Tuvya Tennenbaum, an Israeli-American reporter, writer and playwright, has in his resume impressions of recent years, books and advertisements dealing, et al, with anti-Semitic phenomena throughout the world.
Tennenbaum visited England this past year in order to write a book about Brexit, a program initiated by the British government regarding the European Union. Though it would seem to be a topic unrelated to antisemitism, he summed up what he saw in an interview which he held this past week during his visit in Israel for the Israel Book Week.
"I began my journey in Ireland where I met a political activist, whom I asked to tell about his country. The first thing he said to me was, `What is common to us all is that we don't like Jews.' I was somewhat shocked but thought that this was something irregular only on his part.
"Afterwards, I interviewed the mayor who told me that they have the Palestinian flag flying over the city hall for a whole month each year, and how important is a movement like Hamas which represents that nation.
"The picture clarified very quickly. No one in England speaks about Brexit, while the only subject which does interest everyone is that of the Palestinians."
Tennenbaum offered several examples and summed up: "The further we recede from the Holocaust, the quicker does European discomfiture disappear. The issue of Palestine gives them an easy excuse to say: We don't hate Jews. We are simply against Israel."
The punch line at the end of the interview: "People close up; they're afraid to speak and afraid to admit or want to know the truth. We are living in a crazy world constantly morphing, but one thing still remains static, if not intensifies: hatred towards Jews."
