But members of the Jewish community in Denmark and some leading Jewish advocates around the world rebuffed Netanyahu’s unabashed call on Sunday for Jews to leave Europe, which come as European leaders are trying to stand up to the increasingly visible face of anti-Semitism.
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Abe Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, which combats anti-Semitism around the world, called Netanyahu’s comments “ill-advised” in an interview on Monday.
“I think what he should be saying our arms are open to you whenever your want to come … I don’t think he should urge them,” Foxman said. “No, I don’t think we should so easily grant Hitler a posthumous victory.”
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It’s something French leaders have finally sought to address in the wake of the attacks in January, deploying soldiers to guard synagogues and Jewish institutions around France. And French Prime Minister Manuel Valls delivered a rousing address before Parliament where he rejected anti-Semitism and insisted that an attack on French Jews amounted to an attack on France and its core values.
But Harris and other Jewish advocacy leaders who spoke with CNN on Monday said European leaders will have to take serious action after this latest wake-up call in Denmark to protect Jews in Europe — and ensure they stay in Europe.
“I could write a book on our frustration in literally hundreds of meetings with European leaders who, however otherwise well intentioned, refused to grasp the problem staring them — the anti-Semitic problem staring them in the face,” Harris said. “They ducked it they avoided it … and now 15 years later the problem is so big and so deadly and so rooted that it’s going to take a lot more than one eloquent speech by a president or a prime minister.”
