Spreading fires

France:

According to a report issued Monday, there were 1,564 attacks against Jews and Muslim[s] in 2004, 833 more than in 2003. Attacks were at their highest level since 1994.

French newspaper Liberation reports there were 970 attacks against Jews, as opposed to 601 in 2003.

970 of 1,564 is 62%, on a rather smaller population base. Le Monde says (in a report for which I've been unable to retrieve the link):

...l'anti-semitisme reste majoritaire par rapport aux autres formes de racisme...

(See also here, here and here.)

Then there's this from Germany:

In an exclusive interview on the fifth anniversary of his becoming head of Germany's Jewish community, [Paul] Spiegel said he entered office full of optimism five years ago.

"Now I have come to believe that you can do anything you want and you still achieve nothing"...

What he says has echoes in a wise article by Howard Jacobson, which is a year old but has only lately been drawn to my attention. Jacobson speaks of being filled, like other Jews of his acquaintance, 'with a deep philosophical despondency':

[It] is not, I grant you, the same as being frightened on the streets (which we are not). But the fires that begin in men's minds spread quickly and are not easily put out.

Read the rest. Most relevant to these despondent observations is the question of how many non-Jewish voices there are today within progressive European opinion speaking forthrightly about, and against, the resurgence of anti-Semitism.