The Strasbourg synagogue was built in the heart of the city in the 1950s to replace the old building on the Quai Kléber, sacked and burned by the Germans in 1940. On its monumental door is engraved this quote from Zechariah's book: “Stronger than the sword be my spirit." But that of Harold Abraham Weill, chief rabbi, is not the first tragedy: “When you have suffered other attacks, you don't react like everyone else; you feel a form of déjà vu that invades you", says the rabbi who comes from Toulouse, present during the murders perpetrated by Mohamed Merah at the Ozar Hatorah school, which left four children and a teacher killed in March 2012.
The environmentalist mayor of Strasbourg , Jeanne Barseghian, removed the Israeli flag from the facade of the city hall after October 7, thirty-six hours after having raised it.
Just read a thrilling investigation by Le Figaro:
Yaël*, 31, is still in shock over what her hairdresser said on November 9, in Gagny, Seine-Saint-Denis: “You're Jewish, so I won't do your hair”.
A few days after the Hamas attack, a family from Tel Aviv, LeCanard enchaine revealed, was turned away at Orly airport by a taxi driver. “Dirty Jew! If I had caught you, I would have massacred you, your wife and your children”.
Leon de Winter is one of the best-known Dutch authors living in Amsterdam, whose parents survived the Holocaust in hiding. De Winter, 69, just said that European Jews will disappear by 2050.
“I think Jewish life in Europe will be a thing of the past by 2050,” says de Winter. “There is no future for them here and their desperate love for the old and beloved continent will die. This is inevitable. But even I, a pessimistic realist, did not foresee that the situation would get out of hand so quickly in so many cities. I did not expect. It's happening very quickly. Europe will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz."
Country by country, the numbers are collapsing.
France. Since 1972, 106,000 French Jews have left for Israel. A quarter of the total Jewish population. In 2021, 3,500 French Jews emigrated to Israel (not counting those who left for other countries). At an average of 3,500 Jews per year, another 100,000 Jews will disappear in less than a generation.
Norway. “Norway risks becoming a country without a Jewish population,” reads an editorial in Aftenposten.
Denmark. The Jewish community has lost 25 percent of its members in the last 15 years.
Belgium. Joël Rubinfeld, president of the Ligue belge contre l'antisémitisme, reveals to Paris Match that "there is a good chance, in twenty years, of ending up with a jüdenrein Belgium".
Holland. 7,000 Jews have left for Israel.
England. A recent survey reveals that half of Jews are thinking of leaving the United Kingdom. Samuel Hayek, president of the Jewish National Fund, shocked England: “Jews have no future in the United Kingdom,” said Hayek, who has lived in the United Kingdom for 40 years and is one of the country's most famous philanthropists. England's Muslim population could triple in the next twenty years and reach 13 million by 2050.
But to understand and see the future of that Europe you have to go to Bobigny, just 9 kilometers from the center of Paris. Bobigny is the municipality from which trains left for Auschwitz and where today the former station has been transformed into a Holocaust memorial. The Journal du dimanche reports that the Islamic mayor (yes, an Islamic mayor), Abdel Sadi, organized a conference against Israel.
The investigation by journalist Eva Szeftel, entitled “The Mayor and the Barbarians”, recounts the conquest of the city. "I have witnessed an increasingly marked presence of political Islam. Municipal politics has favored the creation of an Islamic ecosystem. A sports hall with separate opening hours for men and women, subsidized by the municipality, has been opened in the center of the city. It is a Koranic school was installed, inaugurated by the town hall. A Muslim elected official had the bad idea of smoking a cigarette during Ramadan on the town hall square. They told him that one should not smoke during Ramadan. It is a city where it is increasingly it is difficult to drink alcohol. In Bobigny the Islamists are in power". Clandestine Islamic schools have been closed by the police. There were veiled girls as young as 3. 30 percent of the population is Muslim.
In the Europe to come, very few Jews will remain, there will be a lot of Islam and few but strong remnants of Christianity that have escaped this chaos that is engulfing the West.
Giulio Meottiis an Italian journalist with Il Foglio and writes a twice-weekly column for Arutz Sheva. He is the author of 20 books, including "A New Shoah", that researched the personal stories of Israel's terror victims, published by Encounter. His writing has appeared in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Gatestone Institute and Die Weltwoche. He is also a Middle East Forum Writing Fellow.