Last year, an essay by Michel Garfinkel, "You Only Live Twice," argued that Jews experienced a Golden Age in Western Europe during the years after World War II, but that "since 2000, 7,650 anti-Semitic incidents have been reliably reported to the Jewish Community Security Service and the French ministry of the interior; this figure omits incidents known to have occurred but unreported to the police. The incidents range from hate speech, anti-Semitic graffiti, and verbal threats to defacement of synagogues and other Jewish buildings, to acts of violence and terror including arson, bombings, and murder." He quotes a French Jew of Moroccan origin who worries that tolerance for Jews in Europe is expiring:

Right after Morocco won its independence from France in 1956, my family joined the country’s ruling elite. My father, a close friend of King Mohammed V, had access to everybody in the government. It went on like that for two or three years. Then one day, out of the blue, Father told us we were leaving. We children asked why. “We’ve passed the yogurt’s expiration date,” he said. “We have no future in Morocco; as long as we’re free to go, we must go.” So we left, leaving behind most of our money and belongings. Ever since then, wherever I’ve lived, I’ve been on the lookout for the yogurt’s expiration date.

The essay is accompanied by a number of responses.

One argues that "there are still grounds for hope that Europeans could yet avert the hideous prospect of a posthumous triumph for Hitler and his latter-day avatars." A more striking point of contrast came from Jewish journalist Claire Berlinski in a powerful blog post that she wrote at Ricochet soon after the attacks in Paris:

If you check the Drudge Report right now, you’ll see a screaming headline:

EVERY JEW I KNOW HAS LEFT PARIS

It links to an article in the Daily Mail. The claim was made by Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle.

Mr. Pollard, it is perhaps true that every Jew you know has left Paris. But it is clearly true that you do not know every Jew in Paris.

I have not left. And I will not. And neither will my father. That is at least two of us. And I know many more.

It is true that in the end, the Nazis managed to drive my family out of France. But not before my grandfather killed thousands of them. If these eighth-rate savages think they’ll succeed in getting my family out of France twice, they will discover that I am my grandfather’s granddaughter.

I’ve been told today that “the odds are against me.” By well-meaning people, I’m sure. First, they are not. That’s absurd. What happened was a horror, and it is by no means over, but if these people think they can win against a determined modern nation-state—once it’s woken up—they are even more out of their minds than it seems. Yes, it’s a war—and that was only the opening shot. But they are not the Nazis. They’re just dumb thugs with a taste for blood—and while France may be quite a sane place overall, God help them if they push the Germans so far that they find out what real Nazis are like.

And if you want to talk about odds, I’ll tell you about odds: In my grandfather’s regiment of 1,250 men, only 250 survived. So don’t tell me about the odds: It just makes you sound like a hysteric with no sense of history or proportion.

And while we’re at it: Let’s remember who won that war.

I am Jewish. I am in France. And I am not leaving—not because of a handful of terrorist swine, and not even if there’s an army of them. This family of Jews will not be driven out of Europe twice. And as far as I’m concerned, the response a Jew should have to this outrage is the one we should have had before—when up against a far more fearsome enemy. We may die, but we’ll die fighting, and you’ll be amazed how many of you we take down with us.

So let me speak personally now to anyone who thinks he’ll get me out of here: We will always have Paris. I will always have Paris. As will all the people who belong here. You, however, will die.

I have much more to say. But there is one more thing that strikes me as more important than all the other things on my mind. There are also many terrified Muslims in France right now. And yes, some of them are my friends—and close ones.

They too are the victims of these savages. They are victims in a double sense: Terrorists are as eager to kill them as they are eager to kill anyone in France. One of the cops they killed happened to be as Muslim, as has widely been reported. And they are victims in the second sense in that ... this is only country they have. They will be associated forever with those animals—but they are French citizens. They have no Israel to go to. They have nowhere else to go to.

So they will stay here too.