Europe’s Jews ponder: Is it time to flee again?

Eighty years ago, Jael Botsch-Fitterling’s parents decided something was very wrong in Germany, the nation they called home. Chancellor Adolf Hitler had just named himself fuhrer, and anti-Semitism was becoming national law. Her parents and other relatives packed up and fled.

 

Because of that move, six years later she was born in Jerusalem in what was then Palestine. When she was 7, the land beneath her feet became Israel, making her one of the original Jews in a new Jewish homeland. All because her parents had sensed in time that Germany was becoming very dangerous for Jews.

 

Then, in the 1950s, they trusted their instincts again and returned to Germany. Botsch-Fitterling has never left.

 

But today, in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo terror attacks in Paris, she’s been thinking about that first decision to leave – thinking about it quite a bit, in fact.

 

Read More: BERLIN: Europe’s Jews ponder: Is it time to flee again? | Europe | McClatchy DC