Is It all Doom and Gloom for Jews in Europe? Student Leaders say No

Alongside the rise of xenophobic political parties and anti-Semitic incidents, there are signs of Jewish unity and revival

By Vox Tablet — May 30, 2014

Last weekend brought bad news from Europe: Far right parties in France, Denmark, Austria and elsewhere won big in the European Parliamentary elections. And in Brussels, four people died after a shooting at the city’s Jewish Museum. The attack came in a spring punctuated by anti-Semitic violence in France, the U.K., and elsewhere. All of these incidents have elicited the question: Is it time for Jews to leave Europe?

To find out if things are as hostile for Jews in Europe as they seem from the vantage point of U.S. shores, Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry speaks with two young European Jewish leaders. Andi Gergely grew up in Hungary and is the chairperson of theWorld Union of Jewish Students. Though now based in Israel, Gergely travels to Europe frequently and has family there still. Jane Braden-Golay, raised in Switzerland and now based in Brussels, is the president of the European Union of Jewish Students.

Gergely and Braden-Golay discuss the reaction among Jewish student leaders in Europe to recent events there, their own Jewish upbringings in Switzerland and Hungary, and how statistics about violence and elections fail to tell the whole—much more uplifting—story about being Jewish in Europe today.