The "Wandering People" Returning to Israel / Social Media-Powered Hate

Mark Lewis and Mandy Blumenthal in an interview with the BBC. (Screen capture: YouTube)

“A top British lawyer and his partner immigrated to Israel this week, citing rising anti-Semitism in Europe. ‘Europe in my view is finished. Every day you see people being attacked in one way or another across Europe,’ Mark Lewis told Israel’s Channel 10 news, which accompanied his arrival, together with partner Mandy Blumenthal, at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport. ‘You see people murdered in museums in Belgium, people murdered in schools in France, people attacked in England. There is only one place for Jewish people to go,’ Lewis added. Lewis, 54, one of the UK’s leading libel lawyers, said he has been increasingly subjected to hate speech and threats for being Jewish, including being subjected to regular abuse and death threats online. The decision to leave Britain did not come easily, the couple has said, but they feel it was inevitable. ‘We’re a wandering people, and it’s time to wander again. People just don’t want to see it,’ Lewis said of his fellow British Jews. Lewis said while anti-Semitism was a fringe phenomenon in the past, it is has become more prominent due to social media. ‘Social media has caused so much harm,’ he said. ‘Fifteen years ago there was still anti-Semitism but it was an obscure thing. Fifteen years ago somebody painted a swastika on my garage door in Manchester, that was a message. But it was a one-off, it was something you could almost laugh off. Now with the effect of social media, it’s almost every day.’”

​“Europe Is Finished,” Times of Israel, Dec. 6, 2018

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