LE PEN'S A FLUKE...LE PEN'S A FLUKE...LE PEN'S A FLUKE...LE PEN'S A FLUKE...:

The anguish of being Jewish in Britain today (Norman Lebrecht, This is London)

One of the most startling trends of recent months is not the flight from Israel by casual students and fainthearted friends, but the sustained numbers of young British Jews who are leaving to make their homes in Israel. Britain, to many of its Jewish citizens, no longer feels like home.

There's been a great deal of nonsensical commentary since Sunday about how little the success of Le Pen in the French elections means. There are a variety of motives behind the minimization of the Le Pen phenomenon : Francophilia, Europhilia, fear of honestly addressing the issues surrounding an aging native population and a burgeoning immigrant population; denial about human nature; etc.. The folks spinning these fanciful excuses are having to ignore mounting evidence of a virulent hatred of ethnic minorities throughout Europe. Mr. Lebrecht's essay is a chilling reminder that even in Britain the tension is mounting. Posted by Orrin Judd at April 23, 2002 9:35 AM