My father was offered the Head Rabbi position in Brussels when I was 10. At the time, my family and I were living in Norfolk, VA, a very Southern city with a lot of Jews who well, didn't want to be Jews. The only religious teasing and cajoling I ever suffered was at the hands of the other Jewish kids and their parents. So at the time, Brussels didn't seem so bad. Then my parents came home from the week-long interview in Belgium and nixed the idea. They said it was too much like a museum to Judaism. Now it sounds like a fortress. We moved to New York in 1981 and were much better off, (but Far Rockaway was kind of a fortress too at that time... but at least we had kosher pizza!)

I was attacked in Belgium.

This is just shameful.

Robert, this will sound funny, but when I think of Belgium, all that comes to mind is the movie from the '60's: "If it's Tuesday, It Must be Belgium". I ignorantly didn't know any of what you write about here. Truly sickening.

Jake:

Fortress Belgium is correct and probably represents all of Europe. Your father is a wise man, which we already know.

It's time for: Jake's Top 10 Reasons Not to Move to Belgium!

Dovid:

We hope you have recovered. Who attacked you?

In the Congo, when the natives did not work hard enough the Belgium overseers would chop off their right hands and pile them in baskets, put them on display in the villages.

Jack:

Shameful indeed.

And let us not forget that it was Belgium agents who assasinated Patrice Lumumba, not CIA agents.

No, cute little Belgium has much to answer for, but they cover their considerable crimes with a veneer of arrogant piety.

Randi:

Gee willikers, now that was a lousy film.

In yeshiva we were always taught that there was no shame in not knowing; the only shame lay in not admitting that you did not know.

Welcome to yeshiva Randi. Babke is allowed in this classroom.

Jake: Such rich and instructive recollections.

Robert: The image of six *Jewish* soldiers first leaped to mind while reading your description of the synagogue's guard detail. But that's because I'm attuned to your edifying fiction.

Ari M.: Thanks for the front-line reporting!

to "Joe Co": It's important we stake a conservative claim on you. Postmodernist postcolonialists sure don't hesitate to do so (e.g., Edward Said wrote his doctoral thesis on you). We know you knew that the great mysteries properly belong with their origins: in art (and, though I don't think you were religious, in religion) - not in mystifying academic pursuits. We know that, even though you are hardly a friend to us, you too had to quit the East European sinkhole before settling in a free, liberal land where you could make your best contribution to posterity. Amen, brother.

Jeremiah:

As always, right on target.

Robert: You teach me how to aim.

Actually the business with the severed hands in the Congo was even nastier than that. The Belgian employees who enforced the slave economy there were required to bring back one severed human hand for each bullet they were issued with - this was to demonstrate that they were doing their job and not using the bullets to hunt for animals.

I agree that Parkenham's The Scramble for Africa is a very good read, but people who just want to read about the ghastly Belgium business in the Congo might want to try this book (King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild instead. It's not nearly as good a book, but it just gives the story of Leopold and his men in the Congo, rather than a comprehensive history of Africa colonialism.

Oddly, the most visible Jewish community I have seen in Europe was actually in Belgium. The diamond trade in Antwerp (which is enormous) is run by Hasidic Jews (who for obvious reasons do tend to stand out), and there is a large Jewish quarter of town behind the main railway station. Jews in this part of town seem to go about their business without too much difficulty, or at least they did when I visited a couple of years back. Which is no more than one isolated observation, of course.

Michael:

Thanks so much. I can always count on you to add, illuminate and correct.

I have not read Hochschild's book so I am not comfortable recommending it, though I hear it is excellent.

Packenham's book is good because it shows the whole colonial enterprise with Belgium being the absolute most bestial of all the European powers. And England probably the most enlightened.

And America nowhere in sight.

The Hasidim in Belgium are quickly slowly being edged out by Indians in the diamond trade. And Muslim thugs have obviously made it quite dangerous for Jews in Belgium as in all of Europe.

In a few years, there won't be any more Jews left in Brussels.

In a decade Europe will be Judenrein, and probably under intolerant antiSemitic Islamic rule. The beginning of the end of western European civilization.

The final fight will be in Israel and America.

Just in from the Zionist French-language blog Balagan (http://balagan.blog-city.com/):

1. In the aftermath of the Halimi butchery, there is now an online petition calling for our Congress to offer asylum to French Jews. I'm not familiar with all its details, but it's available here:
http://www.petitiononline.com/ID22206/petition.html

2. According to a short article in today's French newspaper "Liberation", LA-based rabbi Nachum Kosofski is part of this effort, along with Judea Pearl, father of Daniel. Intones the elder Pearl - who, G-d knows, is paying his patriarchal dues:

"Let us not remain silent around your grave, Ilan, no rest ... until the racist climate of your murder be judged in the court of history."

(Also of interest: http://www.danielpearl.org/)

Jeremiah:

Thanks so much. Yes, France is pretty much finished for the Jews.

And if the French don't know it, for all French who are not Muslim Jihadists.

Yes, the French have handed over their country to the Muslim tyrants, just as they handed it over to the Nazi tyrants.

Practice makes perfect.

My goodness! I knew that things are pretty bad in Europe, but I had no idea it was THAT bad! And as for colonialism, I've always assumed that France was the worst of them all, but I guess I was wrong... Now, why don't I ever hear of the non-fiction books you recommend in college?!

