Europe’s Anti-Semitism is Just Getting Uglier

The Daily Telegraph reports: When Luciana Berger, the Jewish mayoral hopeful for Liverpool, received the following message from John Nimmo on 8 July, “watch your back Jewish scum, regards your friend the Nazi”, followed by a warning that she’d “get it” like murdered MP Jo Cox, it was not quite water off a duck’s back.

Nimmo – who also abused feminist campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez and MP Stella Creasey – may have been more of a compulsive bullyer than a die-hard neo-Nazi, but the incident made Berger “feel physically sick” as well as highly anxious and distressed.

At the best of times, Jews generally don’t respond well to being told Hitler didn’t finish the job sufficiently. But Nimmo’s abuse must have felt like the last straw for Berger, who throughout her political career has dealt with a constant barrage of anti-semitic abuse.

Her offices in Liverpool and London have round the clock security.

Nobody faces abuse like a Jewish woman in the public eye. I found this out for myself some years ago when I was a dating columnist. In one light-hearted column I made mention of a trip to Tel Aviv, and the attractive men of the city. The next day I had an email from someone called Ibrahim X, who informed me I was a “Zionist slut” and that he’d “be coming after me, my family and all my loved ones”.

But while attacks on Jewish women have always reeked of sexualised hatred, the current plague transcends gender. Once the domain of the skinhead, European anti-Semitism has expanded its base to angry men across the spectrum, from Islamists to white supremacist to compulsive cyber bullyers to leftwing students.

Read more here.