Willy, I'm afraid I don't know Antwerp very well, having only visited it once for a couple of hours a few years ago. I seem to remember that the Grote Markt was interesting.
It is, of course, true, that particular communities of ethnic and/or religious groups can have particular identifying characteristics. Checking Wikipedia, I read that the Jewish population is 20,000 (around 4%) and that the influence of Orthodox thinking is very strong in this community. This prevelance may have much to do with strong perceived support for the more hawkish opinions and actions in Israel. The Jews I know personally (while they are all supportive of Israel - and none of whom live in Germany) tend to be more left-leaning and critical of expansionism, west-bank settlement and militaristic solutions. That said, I haven't had any contact with them about the current action in Gaza. We should remain cautious of generalisations, particularly in relation to ethnic or national characteristics. For my part, I do NOT hold to the general viewpoint that all Belgians stink of pommes frites, even if I do remember eating some particularly good fries in Antwerp! ;-) Francis On 22 Jan., 21:23, "willy minnen" <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear Francis, as you know I am Flemish and worked a part of my life in > Germany too. If you read other replies I wrote on this subject, I mentioned > too that the atmosphere in the Jewish community is quite different in > Amsterdam, Paris or even Brussels than here in Antwerp. When I say 'They all > support the Israelian attacks' I mean: all those I know here. There is no > difference of opinion among them here, as I was told there is a lot of > difference in the Jewish communities in most of the towns in the States. > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: frantheman > To: "Minds Eye" > Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2009 8:06 PM > Subject: [Mind's Eye] Re: Gaza > > On 22 Jan., 19:29, "willy minnen" <[email protected]> > wrote: > > Thanks, gruff, even here it is dangerous to talk about them the same way > as > > about others. > > "them" ... This is a basic part of the problem and one of the roots of > anti-semitism, even if we are mostly unconscious of it. There is no > "them". There are orthodox Jews, secular Jews, atheistic Jews, Jews > who support everything Israel does, Jews who don't. There is the state > of Israel, which is a jewish state, whose doings and being-done-tos > are significant to those who live there and Jews all over the > world ... but which is, nevertheless, a particular problem. > > I am a non-German, living in Germany. Even here, where the horror of > the holocaust is consciously, chosenly, rightly present, as a > responsibility to the past, present and future (incidentally, making > the relationship between Germans and Jews endlessly uncomfortable and > the theme of Israel and its actions continually complex), I still > experience this "them" oozing out of the unconscious Christian/ > European rooted tradition. "They" are different. And the different is > strange, somehow untrustworthy. > > We have to move beyond "them". > > Francis --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Minds-Eye?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