Irina:

In college they want you to believe that America is a great blot on humanity. The truth is that if not for America, the world would descend into darkness for Europe has no moral backbone whatsoever. The books we mention will not be on your syllabus because they portray Europe for what she has always been: Imperialistic, and cruel. Though in varying degress.

Again, England always had a policy of being as hands-off as possible, and she was a genius at building solid infrastructures in her colonies. She generously spread Christianity, commerce, and civilization.

France was not as wise, she spread Francais, which is okay as far as it goes. She still has her hands in Africa.

Germany was mean and vicious, but very efficient. She built great railways.

Belgium, just a bunch of butchers who did not even build a decent infrastructure. Pigs.

There is a reason six million Jews were turned into ashes so easily in Europe during WWII, Irina. And the Muslims flooding Europe now are building on that fine cultural tradition which now translates into "anti-Zionism." An accepted way of hating Jews.

Graduate college, and then forget most of what you have learned. It is rubbish being taught by what Lenin called: "Useful idiots."

I have been away since Sunday and when I got home and turned on my computer the first thing i did, even before checking my email was catch up on Seraphic Secret.

Purim brought me mixed emotions.
I was happy to know that I could go almost any where in the world and find a Jewish community and a warm one at that, yet I was sad to see how these people who was so nice to me, who welcomed me to their schull and when they saw me sitting in the back row insisted that I move forward to feel as though I was part of their community, did not enjoy the same level of freedom that I take for granted.

Let us all remember how lucky we are to live in a country where our schulls can proudly announce that they are Jewish houses of worship, where the men can walk around with kippot, and a family can walk into a kosher deli with a neon sign that works from time to time and says "KOSHER" in big letters.

This country may not be perfect but when was the last time you walked past a building and did not know that it was a schull inside? When was the last time you saw 6 police officers protecting a schull? When was the last time you felt that it was dangerous to display a kippa on your head?

You don’t know how happy I was to hear these 4 words this afternoon from the customs officer after I landed "welcome home Mr. Miller".

Ari:

Welcome back!

First: we missed you at the wedding! But I'll show you the DVD.

Second: Thanks so much for the front-line report, as you can see, it generated many valuable comments.

Third: Well, welcome back again! Isn't America great?!

You know about King Leopold's Congo?! Wow, someone in Hollywood who remembers what even history profs overlook. I am very, very, impressed.

As I understand the Belgian situation, the Walloons and the Flemish despise each other so much that they accepted the Muslim flood as an intermediary. So Belgium is a special case.

Yet is there nothing you can do as a screenwriter to protest the colonization and dhimmification of Europe?

...

I picked Bourbon as my Purim poison-of-choice this year. The 1792 was my favorite - as smooth as Tennessee whiskey but more flavorful. And yourself?

Solomon:

You are talking to a man who is obsessed with human evil. Take a look at my desk, my night table, it's a frightening mountain of information devoted to war and conflagration. At the moment I'm reading about a dozen books simultaneously and they are:

1. Two books on Eritrea. By Michaela Wrong. This woman knows more about Eritrea than anybody else on planet earth. And none of it is nice. Just one killing ground after another.
2. The Malayan Emergency 1948-1960. Where the British beat the Communist insurgents. Lots to learn here.
3. Sierra Leone. What a hell hole.
4. The British in Aden. Gosh, they were (are?) great soldiers. Especially in the desert.
5. "King Leopold's Ghost," suggested by our really smart commenter Michael Jennings. The definitive account of the crimes of the monstrous Belgium Congo.
6. Billy Waugh on hunting Carlos the Jackal
7. Various military journals researching: why female terrorists are more dangerous than male terrorists for a future blog tentatively titled: "Shoot The Feminist Terrorist First." Catchy title, huh?
8. "Small Wars" by EF Calwell. The first and best manual on anti-insurgency warfare, written by a brilliant British officer who served in many of Britians splendid little colonial wars.
9. "Savage Wars of Peace" by Max Boot. Small Wars and the rsie of American power. Required reading for any understanding of where America stands today.
10. "Arabs at War" Military Effectiveness, 1948-1991 by Kenneth M. Pollack. This is fascinating. The first overview of six Arab armies by a first rate analyst using declassified documents.

No wonder I can't sleep at night. I'm surrounded by really wild things.

No, there is nothing I can do as a screenwriter. Zero. That is why I write a blog.

For Purim, I drank a smooth-as-silk "Gerolsteiner," 1793. I bribed the kid in Trader Joe's to get it for me from the back room. L'chaim!

As a screenwriter, you cannot write a suitably morbid screenplay and successfully shop it around Hollywood?

I note that your reading list isn't leavened by any writings of protagonists from the other side of the conflicts. So you're not doing it for work, but just for yourself? And I thought I was bad. (Tip: when I want to read something cheery, I reach for junk mail catalogues.)

I suspect drinking too much of the Gerolsteiner can make one delirious: not from drunkenness, of course, but kidney stones. I'll stick to bourbon.

OK, I read your Frontpage article and I understand a bit better now.

Belgian Congo was so bad people even fled to German colonies nearby...

The German government (before the First World War) even complained to its Belgian counterpart about the treatment of African natives. True, this wasn't the Germany of the Nazis, but I think you get the idea.

Antoine:

Good to hear from one of the smartest people I know.

According to Adam Hochschild's "King Leopold's Ghost" which I finally read a few days ago, 4-6 million Africans were murdered by the Belgians in the Congo.

This is, by any measure, a Holocaust.