Ahava, the popular Israeli beauty manufacturer, closed its Covent Garden shop after many years of anti-Israel demonstrations.

Wild accusations regarding Israel prompted Britain’s National Union of Students to claim that “Palestinians students are tortured and imprisoned in Israel.” Thus a rumor so ludicrous and baseless, one wonders how anyone could believe this. But people do, and the rumors are going viral. Fortunately there are some level heads in England and though one London theater that always supported the Jewish Film Festival at first backed out, it came to its senses and reinstated the program.

But Britain hasn’t yet reached the level of anti-Semitism that has permeated France. We’re happy to report that the British Jews are fighting back now, and learning from the lessons of the Holocaust. They are “engaging in Jewish life” to the fullest, reported Yvette Miller, and giving the finger to the protesters by buying Jewish and Israeli products and planning Jewish programs.

Land of the beautiful Tulips. By now, most of our readers have viewed the YouTube video that showed Queen Beatrix at a concert by the famed Concertgebow in Amsterdam being berated by a neatly dressed man who gained entrance to the stage prior to the performance and declared himself to be “a servant of God.” The Queen looks on shocked, as he exhorted the public to convert to Islam. Ultimately, the man spent the night in the police station. But then Jews wearing yarmulkehs in Amsterdam are being assaulted, while demonstrators in Berlin streets are calling for “Jews to the gas!”

240 incidents of anti-Semitism were recorded in France in July alone. And in Demark a Jewish school, founded in 1805, had its windows smashed and anti-Jewish graffiti regarding the conflict between Israel and Gaza was spraypainted on the walls. Some of the messages read: “No peace in Gaza,” and “No peace to you Zionist pigs,” among other such despicable comments. But there, even-handed local politicians are helping to fight back by proclaiming a “kippah march” in Copenhagen in support of people’s right to display their religion openly.

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