Denmark must address the question of antisemitism

On 14 February, Copenhagen was shocked by terrorism and the attack on the Jewish Community of the city. The Copenhagen attack has not only raised a series of new questions about Denmark as a target for terrorism and the radicalization of young people with immigrant backgrounds, but also questions about antisemitism in Europe, as manifested within the last 10 to 12 years.

Now, with the shooting at the synagogue, Denmark – like France and Belgium – has been forced to acknowledge the reality and the implications of European antisemitism. What was regarded largely as a foreign phenomenon and tendency in other European societies has, in one stroke, become reality in Denmark, too, regardless of the fact that antisemitism has historically, since the interwar years, been considered ‘un-Danish’.

This development gives food for thought regarding the position of the Jewish Community in Denmark, the question of antisemitism in general, and the roots and anatomy of the current surge of antisemitic incidents.

Three aspects characterize current antisemitism: first, it has become more direct and aggressive than seen before in the past 2-3 decades. Recent incidents, where Jews have been murdered solely because they are Jewish, are evidence of this phenomenon. Also, a more aggressive anti-Jewish rhetoric has developed on the internet, in various social for a, and in the public sphere in general. This more virulent antisemitism is described in several reports documenting assaults reported by Jews, including a report, last year, from the European Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA), describing how Jews in Europe now feel more exposed and vulnerable than before.

Second, current antisemitism, at least in Western Europe, is mainly related to the issue of Israel and the conflicts of the Middle East. This nexus has been pointed out by researchers and Jewish communities at least since 2003, when a report from Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung in Berlin (ZfA) described a new form of antisemitism flourishing amongst immigrants and closely connected with the Second Intifada in 2000.  

The third aspect is the targeting of civilians, as witnessed in the attack in Toulouse in March 2012, where a teacher and three pupils from a Jewish school were shot and killed at point-blank range. The assailant was a 23-year old French Muslim and petty criminal, who said his motive was retaliation for the killing of Palestinian children by Israeli forces in Gaza and on the West Bank. Civilians were targeted in Paris, too, where shoppers in a kosher supermarket were taken hostage and subsequently shot, and in Copenhagen, where (apart from the two men, one of them Jewish, who were actually shot and killed) potential hostages and possibly even murder victims were participants in a Bar Mitzvah celebration held at the Jewish Cultural Institute adjacent to the Synagogue.    

As with the attack in Paris, the reaction from the Israeli Government to the Copenhagen attack was prompt: Israel declared once more that Jews from Europe were welcome and that Israel was indeed preparing for mass immigration. And, again, Benyamin Netanyahu played on fears in the Jewish communities and the fact that European states have been unable to provide sufficient security for their Jewish citizens. The Jewish Community in Denmark, however, politely declined the invitation, stressing that Danish Jews are part of Danish society – a view that was also expressed in unequivocal terms by prime minister Helle Thorning Schmidt during her visit to the synagogue on the day after the attack.

Inviting Jews from around the world to emigrate to the State of Israel is a well-known strategy, also utilized by former prime minister Ariel Sharon when the issue of antisemitism surfaced in 2003, with the purpose of emphasizing Israel as the homeland for Jews. This strategy plays on the memory of the events following the Second World War, when several hundred thousand stateless Jews of post-war Europe no longer saw any future for themselves on that continent, but waited only for an opportunity to go to either Palestine/Israel or the USA. Also, in this strategy, strong historical parallels are drawn between the founding of the Israeli state in 1948 and today’s situation, evoking the memory of the Holocaust, currently strong in public awareness due to the recent marking of the 70^th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Netanyahu does, in a sense, ‘talk Jews out of Europe’. But ‘terror is no reason for moving to Israel’, as Rabbi Jair Melchior from the Copenhagen Synagogue stated following the attack. The same view was expressed by the head of the Jewish Agency for Israel, Nathan Sharansky, who, following the Paris attacks, opined that fear should not be the motivation for people to move to Israel; “antisemitism is not our ally, and we do not want to act as if it is”, he said.

But how should we understand antisemitism in Europe today? Is it any different from before? And how big is the problem in Denmark? Antisemitism is a symptom of certain general conditions in Europe, among these the radicalization of young descendants of immigrants who reject European societies and democracies. A 2006 report by DIIS showed that this kind of antisemitism exists only to a very limited degree in Denmark, where, however, a certain general distrust towards the traditions of religious minorities, both Jewish and Muslim, may be traced, as was recently evident in the debate over male circumcision. At the same time, European values and national identities are under pressure, allowing for the development of parallel sub-societies, where other rules and norms dominate, a problem to which politicians have not yet found a solution.

Additionally, recent reports point to a connection between the Middle East conflict and the present surge in antisemitism and anti-Jewish attitudes, also to be found on the far left of the political spectrum. It seems fair to say that the Middle East conflict has also had a spill-over effect on Europe, in the sense that European Jews are being held responsible for Israeli politics and that anti-Jewish actions in Europe should be understood in relationship to the Middle East conflict. The 23-year old assailant behind the attack in Toulouse in 2012 apparently wanted revenge for Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces in Gaza and on the West Bank. During the Israeli military operation in Gaza in the summer of 2014, slogans like ‘Jews go home’ and ‘Jews are pigs’ circulated at political demonstrations that followed across Europe against the Israeli operation. Slogans of this kind are aimed at all Jews, although perhaps targeted at the State of Israel and not necessarily at European Jews individually.

These slogans contribute to forming an aggressive atmosphere and cultivate the concept of Jews as targets for radical Muslims in their attacks on Western societies and liberal democracies. Antisemitism is, in this sense, part of a specific world view that also includes the rejection of freedom of speech and critique of religion. Jewish institutions or institutions representing Jewish interests or points of view are seen to be  representing Western societies, as well, and are considered to be potential targets for terrorist action against ‘The West’.  As a result of these developments, the Jewish Community of Denmark and the association of Jewish communities in Europe, the European Jewish Association (EJA), have made a very strong appeal for increased security measures, parallel with discussions about whether the criminalization of hate-speech on the Internet may be effective in combating antisemitism. Thus, a group of British Members of Parliament proposed in a newly published report - All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Anti-semitism – that a set of clear rules be formulated for all communications on the Internet and in social media. This proposal was similar to one made at an OSCE conference on antisemitism in November last year, which called for more attention to be brought to antisemitism on the Internet and in social media. In France, new preventive anti-radicalization measures – such as citizenship training – are to be implemented in schools. Urging other EU members to bring in similar measures, France will be hosting a meeting between minsters of education and the EU Commission in March, for discussions on relevant educational measures.

Whether more security around Jewish institutions, legal action against hate-speech on the Internet, and citizenship training will prove to be viable measures in preventing new antisemitic violent incidents, remains to be seen – but they will constitute a beginning. What is most important in a Danish context is the acknowledgement of the problem and its scale and character, including the acknowledgement of antisemitism as a transnational phenomenon, undeniably also present in Denmark. Although Denmark during the 1930s declared antisemitism ‘un-Danish’ and although Denmark in 1943 helped Jews escape to the safe haven of Sweden, the country faces anew an old challenge, which the memory of that part of history and our own identity as a nation have long helped us ignore: Antisemitism is also a Danish problem.