| In hiding? the Jews of Europe |
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What of western Europe’s Jewish communal leaders? Here, there has been no greater interest in the evolution of postwar Europe: such figures have desisted from cultivating any image of Europe other than one which has depicted the continent as a Jewish graveyard, rejecting it as an afterwar space of Jewish belonging, and regarding Israel as prewar Europe’s natural heir and bearer of a substitute identity for those who lingered in Europe after the fat had been cleared from the crematoria. Israel was a more malleable construct for their management of diverse communal constituents than an unwieldy ‘Europe,’ whose political dynamic they felt they could barely affect.What of the situation today? Because European integration’s fundamental structures lack popular support, and remain underpinned by small cliques who operate from centralised, opaque powerbases, the European project still cannot guarantee the Jews’ long-term well-being. Thinking Jews’ fear that an EU superstate could become dominated by elites hostile to Israel, encouraged by their inability to stem the growth of radical Islamist unrest in Europe, while a populist-nationalist grass-roots backlash against an expanded EU could seen the emergence of a ‘Europe for the Europeans,’ from which the Jews, like Muslims, could be excluded. If the EU’s security forces fall into unsafe hands, ‘Fortress Europe’ could disable the Jews from escaping across the frontiers of a superstate, whose unified economic and political system could now restrict the spaces to which they might once have fled. Worse, some warn, this destabilisation may have already started with the dramatic enlargements of 2004 and 2007, as ever-larger union struggles to source revenue for its expansion and tackles widespread disagreement among its members, on a multitude of policy areas. Jewish thinkers may have correctly mistrusted postwar integrators, asking where were the high-cultural intellectual dimensions, the ethical commitments to supporting those minorities which had suffered most in Europe’s recent past. They may have rightly asserted that crossborder harmony had been prioritised over justice, that the constructors of Europe had pursued a Christian vision of Europe, to whom surviving Jews were of little consequence, and that they had been left to bury themselves among the afterwar ‘free nations of Europe,’ knowing no one could guarantee a future rebranding of Europe would not see them ejected once more from the next, new definition of pan-European peoplehood. Ever-fearful of the fragility of their newly-restored right to national participation, many Jews recognise they were no more than sporadic and fragmented protestors. Will they continue to observe the shaping of the European project from an upstairs window, and continue to accept the values and cultures of the societies which have cast them as irredeemably stigmatised? Find out in my book… Jews and Europe in the 21st Century, has just been published by Valentine Mitchell. If you would like a copy, the book is available from Amazon, Play.com, www.vbooks.com, or direct from the publishers - This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , tel +44 00 8952 9526 or fax +44 00 8952 9242. For further information please contact Nick on This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it |
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