#30 MY BUCKET LIST IS SHOT-FULL OF HOLES !!!!

                               

Once upon a time and not that long ago my bucket list was filled to the brim with places to go and things to see, but not anymore. That bucket has sprung a leak; in fact, it’s hemorrhaging. 

            ENGLAND had once been at the top of my travel list, but now it’s a place where Jewish bikers are stoned, Rabbis attacked, synagogues fire bombed, Jewish-owned businesses threatened with burnings and bombings, swastikas painted on Jewish homes and houses of worship, and where death threats against Jews have become commonplace. The number of anti-Semitic attacks in England hit a 30-year high in 2014,  95% of all hate crimes were against Jews, and a recent survey of British Jews revealed that 50% see no future there and are intending to leave.   

            Rabid anti-Semites also include members of Parliament, such as neo-Nazi MP George Galloway, leader of the “Respect Party” (I kid you not!) who – with the support of his constituency -- has declared the district of Bradford an “Israel-free zone.”  That means no Israeli goods, services, academics, or Jewish tourists. Ta Ta to merry old England…  

                  

            … and au revoir to FRANCE, which also experienced an unprecedented number of anti-Semitic events in 2014.  In the past two years alone, there have been eight synagogue attacks, Jewish homes, businesses, and houses of worship have been looted and firebombed, Jews terrorized and verbally attacked with: “Death to the Jews…Hitler was right…Slit Jewish throats,” and “Gas the Jews!” In France a seventeen-year-old- girl was pepper sprayed in the face and called a “Dirty Jewess,” a woman who hung an Israeli flag on her porch received death threats, and people who “look Jewish,” can be beaten to a pulp by Islamists on Paris metros.  Add to that the 2012 murder of three Jewish children and their teacher in Toulouse, the fire bombing of its Jewish Community Center, and the continuing harassment of this community, and you’ll understand why 7,000 French Jews emigrated in 2014, and 10,000 more are expected to leave in 2015. 

            Anti-Semitism has become so mainstream in France that the “comedienne” Dieudonne has become a celebrity for popularizing a reverse Nazi-salute which he and his followers enjoy flashing at Jews. 

    

This anti-Semite recently announced to the world:  “I am Charlie Coulibaly,” (as in “I am Charlie Hebdo"), the family name of the terrorist brothers who murdered four Jewish men in the kosher supermarket in January of this year (while their comrades were busy killing twelve journalists and cartoonists at the offices of Charlie Hebdo.). .

              Life in France will become even more dangerous, considering that the 1,000 homegrown terrorists who went to Syria to join ISIS, et. al, have returned … but  cannot be found.   

            Another hole shot in the bucket!

            In BELGIUM terrorists killed four non-Jews this past year at the Jewish Museum in Brussels, thinking they were Jews, a doctor refused medical assistance to a 90-year-old woman because she was Jewish, a train conductor announced he was going to send Jewish passengers to Auschwitz, a storekeeper posted a sign in his storefront that reads: “Jews and Zionists not allowed but dogs are,” and a woman was refused service because “management doesn’t sell to Jews.”

Once again, it’s not just the riff-raff at work.  Elected politicians have joined in the fun, calling for the “slaughter of Jews” at a 500-person rally in Antwerp this past summer.  It’ll get worse in Belgium before it gets better – now that 300 home-grown terrorists who fought with ISIS in Syria have returned.  

Another piss hole in the old bucket!

           

            Hate speech might be a crime in GERMANY, but it’s not one the authorities take seriously.  That’s why Berlin’s leading imam feels free to call upon allah and his congregationists to “slit Jewish throats…destroy the Zionist Jews… kill them, down to the very last one,” and the far right Green Party calls for the gassing of Jews.  This satanic union has led to multiple attacks on Jews, their homes and houses of worship.      Germany?  No thanks.  Alviderzein.    

            And remember Holland, once the home of “live and let live”?   Now it’s a country where its Chief Rabbi is twice-attacked with stones,  anti-Semitic crowds scream for the “slaughter” of Jews, Holocaust memorials are defaced; Jewish women are targeted in fire bombings, the CIDI (the Netherlands main anti-Semitism watchdog group) receives more than 70 calls every month from alarmed citizens, and in the Hague (home of the International Criminal Court, a political organization dependent on donor countries), the mayor refuses to order the arrest of ISIS supporters threatening to kill Jews in the city center (while ISIS simultaneously posts photos of their day’s beheadings on Twitter).    

