Despite Lingering Anti-Semitism, Slovakia Is a Safe Haven for Jews

Dec. 19 2024

Reflecting on his visit to Slovakia, where he spent time in the town where his family were once prominent resident, and spoke with numerous officials and ordinary people, Michael Pinto-Duschinsky considers the country’s past and its attitudes toward Jews:

Compared with nearby Vienna, I was told by an authoritative figure in Bratislava, Slovakia is a safe haven [for Jews]. There are few Jews and few Muslims. However, as another equally qualified personality pointed out, this does not mean that below-the-surface anti-Semitism has disappeared.

A first cause of uncertainty is the continuing defense by some traditionalist Slovak Catholic clerics and others of the reputation of Father Jozef Tiso, Slovakia’s most senior perpetrator during the Second World War. Tiso was responsible for extreme anti-Jewish laws, for the “Aryanization” [i.e., plunder] of Jewish property, for widespread Jewish impoverishment followed by expulsion of most of the country’s Jews to Nazi death camps. Yet there has emerged a whole literature of excuses for him.

These worrying attitudes are accompanied, I was told, by unfavorable perceptions of Jews. Maybe. But I was far more struck, probably because of the people I met, by a surprising and highly gratifying degree of philo-Semitism. A heartening number of groups in Slovakia have a strong sense of responsibility to preserve and celebrate the memory of the country’s lost Jewish life. This gives us [Jews] good reason to reciprocate.

Read more at Jewish Chronicle

More about: Anti-Semitism, Holocaust, Philo-Semitism, Slovakia

American Middle East Policy Should Focus Less on Stability and More on Weakening Enemies

Feb. 10 2025

To Elliott Abrams, Donald Trump’s plan to remove the entire population of Gaza while the Strip is rebuilt is “unworkable,” at least “as a concrete proposal.” But it is welcome insofar as “its sheer iconoclasm might lead to a healthy rethinking of U.S. strategy and perhaps of Arab and Israeli policies as well.” The U.S., writes Abrams, must not only move beyond the failed approach to Gaza, but also must reject other assumptions that have failed time and again. One is the commitment to an illusory stability:

For two decades, what American policymakers have called “stability” has meant the preservation of the situation in which Gaza was entirely under Hamas control, Hizballah dominated Lebanon, and Iran’s nuclear program advanced. A better term for that situation would have been “erosion,” as U.S. influence steadily slipped away and Washington’s allies became less secure. Now, the United States has a chance to stop that process and aim instead for “reinforcement”: bolstering its interests and allies and actively weakening its adversaries. The result would be a region where threats diminish and U.S. alliances grow stronger.

Such an approach must be applied above all to the greatest threat in today’s Middle East, that of a nuclear Iran:

Trump clearly remains open to the possibility (however small) that an aging [Iranian supreme leader Ali] Khamenei, after witnessing the collapse of [his regional proxies], mulling the possibility of brutal economic sanctions, and being fully aware of the restiveness of his own population, would accept an agreement that stops the nuclear-weapons program and halts payments and arms shipments to Iran’s proxies. But Trump should be equally aware of the trap Khamenei might be setting for him: a phony new negotiation meant to ensnare Washington in talks for years, with Tehran’s negotiators leading Trump on with the mirage of a successful deal and a Nobel Peace Prize at the end of the road while the Iranian nuclear-weapons program grows in the shadows.

Read more at Foreign Affairs

More about: Iran, Middle East, U.S. Foreign policy