Sunday, November 10, 2013

Behold: The Twilight of European Jewry

The stubborn Jews tried. They tried to return "home" and rebuild their lives.

They spoke the language after all. They knew the customs. Yet somehow they were packed away in cattle cars, shot in the streets, shops burned to the ground, synagogues turned into burning piles of cinders.

They were gassed, burned to human ashes, reduced to vapors of human beings wafting up to the heavens. Their tormentors and murderers continue to walk unaffected upon the blood soaked earth where the Jews had once walked and once lived and loved.

Yet, they tried to return "home" and claim what was rightfully theirs.

But the art was hanging in museums and in Nazi homes. There were new "owners' of their homes and businesses. They tried to claim their insurance policies in Swiss banks and were told to kindly produce death certificates.

They tried to return "home" and rebuild synagogues and communal life.

They stubbornly tried to be French, British, Greek, Hungarian or German or Belgian and whatnot.

But in the end, they remained Jews.

And so now, predictably, we face the twilight of European Jewry. 

The stubborn, the willingly blind will remain-again at the clear risk of losing their lives.

Those who can, must leave with their lives.