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Paris Attacks and Brussels Raids Prompt Belgium's Jews to Consider New Exodus

(Telegraph-UK) Matthew Holehouse - Betty Dan owes her life to a Belgian Catholic family who heroically sheltered her parents during the Nazi occupation. A former president of Belgium's Zionist association, Mrs. Dan helps organize property fairs for some of the 200 Belgians a year who move to Israel. Reluctantly, she is thinking of following them, as are many others. Since the Paris attacks, she has received telephone calls from people seeking information on moving at a rate of five a day, compared to one a week previously. "It is young people with children who sell their houses and leave everything. They are scared," said Mrs. Dan. "We don't feel safe." Last weekend, as troops in armored vans patroled the streets, Brussels' Grand Synagogue closed its doors for Shabbat for the first time since the Second World War. Avraham Guigui, the chief rabbi, told Israel Radio, "People realize there is no future for Jews in Europe." Belgian government figures recorded 130 reported anti-Semitic incidents last year, a 10-year high and a 50% increase on the year before. Rabbi Avi Tawil, director of the European Jewish Community Center in Brussels, said, "We see people are targeted for being Jewish in the streets all the time....I do hear around me this idea coming over and over: that we should not think of Brussels or Europe as a long-term strategy for our children."
2015-12-01 00:00:00
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