"Never Again", means never again.
Posted on 06/14/2006 12:58:31 PM PDT by white trash redneck
When a wave of rioting erupted across France last fall, a Jewish youth group swung into action to guard synagogues and community centers from possible anti-Semitic spillover violence.
Many Jews feel that such a reflex is needed these days in France, home to the largest population of both Jews and Muslims in western Europe and sporadically simmering with tensions.
As Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was greeted with a red-carpet welcome in Paris on Wednesday, he faced a France where anti-Semitic attacks have tumbled from a high in 2004, despite several dramatic incidents. Olmert called President Jacques Chirac "one of the world's great fighters against anti-Semitism."
But others within the Jewish community also are keeping watch.
Formed in 2000, the Jewish Defense League - which has no ties to the U.S. Jewish Defense League - groups about 100 to 150 Jewish teens and young men to protect their community, experts say.
"Jews are fed up," said a league member named Maxime who refused to give his full name, saying he feared for his safety. "We've been nice for 30 years. Now, we gather and fight back."
Maxime, a 22-year-old waiter, admits his group is not afraid to take justice into its own hands if need be. He bragged about a 2003 incident in which a Jewish Defense League member beat up pro-Palestinian university students, injuring one.
"If a (Jewish) kid gets beaten up at school a few times, we go there and talk to the guy who beat him up," he said. "If he does it again, we go back and it's another story."
"Investigations are useless," Maxime said. "We're a second police."
Group members are unarmed but train in Krav-maga, a form of close combat developed by the predecessor of the Israeli Army. Apparently tolerated by authorities, they patrol Jewish neighborhoods such as Paris' Marais and keep watch in community centers and even synagogues to keep any subversives at bay.
Members wear scarves or masks but not uniforms and move quickly to protect Jewish sites when they feel it necessary, like during the riots that spread through poor French suburbs last fall.
Jean-Yves Camus, a researcher with the European Center of Research and Action on Racism and Anti-Semitism, said the group epitomizes a new generation of young Jews. "LDJ is the symbol of a generation that says: 'We won't bow our heads,"' Camus said in an interview.
Analysts say the anti-Semitism threat is evolving. For years, far-right groups were the greatest concern. Now, the epicenter of anti-Semitism is reported to be among immigrants from North Africa and their French-born children.
League leaders fault what they say is the powerlessness of mainstream associations in stemming the periodic waves of anti-Semitism.
Early this year, a young Jewish man was kidnapped, tortured and left for dead by a gang allegedly led by a man from Ivory Coast. Last month, a group of militant young black men who call themselves the Ka Tribe swarmed into Paris' Jewish quarter shouting anti-Semitic slogans and scrapping for a fight with league members.
Celine Ruimy, a 45-year-old housewife in the Jewish quarter, is glad the group exists.
"It's important to show that there are some things we can't accept and there are things we are not willing to live through again," she said.
Butcher shop owner Linda Saada, 47, agrees.
"I told my nephews, who are religious, to wear a cap instead of a kipah," she said. "I think it's more prudent," she said.
Roger Cukierman, who heads the umbrella Representative Council of Jewish Organizations in France, refused to comment on the Jewish Defense League.
It sounds like Rog (in the final paragraph) is one of the Jews who would march into the ovens rather than fight with the resistance in the ghettoes.
I'm glad this French JDL exists and it should be encouraged, but it is folly to expect a Jewish public figure who is considered to be a leader by the press to do the encouraging.
His refusal to comment should be interpreted as a refusal to condemn this group. Praising them outright is not a political possibility.
I wonder if CCW is possible in France..?
Gee, the last time this happened in France, the French government enthusiastically aided in the isolation, deportation and murder of the Jews. Then they used the government schools to falsify their genocidal history.
We need a charity that sends rifles to these folks.
Inform the Knesset and schedule a vote of no confidence; the man is obviously insane.
It's only in the movies that you can bring martial arts to a gunfight.
FRmail me to be added or removed from this Judaic/pro-Israel/Russian Jewry ping list.
Warning! This is a high-volume ping list.
Chains, knives and iron bars might help.
As the JDL said here: "Every Jew a .22."
You know and I know it proves him insane and worse. But the terrible truth is that the Knesset, and most of the people who voted them in, are no less insane.
Of course, since France bans the private ownership of firearms, these Jews will be ready to defend their neighborhoods with spitballs, rolling pins, and harsh language.
"Never Again", means never again.
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 •Jews For The Preservation Of Firearms Ownership• America's Most Aggressive Defender of Firearms Ownership. "To destroy 'gun control' and to encourage Americans to understand and defend all of the Bill of Rights for everyone." |
"The West has given more significance to the myth of the genocide of the Jews, even more significant than God, religion, and the prophets...."—Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
The Holocaust Chronicle ~
"Palestine is the wrong name for their State. It should be called Anarchy."—FReeper sgtbono2002
"Then let's wait and see what the Arabs do after they take Gaza. There's nothing like Arab reality to break up a Jewish fantasy."—FReeper Noachian
A student told his professor he was going to "Palestine" to "fight for freedom, peace and justice,"—Orwellian leftist code words that mean "murder Jews."
The Nature Of Bruce ~
Hunting bows with steel tipped arrows suitable for wild boars. After all, jihadists are swine..
Anti-Nazi partisans and guerillas in the woods were even better than resistance in the ghettoes, doing more damage and having a higher chance of surviving.
Though I think France's JDL and Betar should buy hunting rifles and shotguns and start stockpiling ammo. Better prepared and never have to use them than unprepared when you need them.
For a very few people, yes. I think its the same as Canada. Generally illegal, but exceptions can be, and are, made. Very few though. As far as I know, fewer than 100 civilians have CCW in Canada. Fewer than 50 perhaps.
Can you do that much with a .22? I prefered the "Keep Jews alive, with a .45".
;)
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