If you are Jewish, would you move to Europe right now?
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Anonymous
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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? |
Anonymous
| I would go. |
Anonymous
| 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. |
Anonymous
| Absolutely not. Sorry OP. |
Anonymous
| I live in Europe, not France, but the UK. I would go in a heartbeat. There is no palpable sentiment on the streets and I'm guessing you'd be a highly paid executive anyway. |
Anonymous
This was my first thought. Are you Orthodox and dress differently? |
Anonymous
| OP, maybe you could reach out to some Jewish communities in Paris and ask them about the situation there. I am sure the communities there would be happy to share their experiences. |
Anonymous
Talk to some Jewish friends who have been to France recently. As far as I have seen Europe is much less religion-conscious than the US. How "Jewish" are you? In Europe, generally speaking, religion is much more understated than it is here. Don't make a point of it and no one else will either. Can you identify other jews in your company in France? If so, ask them - and don't be surprised if they don't get your concerns. |
Anonymous
That's BS in 99% of the areas you'd ever visit in Europe -- much safer than hard-core ghettos here, Jew or not |
Anonymous
| I am not Jewish but have a really good friend who is and she and her husband look Jewish as does her D who left to go there a few days for a study abroad program and we had this conversation and its a very real issue. She is actually quite concerned and was thinking about having her D come home but her husband thinks she is overreacting as do I. However the antisemitism is startling and concerning. |
Anonymous
Some people look obviously Jewish, Barbara Streisand, Steven Spielberg, David Brenner, etc...... |
Anonymous
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. |
Anonymous
| No not really Barbara Streisand, Howie Mandel and Steven Spielberg hardly look Arab...nice try |
Anonymous
| Yes, I would go. Not going is giving in to fear. |
Anonymous
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I've lived in Europe for a decade, and I have friends here who are Jewish, and have also worked with Jewish colleagues in the other two European countries I lived in before my current post. You will be fine. You should definitely go!
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