NEWS

The Week In News

Europe’s Jewish Numbers Fall 90%

A new study has found that Europe’s Jewish population is vanishing, with the total number of Jews on the continent falling to a low not seen for almost 1,000 years.

The findings are the result of a study commissioned by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR), which hired demographers Prof. Sergio Della Pergola and Dr. Daniel Staetsky to look at how many Jews remain in Europe. To reach their conclusions, the two academics studied population records and membership data in Jewish communities in Europe, the United Kingdom, Turkey, and Russia.

According to the study, only 1.3 million Jews currently reside in Europe, a 60% drop over the past 50 years and the lowest number in 1,000 years. While 88% of world Jewry lived in Europe by the end of the 19th century, today the number has dwindled to 9% in what the demographers say is an “unprecedented” decrease.

The decline is particularly dramatic in France, which long was home to Europe’s largest Jewish population. Rising anti-Semitism and terrorism in the country have led 51,000 Jews to immigrate to Israel since 2000, leading France to be overtaken by Canada as home to the world’s second-largest Diaspora population.

“Jews in Europe had grown to constitute 83 percent of world Jewry in 1900. They now account for merely 9 percent of the total number of Jews worldwide,” wrote the authors. “The proportion of Jews residing in Europe [in 2020] is about the same as it was at the time of the first Jewish global population account conducted by Benjamin of Tudela, a Jewish medieval traveler, in 1170.”

The researchers listed a number of factors to explain the drop-off, including the six million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust. Another reason cited is the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, which resulted in 1.5 million Jews immigrating to Israel and the United States.

Adding to the continent’s demographic downfall is the soaring intermarriage rate in western European countries such as Britain and the UK. With assimilation in the aforementioned states now above 50%, hundreds of thousands of Jews have been lost in what Jewish leaders call a “silent” or “second Holocaust.”

Mass Protests in Thailand

Tens of thousands of demonstrators flooded Bangkok on Sunday after Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha refused to step down.

The protests took place in Bangkok’s central shopping district and were the first demonstrations since Prayuth removed the emergency measures banning demonstrations on October 15. During the rally, speakers called on Prayuth to step down and for Thailand to adopt a more democratic constitution.

“If he doesn’t resign, then we must come out to ask him to quit in a peaceful way,” said rally leader Jatupat “Pai” Boonpattararaksa.

The protests calling on Prime Minister Prayuth to step down first exploded over the summer, leading the unpopular leader to pass emergency regulations banning demonstrations. Protesters allege that Prayuth, a former army chief of staff who led a coup in 2014, was illegitimately elected last year because laws had been changed to favor a pro-military party.

The premier has refused to resign despite the mounting protests and has committed to only discussing the matter in parliament.

“The only way to a lasting solution for all sides that is fair for those on the streets as well as for the many millions who choose not to go on the streets is to discuss and resolve these differences through the parliamentary process,” said Prayuth.

Other demands on behalf of the protesters include reforming the Thai monarchy to limit its power and immunity from the law. The demand is virtually unprecedented and breaks a longtime taboo against criticizing the royal family.

Public anger against the monarchy’s power has increased due to the provocative behavior of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who is currently widely unpopular due to the explosion of his personal wealth since taking over for his father. The king has also come under withering criticism for intervening in Thai political affairs, breaking tradition that kept the royal family out of governmental matters.

“Such open criticism of Thailand’s monarch by non-elites at a public place within Thailand with the police simply standing by is the first of its kind in Thai history,” noted Paul Rogers, a southeast Asia expert who teaches at Thailand’s Naresuan University.

UN Anti-Nuke Treaty Ratified

An international treaty banning the use of nuclear weapons will now come into force after getting the necessary 50 countries to ratify the agreement.

The milestone was reached on Saturday when Honduras became the 50th UN member state to approve the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). As per the UN’s bylaws, international treaties need at least 50 countries to ratify it for it to become law.

The TPNW will now take effect within the next 90 days. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres hailed the news, calling “the culmination of a worldwide movement to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons.”

Guterres added that the treaty “represents a meaningful commitment towards the total elimination of nuclear weapons, which remains the highest disarmament priority of the United Nations.”

The treaty, which bans the manufacture and usage of nuclear weapons, had been passed in 2017 with the approval of 122 countries. However, it has been strongly opposed by virtually all of the world nuclear powers, including the U.S., UK, Russia, China, and India.

The United States had fired off missives to all of the Treaty’s signatories imploring them to reverse the “strategic error” and reminding them that the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France “stand unified in our opposition to the potential repercussions.”

Japan, which remains the only country to ever be the recipient of a nuclear attack, voted against the treaty out of consideration of its deep security ties with the U.S. The decision not to ratify the treaty was controversial in Japan, which still bears the scars of the two atomic bombs the United States dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

Despite the opposition of the world’s major powers, proponents of the treaty hailed its ratification as an important step in preventing the future use of the terrifying weapons.

“This moment has been 75 years coming since the horrific attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the founding of the UN, which made nuclear disarmament a cornerstone,” said Beatrice Fihn, who directs the Nobel Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. “The 50 countries that ratify this Treaty are showing true leadership in setting a new international norm that nuclear weapons are not just immoral but illegal.”

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