Article #1:

Anti-Semitism spiking around world, State Department

special envoy says
Authors:
Fontaine, Tom
Source:
Pittsburgh Tribune Review (PA). 09/05/2014.
Document Type:
Article
Accession Number:
2W61929234027

Anti-Semitism spiking around world, State Department special

envoy says
Tom Fontaine
Sept. 05--A senior State Department official said rising hostility and prejudice against Jews is reaching levels not
seen in decades, particularly in Europe.
"We're going to combat anti-Semitism, but we're not going to solve the problem. We can't turn the faucet off. It's
been running for 2,300 years. But maybe we can turn it down," said Ira N. Forman, the State Department's special
envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism.
Forman, who met on Thursday with Tribune-Review reporters, has been in the post for 15 months. Violence in Gaza
since July has caused anti-Semitic tensions to spike, with mass demonstrations in European capitals, firebombings
of synagogues, attacks on Jews and destruction of Jewish-owned businesses. But anti-Semitism was on the rise
before the latest round of violence, he said.
Forman cited data from the end of last year showing that 29 percent of European Jews polled said they had
considered leaving their countries because of perceived anti-Semitism, with the totals reaching 40 percent in
Belgium, 46 percent in France and 48 percent in Hungary.
In places such as France, there is tension between Jews and parts of a growing Muslim population.
In Hungary, Muslims are almost nonexistent -- they make up just 0.3 percent of the nation's population, compared
with nearly 5 percent in the United Kingdom and 7.5 percent in France, Pew Research Center data show.
In Hungary and Greece, Forman said, political parties with significant parliamentary representation are "openly and
brazenly anti-Semitic and have street militias to deal with opponents." That's something, he said, that the world has
not seen since National Socialism, or Nazism, came to power in Germany in the 1930s.
"It's not the 1930s again, but it is a multifaceted, complex problem that has clearly spiked and that leads us at the
State Department to worry," Forman said, describing opposing anti-Semitism as part of U.S. foreign policy. He said
his office is working with government and religious leaders, nongovernmental organizations and others in dozens of
countries to combat the problem.
It's a problem that hasn't reached such proportions here, according to a local expert on anti-Semitism.

"There is strong interreligious dialogue in the United States," said Seymour Drescher, a distinguished professor of
history at the University of Pittsburgh.
Drescher recalled seeing a protest of the Gaza violence this summer outside the Jewish Community Center in
Squirrel Hill that involved 50 to 60 people.
"There was not even violent verbal language, just people sharing their beliefs. I'd say that's a good thing," Drescher
said.