There is an article in the latest Standpoint with the interesting title, Are we learning the right lessons from the Holocaust?. This discussion is based on the author’s reflections on an exhibition dedicated to Anne Frank:

Many believe that the holocaust teaches modern societies the need for racial tolerance, to stand up for the persecuted, and so on. The protagonists of this view vary enormously in their politics and prescriptions. They range from those who see, not unreasonably, a mortal threat to Jewry in the paranoid anti-Semitic worldview of a nuclear-armed Iranian leadership, to those who, less reasonably, accuse Israel of perpetrating genocide against the Palestinians.

He describes the basis of this “Anne Frank” exhibition in this way:

The thrust of the exhibition – as indicated by its inclusion of ‘and you’ – is to demonstrate how Anne Frank’s story transcends the specificity of time and place to embrace the cause of all humanity. It does so by reminding us of the number of genocides that have happened since the holocaust, including Briafra, Cambodia, Sudan (on many occasions), Bosnia, Kosovo, among others. It also laments the prevalence of ethnic and cultural prejudice occurring even in advanced western societies. The exhibition features panels on the experiences of black people and homosexuals.

The interesting part of all this he notices is that amongst this homily to tolerance, the fact that Anne Frank was murdered because she was a Jew has tended to be read out of the story. His conclusion:

Sadly, modern anti-Semitism is not a negation of multi-culturalism, but in some respects a result of it.Perhaps the only occasion when the extreme right and extreme left sit down together in harmony is when they combine to descry the power of international Jewry (sometimes thinly disguised as ‘Zionism’). Here, diversity is not the solution, but part of the problem, because an extreme desire to respect it often means tolerating extreme intolerance. The exhibition could easily have ended with a poster containing portraits of the white extreme right-wing politician Jean Marie le Pen, the black comedian Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala, an Iranian Mullahs, and assorted other extremists, with the question: “Which one of these is an anti-Semite?” Answer: “All of them.”

Hatred of Jews has returned in some parts of the world to a similar intensity as in pre-World War II Central and Eastern Europe and in other parts has become as bad as it has ever been. What to make of this latest turn of events, Jews ‘ordered to register and list property’ in east Ukraine city of Donetsk where pro-Russian militants have taken over government buildings:

Jews have reportedly been told to ‘register’ with pro-Russian forces in the east Ukrainian city of Donetsk.

They were also told they would need to provide a list of property they own as well as being ordered to pay a fee or face the threat of deportation.

U.S. officials in Washington say leaflets bearing the chilling order have recently appeared in the city amid pro and anti-Russian protests as tensions rise in the area.

It comes after Jews leaving a synagogue in the city of Donetsk were reportedly told they had to ‘register’ with Ukranians trying to make the city part of Russia.