     This is the New Holland, where murderers fear no reprisals for violent anti-Semitic attacks.  Another hole in the bucket!

And no to DENMARK, where Jewish children are warned not to wear religious symbols to school or near school grounds for fear of attacks,  Jewish tourists are told to hide their religion, and Israelis are cautioned to speak Hebrew “softly.” And it’s in Denmark that the deputy head of the National Zionist Organization receives death threats and the government shuts down a peaceful pro-Israel rally but lets threatening Muslims take over the streets.  Peaceful voices are silenced, and hate mongers rewarded.  Things are still rotten in Denmark.  Ping. Ping! 

And scratch off SWEDEN -- where anti-Semitic attacks have tripled in the last three years and DOUBLED after the January attacks in Paris-- and NORWAY, where anti-Semitism has become so pervasive that most of its tiny 1,000 Jewish community (less than .0002% of the population) is leaving the country. 

I’ll leave Scandinavia to the Scandinavians and their peace-loving population.   

            And “no” to HUNGARY, where last year a member of its parliament publicly demanded that a list be made of all Jews in the country because he considered them to be a “security risk.”  This anti-Semite is still in office.    

ITALY’s peace-loving citizens spent 2014 defacing Jewish homes and houses of worship with swastikas, spray painting Jewish businesses with anti-Semitic graffiti (i.e.  “Dirty Jews….Jews, your end is near”) and attacking Jewish fans at a baseball game with baseball bats and knives because their team lost. But what else can you expect in a country where a member of the Italian parliament announces on its state radio station that “Israel is a bit worse than the Nazis,” and “I’d like to shoot those Zionist bastards!”  Arrividici, Italia. 

And SPAIN?  No way, Jose.  This dystopian country is mismanaged, bankrupt, and schizophrenic.  The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing so while the Government puts out a worldwide APB to Jewish descendents of the Spanish Inquisition (those they didn’t burn alive at the stake), extending a (bladed) hand in friendship and an invitation to return to Spain after 500 years and gain a Spanish passport, the publishers of Spain’s second largest newspaper, El Mundo, explains to its readers that Jews were expelled in 1500 because they “cannot coexist with others…Jews end up creating problems for everyone…It’s not a surprise they have been so frequently expelled.” …

…and celebs like Penelope Cruz and Jamie Bardeem lead packs of anti-Semites though Spanish streets screaming for Jewish “heads,” but, hey, Bardeem’s no anti-Semite.  “Some of my best friends are Jews,” he proclaims.  

            Spain is also the home of the cowardly Real Madrid basketball team, which -- after losing to the Maccabi Tel Aviv team -- screamed anti-Semitic obscenities at the players and continued their temper tantrums on social media. 

            Nah.  I’m not going to Spain, which ranks third on a list of Europe’s most anti-Semitic countries.  Another piss-hole in the bucket!  

I’m skipping GREECE, as well, considering that 69% of the populace was found to be anti-Semitic, the neo-Nazi party, the Golden Dawn, grows in strength, and 16% of the last mayoral vote went to a candidate with a swastika tattooed on his shoulder. 

And NO, NO, NO to TURKEY, where the Erdogan government leads the anti-Semitic dog pack, holding Turkish Jews personally responsible for Israeli policies and threatening them with pogroms (to be led by Turkey’s “unconstrained youth”) if Israel doesn’t do Turkey’s bidding.  And it’s in Turkey where parliamentarians participate in violent anti-Israel demonstrations and can be heard screaming in the streets: “May God Bless Hitler.”     

Ping!  Ping!  Slosh! What a mess on the floor! This bucket is beyond repair.  Time for a new one!    

            Yeah, I know.  My critics will say that most Europeans are peace-loving people.  Maybe so, but they’re irrelevant because when the going gets rough, those same peace-loving people get going – in some OTHER direction.  My recommendation to the Jews of Europe:  Get the hell out, and until you do, arm yourselves!

                                   

                                                               Whiningly yours, Carol