British Chief Rabbi warns of anti-Semitic 'tsunami'

Telegraph:

Sir Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi, fears that a "tsunami of anti-Semitism" is threatening to engulf parts of the world.

In an interview with BBC Radio 4's Sunday programme, to be broadcast today, Dr Sacks admitted he was "very scared" by the rise in anti-Jewish feeling, which had led to Holocaust denial, attacks on synagogues and a boycott of Jewish groups on university campuses.

He said: "I am very scared by [it] and I'm very scared that more protests have not been delivered against it, but this [anti-Semitism] is part of the vocabulary of politics in certain parts of the world."

Figures produced by the London-based Community Security Trust and the Israeli government show that anti-Semitism is on the rise in Britain. The trust recorded 532 anti-Semitic incidents in 2004, including 83 physical assaults
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Meanwhile, some groups opposed to Israeli government policy have organised boycotts of Jewish academics and student groups. Since 2002, Jewish student groups on 17 British campuses have faced the threat of expulsion from fellow students opposed to Israeli action.

In April, the Association of University Teachers became the latest in a line of academic bodies to announce action against Israel. It declared a boycott of two Israeli universities at the request of Palestinian leaders, but later changed its mind after widespread condemnation.

Dr Sacks said attempts to "silence and even ban" Jewish student groups were "quite extraordinary" because most of Britain's 350,000 Jews regarded themselves primarily as "British citizens".

He continued: "If, God forbid, one could imagine a world in which the state of Israel did not exist and, I repeat, God forbid, then not one of the world's conflicts would be changed by one millimetre - there would still be conflict in Chechnya, in Ossetia, in Indonesia, in the Philippines. So to make this [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict - where the two sides have worked now for 12 years in a process of peace - the epicentre of global politics is not merely wrong … but it is also quite troubling."

He said that while the Jewish experience in Britain was in general a "real cause for celebration", British Jews were experiencing a globalised anti-Semitism through satellite television, the internet and e-mail. He was also worried by the strength of anti-Jewish feeling in some European states including France.

"A number of my rabbinical colleagues throughout Europe have been assaulted and attacked on the streets. We've had synagogues desecrated. We've had Jewish schools burnt to the ground - not here but in France … So it's the kind of feeling that you don't know what's going to happen next, and that is making some European Jewish communities feel uncomfortable."

Dr Sacks, who was being interviewed to mark the 350th anniversary of the re-entry of Jews to England, said he hoped that the Jewish voice would become more "articulate" over the coming year.