For European Jews, a horrible sight on the other side of the Atlantic

PARIS – Jewish children slaughtered at school. Jewish clients shot in a kosher supermarket. Jewish elderly women beaten in their apartments, then thrown to the window or left to burn.

In recent years, deadly anti – Semitic violence has become one of the pillars of European news, a troubling reality on the same soil where millions of Jews have been systematically murdered less than a century ago.

In the United States, this violence has not been reflected – until Saturday when 11 Jews were killed in a Pittsburgh synagogue by a man who had gone on social media to condemn a Jewish refugee resettlement organization several days after President Trump repeated a conspiracy theory with – Semitic connotations: the belief that Jewish billionaire George Soros is importing foreign refugees to undermine the white and Christian putative character of the country.

[‘I just want to kill Jews:’ Documents detail the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre and name the dead]

This vision has become a common refrain to the European far right, an integral part of the violent rhetoric that often precedes actual acts of violence. European observers are now wondering if the Americans are going to tackle the problem of anti-Semitism – and they see in Pittsburgh the dangerous confluence of this rhetoric and a population with easy access to firearms.

"Before, I thought that the United States was the guarantor of Jewish security in the world, and this is no longer the case," said Sergey Lagodinsky, a member of the Jewish community's assembly. Berlin. "From the point of view of European Jewry, this harbor we thought of the United States for Jews no longer exists."

[Trump calls shooting at Pittsburgh synagogue that left 11 dead a ‘wicked act of mass murder’]

For Delphine Horvilleur, one of the three women rabbis of France and leader of a popular liberal congregation in Paris, what happened at the Tree of Life synagogue at Squirrel Hill is a sign of the times , proof that "no one is immune from -Semitism that runs through history. "

"Americans are still concerned about security in French synagogues," said Horvilleur, who completed his rabbinical studies in New York. It referred to the intense level of palpation and even identity checks required to enter many Jewish places of worship in France, which has suffered the consequences of anti-Semitic violence in Europe in recent years.

"Unfortunately, I think this question will be asked in their own synagogues in the years to come."

By way of comparison, almost all the recent cases of murderous anti-Semitism in Europe have involved suspects with North African roots, Islamic links, or both. But although the European far right has recently tried to woo Jewish voters in an attempt against Muslims, it has not yet abandoned Nativist rhetoric.

The Soros conspiracy theory is one example. This is especially the native Hungary of Soros, where Viktor Orban, Hungarian right-wing populist prime minister, uses the Jewish financier – and the Holocaust survivor – to embody all the apparent national ills.

In Orban's vision, Soros leads a powerful but mysterious cabal behind the scenes of ordinary operations. It is a cliché that refers to the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", an anti-Semitic book purporting to reveal a plan for the dominance of the Jewish world.

"We are fighting an enemy different from us," Orban said at a rally in March. "Not open, but hidden. Not simple, but clever. Not honest, but low. Do not believe in work, but speculate with money. Not his own homeland but has the feeling of owning the whole world. In mid-April, he was re-elected in a landslide.

[Analysis: Hungary’s Orban launches his offensive on Europe]

For European Jews, one of the striking features of recent weeks has been to observe the same tactics employed by President Trump and his political allies, themselves at the dawn of this week's midterm critical elections. .

This is not a new territory for Trump, who closed his 2016 campaign with an advertisement featuring American Jewish personalities such as Soros, Lloyd Blankfein and Janet L. Yellen as examples of specific interests hostile to the working class US. But in recent weeks, these associations have become more common. Trump accused a caravan of migrants in Mexico of being Soros' s work; Senator Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) also said in an interview that he considered the protesters present at Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings to be paid agents of the New York-based philanthropist.

"There is this fusion, this anti-Semitic international, which we are witnessing now," said Lagodinsky, referring to the apparent similarities between the rhetoric deployed by Trump and his counterparts in Eastern Europe.

For Deborah E. Lipstadt, an expert in the history of anti-Semitism, the success of these theories in the United States is not necessarily surprising.

"Anti-Semitism is the ultimate theory of conspiracy," she said. "People turn to conspiracy theories when they want to explain things they can not understand, and no one can understand the current economic system. But if you can blame George Soros, Lloyd Blankfein or Janet Yellen, it becomes easy to understand. "

Horrible, the French rabbi, the Pittsburgh attack was a challenge, but not necessarily insurmountable.

"Judaism, illustrated for decades, was marked by" tikkun olam ", the repair of the world," she said. "It will remain despite threats against the community."

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