Stephan: As I read this story in the leading Israeli newspaper it forcefully brought to my mind a memory. My friend the late Hella Hammid, a nationally known fine arts photographer, and one of the best remote viewers with whom I ever worked was born into a prosperous German Jewish family. One night over dinner she told me the story of how her father came home from his business in 1938 and told his family they had to pack and leave that night to go to Portugal, abandoning their home, their belongings, their friends and their family. She told me how they went down to the docks with tears filling their eyes and boarded a ship, and got out of German just before Hitler stopped Jews from leaving. Her family eventually went to England, Hella said, but she never forgot the night they left in haste a country where they had thought they were respected and liked. And now we are seeing this in America. I find that appalling.
By 11:42 a.m. on the morning after Donald Trump refused to condemn white supremacists during the presidential debate, Heather Segal had received four inquiries from Americans interested in moving to Canada. Two of them were Jewish.
Segal, an immigration lawyer in Toronto, knows there’s always a spike in inquiries during US election years. But in her 25 years of experience, it’s never been as big as it is now.
In 2016, she said, she received a couple dozen inquiries, total, from Americans looking to move to Canada. This year, she gets six or seven inquiries every day. And most of them, she said, are from Jews.“
In my life, I have never seen what I’m seeing,” said Segal, who is herself Jewish. She said she hears the same fears from one Jewish American after another.“
What they echo to me: ‘We’ve seen this before,’” Segal said. “‘I’m not going to get stuck. I’m not […]