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SCANPIX DENMARK/TIMES OF ISRAEL

What's Next For Europe?

David Harris
Times of Israel

On Feb.14, a 22-year-old Dane

of Palestinian origin shot and
killed filmmaker Finn Norgard,
55, at a free speech forum.
Soon afterward, he attacked
Copenhagen's main synagogue,
murdering Dan Uzan, 37, a
security guard there. The terrorist
later was killed in a police
shootout. David Harris, executive
director of the
American Jewish
Committee, offers
his analysis on the
future of European
Jews and of
Europe itself.
David Harris

0

nce again, the jihadists have
attacked, this time in Copenhagen.
Once again, they have murdered
innocent people.
Once again, they have targeted both

Tens of thousands of Danes hold candles Feb. 16 during a memorial service for
those killed by an Islamist terrorist two days earlier.

democratic values — freedom of speech and
the press — and a minority community —
the Jews.
And once again, Europe has been remind-
ed that it is at the center, not the periphery,
of this global challenge.
As a result, we will have all the right
symbolic gestures, which I don't wish to
minimize.
There will be visits to the synagogue, soli-
darity events, statements of anguish, and
affirmations of collective will and determi-
nation.

Detroit's Poetic Voice

Suzanne Chessler

Contributing Writer

p

hilip Levine, the former U.S. poet
laureate whose talents emerged
in the Jewish neighborhoods of
Detroit, died Feb. 14, 2015, of pancreatic
cancer at his home in Fresno, Calif. He
was 87.
Levine, who often expressed the feelings
of factory workers, had a long career in
writing and university teaching after earn-
ing his way along auto assembly lines.
His awards included a Pulitzer Prize
for The Simple Truth (1994) and National
Book Awards for What Work Is (1991) and
Ashes: Poems New and Old (1980).
Levine, who completed some 20 vol-
umes of poetry, spoke with the Detroit
Jewish News about his work and personal
history at the time of his laureate appoint-
ment in 2011.
"I've lived a long life and written about
it," he said in a phone conversation from

24

February 19 • 2015

his New York home. "I've lived in a num-
ber of places and with a great many differ-
ent people entering my work."
Levine's subjects often are
readily familiar to Michigan .1. . f
4`.
readers who recognize
Hamtramck neighborhoods,
General Motors plants and
Central High School, among
many other landmarks.
"Philip Levine is one of
America's great narrative
poets," said James Billington,
the librarian who made the
appointment for the Library Philip Levin;
of Congress. "His plainspo-
ken lyricism has ... champi-
oned the art of telling 'The Simple Truth'
about working in a Detroit auto factory ...
and about the hard work we do to make
sense of our lives."
Nonfiction and editing projects also
claimed his attention.
"I believed that if I could transform my
experience into poetry, I would give it the

But will they really change anything on the
ground? That remains to be seen.
With each such bloody outrage, we
earnestly hope that something might be
learned because we don't want to believe
that history must continue to repeat itself in
this all-too-familiar cycle of killings, vigils
and mourning.
And yet, after 15 years of engaging with
European leaders to get their attention, help
them understand what stares them in the
face and press for sustained action, I'm not
quite ready to bet the family farm that the

value and dignity it did not begin to pos-
sess on its own," Levine said.
"I thought, too, that if I could write
about it, I could come to understand it; I
believed that if I could understand my life
— or at least the part my work played in
it — I could embrace it with some degree
of joy."

Northwest Detroit

•

Levine's poetic awakening is
tied to the awakening of the
northwest Detroit neighbor-
hood of his youth.
"When I was almost 14,
my mother bought a house
on Santa Rosa north of
Seven Mile," recalled the
poet, whose father had died
years earlier.
"They were just starting
to build up these blocks,
and there were very few houses. The war
started for the United States in 1941, and
the building stopped.
"The blocks were full of trees and
shrubs, and I would go into these woods
just before nightfall. I started composing
poems which I never wrote down. If my
twin brother, Eddie, had found them, he

day after tomorrow will be all that different
than the day before yesterday.
Even so, I desperately want to believe that
Europe, with all its dazzling achievements
since the end of World War II, can still
strengthen its resolve, stiffen its spine and
fully understand the stakes involved, how-
ever late in the day it is.
Here is what I wish would happen now
• First, the European Union should
quickly organize a high-level conference
to discuss the rise in anti-Semitism, as
evidenced by repeated terror attacks, E.U.
polls showing rising fear among Jews, and
statistics in countries like France and the
United Kingdom revealing a major spike in
anti-Semitic incidents. It ought to discuss
and adopt a comprehensive plan of action,
and then implement and monitor it.
• Second, European leaders must under-
stand, as French Prime Minister Manuel
Valls has, that anti-Semitism is not only an
attack on Jews, but also an assault on Europe
and its values. The two cannot be separated.
That was amply illustrated in the attacks in
Paris last month and in Copenhagen this
month. In the end, if there is no other choice,
Jews will leave Europe, but where will Europe
go, unless, that is, it is prepared to succumb
to the jihadist threat?
• Third, call a spade a spade. For many
Europeans, there is no hesitation in identi-
fying the source of anti-Semitism when it
emanates from right-wing extremists. But
when anti-Semitism, including deadly vio-
lence, springs from within a segment of the
Muslim population, verbal acrobatics all too

would have shown them to my school-
mates, and they would have giggled."
Levine gave his poems to memory.
"I found a voice that was mine, and I
enjoyed speaking in that voice," he said.
"The poems were inspired by the cadences
of preaching, which I heard on the radio.
"I would borrow the vocabulary of Old
Testament language, mix it with American
speech and compose poems about the
natural world, which I stopped doing
when I was 17."
Levine earned a bachelor's degree
from Wayne State University and a mas-
ter's degree from the University of Iowa
Writer's Workshop.
Publication of his poetry started during
his 20s.
Teaching assignments took him to
California State University, Fresno, where
he was named professor emeritus in
the English Department, and New York
University, where he was distinguished
writer-in-residence.
"Living in Detroit was extremely influ-
ential in what I chose to write about, but
it had very little influence on the way I
wrote about it," said the poet, who moved
away from Michigan when he was 26.
Levine lived in Spain for two years with