On "Déjà Jew"

Wednesday, The Jerusalem Post published this article on the resurging Anti-Semitism in some European countries, particularly in France and Belgium.  It cites instances of some Jews masquerading as Muslims in order to escape violence and persecution from Muslims.  As if that weren't troubling enough by itself, the author unfolds an eerie backdrop behind these invidual situations reminiscent of the institutionalized persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany (or, Nazi-Europe as the case became) leading up to the Holocaust.

After WWII, the Western world just about swore that a Jewish Holocaust would never happen again. Indeed, civic organizations were built on the motto "Never Again" to protect all future generations of Jewish people from suffering the kind of Anti-Semitism that led to the Holocaust. Unfortunately, in some significant ways it apears that their aims are not being met. In various countries in Europe today, a similar lead-up to the outright persecution of Jews is happening in places with growing Muslim (not Aryan) populations. The hate is the same; the rhetoric is the same; the excuses are the same; the supposed cause is still socio-political.

This is the 21st century. Ignorance of this kind was supposed to be educated out of the masses through mandatory government schooling and national legislation. This great failure of the State is only matched by the failure of morals, ethics, and a consistent belief in the humility found in our human createdness under God. Ye olde libertine maxim that government cannot legislate morality is only correct when you realize that what legislation cannot change is a person's immorality.  Legislation changes only the occassions on which one exhibits it.

I know my Muslim friends may accuse me of fingerpointing that the chief persecutors today of Jews worldwide are Muslims, but I should hope that people would look at the problem itself, not at the finger. Europe burns occassionally from these ethno-religious conflicts that we have come to view at the least as uncivilized. The underlying reality is that Europe is burning invisibly everyday. Our American society must say much more than that such behavior is simply uncivilized. It must say that persecution and violent persecution are objective, irrefutable wrongs. Until we purge our collective minds of this insidious moral relativism that shackles our consciences, we will never be free to "Love your neighbor as yourself," much less "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your mind." (Matt. 22:37)

(HT: David Wood on Answering Muslims for sharing this article.)