• Culture
• Cyber Rav
• Editor's Commentary
• Events
• Holidays
• News
• Other Viewpoints
• Shalom
• Travel
• Archives

• Brotherhood
• Business
• Community
• Culture
• Cyber Rav
• Editorials
• Health
• Letter to the Editor
• News
• People
• Rabbi's Message
• Travel

ANTI-SEMITISM WORLDWIDE 1995/6 REPORTS DECLINE IN VIOLENCE AGAINST JEWS

BY: GAD NAHSHON

Anti-Semitism worldwide 1995/6, the most reliable source of the trends of anti-Semitism in our globe reports: Decline in Violence 1995-6 in Violence against the Jews.

This important book is a joint production of The World Jewish Congress and Tel Aviv University. Sixty countries were surveyed by scholars from many countries such as Yoel Rapel (Israel), Dr. Aron Schneer (Israel), Dina Segal (Mexico), Dr. Karen Mock (Canada) and Grazyna Pawlak (Poland). The report provides data on anti-Semitism, statistics, movements and organizations' publications and the laws against these activities.

The 1995 findings point to a decline in violence against the Jews following four years of a steady increase, most notably in western Europe. In the U.S.A., there was a decrease of 11%, for example. But Canada had an increase in 1995 of 12%! An increase took place in Russia, but it is very hard to expose and record anti-Semitism activities in Russia.

It is not easy to monitor anti- Semitism and understand its "ups" and "downs" in a certain society. It is alive even in countries without Jews. Poland is a good example (with only 100,000 Jews). The report states, "The image of the Jew as a subversive element aiming at 'World Jewish domination' is still at the core of various extremist ideas. In Japan, popular books warn against the Jewish and Zionist plots to use their economic power to destroy Japan..." Well, in the U.S.A., sad to say, Marlon Brando expressed a similar notion about Jews controlling the entertainment world.

The Holocaust denials also are still alive and in demand in many countries. Also, there was not a decrease of the quantity of anti-Semitic publications in our globe and the use of the new electronic media and the Internet as tools for dissemination of the anti- Semitic gospel. In the U.S.A. Louis Farrakhan and his Nation of Islam have carried the baton of anti-Semitism. Sad to say, the black community has not, indeed, condemned this phenomenon growing in the black ghetto as well. But there are others such as Bradley Smith, who in 1991 established the "Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust" (especially on the American campus).

The world is a little safer for Jews to live in. In 1989, 47 major violent activities were recorded, followed by 132 (1990), 106 (1991), 173 (1992), 225 (1993), 232 (1994), but only 142 in 1995.