If you are Jewish, would you move to Europe right now?

[Anonymous]

You are looking for an excuse not to go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm Jewish. I have a promotion opportunity to move to Paris with my company. The job is in the suburbs. There aren't many Jews at my company and I know nobody in the area.

With the rising antisemitism in Europe, is this a bad and dangerous idea?

Part of me is like "how cool to live abroad and expose my young children to French. My DH would be a stay at home dad for a year". The other part of me really doesn't want to put myself in a situation where we would be singled out due to religion. Our families had a hard enough time surviving WW2...

In the DC area, I don't think twice about religion or discrimination. I did have a bad experience as a young 20-something living in a different part of the country where there were very few Jews. A broken window, threats and racial slurs that I swear haven't been in the everyday vocabulary since the early 1950s (this was 15 yrs ago). So I picked up and moved to DC...

All other factors aside, WWYD?

OP, in your case, given your self-evident ignorance, I wouldn't move. Stay happy and safe in your block, and avoid potential anxiety attacks

[Anonymous]

I don't think that OP is wrong to think about this. I am Jewish and years ago I would have jumped at the opportunity to work in France. However, now I would have the same concerns that Op has. I do not think that she is looking for an excuse not to go. The antisemitism is real. If I were the op, I would try to connect with some real experts on the subject. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:How would anyone know you are Jewish? If someone targeted me because they followed me home from shul, I would be at CDG coming home immediately. But otherwise, I would go.

Some people look obviously Jewish, Barbara Streisand, Steven Spielberg, David Brenner, etc......

When you talk about someone who looks "obviously" Jewish, know that these features are very similar to Arab features. Jews and Arabs look the same.

No they don't?? Arabs look completely different. Jews inter married for centuries and do have a distinctive look. But it's not Arabic.

They do. Cultural, national, and religious differences contribute to some differences in appearance, like how they do make-up, what clothes they wear, etc, but they are genetically very similar. And if you can strip away things like hair styles, etc., they look very similar. Especially Palestinians and Lebanese Arabs. If I didn't know who Amal Clooney was, and I passed her on the street, I'd think she was Jewish.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2000/10/jews-and-arabs-share-recent-ancestry

[Anonymous]

No way. I wouldn't go. Ask why the position is available, probably the prior employee moved to Israel or the US for safety.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How would anyone know you are Jewish? If someone targeted me because they followed me home from shul, I would be at CDG coming home immediately. But otherwise, I would go.

Some people look obviously Jewish, Barbara Streisand, Steven Spielberg, David Brenner, etc......

When you talk about someone who looks "obviously" Jewish, know that these features are very similar to Arab features. Jews and Arabs look the same.

No they don't?? Arabs look completely different. Jews inter married for centuries and do have a distinctive look. But it's not Arabic.

They look just like the Syrian refugees. Put a picture of Streisand or Spielberg next to Syrian President Assad and notice similarities.

I agree that Assad looks very white but the vast majority of Syrian refugees do not look like him.

Jerry Seinfeld's grandmother is Syrian.

[Anonymous]

There was a story on cnn a couple days ago. "Jews leave France in record numbers" You can google it.