Paris, Copenhagen, Dunedin and Hamilton

A letter in the Dominion Post last week said that Jews are like the canary in the mine. Their fate and acceptance is an indication of the well-being of society. Just in the last few weeks we had the attack on Charlie Hesbo in Paris, accompanied by the attack on a kosher supermarket, an attack on a meeting about free speech in Copenhagen accompanied by an attack on the synagogue in which an unarmed Jewish security guard and two policemen were killed. Don't imagine that New Zealand is immune to such manifestations of hatred of Jews. Recently Jewish graves were desecrated in Dunedin and the war memorial in Hamilton was defaces with swastikas. If there is anti-Jewish hatred around in the world someone in New Zealand would buy into it. What does this say about French, Danish and New Zealand societies? Hatred of cartoons and cartoonists, hatred of libertarian politics and politicians goes hand in hand with the hatred of Jews, though there is no obvious connection of these issues with Jews. Now New Zealand has signed up to a nominal military force to fight ISIS. I think we can expect further attacks on Jewish targets. Hatred of Jews is the only sentiment that disengaged young, and sometimes not so young people can find to express their general resentment of society. But we have to put this into perspective. The hatred of Jews has a very long history. We might have thought after the Holocaust, that it would go away, but like an insidious latent virus it survived and in recent years came to the fore again. As long as this does not enjoy institutional support, as it did in the 1930s, we should put it down to the misguided ideology of crazies. We must not walk in fear again, ever.