If Jews leave, France will no longer be France

This posting has 4 items:
1) Al Jazeera: Despite extremist violence, France’€™s Jews unlikely to be swayed;
2) The Atlantic: French Prime Minister Warns: If Jews Flee, the Republic Will Be Judged a Failure, Jeffrey Goldberg;
3) Haaretz: Netanyahu to French Jews: Israel is your home, Barak Ravid on the proposal that makes the front page of every Jewish and Israeli publication;
4) Haaretz: Jewish-Muslim neighbourhood reels from attack on kosher supermarket, Shirley Sitbon on the horrified reactions of both Muslims and Jews;

Patisserie in the Parisian Jewish quarter, Marais.

Despite extremist violence, France’€™s Jews unlikely to be swayed

Analysis: Israelis urge them to immigrate and far right seeks their vote, but attacks align French Jews with mainstream

January 10, 2015
By Karina Piser, Al Jazeera

Even as France reeled under the shock of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, an associate of the Kouachi brothers named Amedy Coulibaly launched his own killing spree. On Thursday he killed a police officer, and then, the following day, left four people dead when he attacked a Jewish supermarket in Vincennes, southeast of Paris. For France’s Jews, it was another troubling instance of being targeted in violence fuelled by grievances with which they have no direct connection.

Paris police immediately recognized the danger of further attacks, and warned Jewish-owned businesses to close on Rue des Rosiers, a street in Paris’s historically Jewish Marais neighboorhood. And politicians stepped up to reiterate familiar positions, courting support from French Jews for their own agendas.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the supermarket attack, offering Israeli assistance and requesting enhanced security at Jewish sites in France. He also sought to link France’s fight against extremism with Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians — Israel was angered by France’s recent support at the United Nations Security Council for a resolution demanding an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories within three years. And other Israeli leaders called on French Jews to immigrate en masse to Israel.

Attempts by Israeli leaders to speak on behalf of France’s Jews have previously caused tension between Israel and the French Jewish community. In 2004, during a spike in antisemitic attacks in France, then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon urged French Jews to “immediately” move to Israel, prompting outcry from the French government and Jewish community leaders. Israeli officials countered that urging Jews all over the world to move to Israel was part of the country’s raison d’être. Modern political Zionism originated as a response to European antisemitism — indeed, the movement’s founder, Theodor Herzl, wrote in his diary that it was in Paris, while observing the antisemitic protests around the treason trial of Alfred Dreyfus (a French Jewish officer falsely convicted of treason) that he “recognized the emptiness and futility of trying to combat antisemitism” and concluded that Jews should leave Europe and create a state of their own.

Although more than 60 percent of the world’s Jewish population lives outside of Israel, the country continues to deem itself as their “national home” and as a matter of government policy to encourage Jews everywhere to move there — Israel’s “Law of Return” grants automatic citizenship to Jews who seek it.

Approximately half a million Jews live in France, the world’s third-largest Jewish community after the United States and Israel. Many French Jews express pride and primacy in their French identity, particularly those of North African descent who came to France seeking a respite from being victimized by a rising tide of Arab nationalism in response to conflicts with Israel after its founding.

Even as France has slowly begun reckoning with the deep-seated antisemitism of its past — King Charles VI expelled the country’s entire Jewish population in the 14th century, and during World War II various French authorities collaborated with the Nazis to send Jews to Auschwitz — attacks on Jews have been on the rise in recent years. That has prompted some to heed Israeli leaders’ calls: the 4,500 French Jews that emigrated to Israel last year marked a 25-year high, and Israeli officials expect that number to grow in 2015.

But whereas the earlier era of French antisemitism had been rooted in a right-wing Catholic tradition, more recent attacks have been fuelled by anger in France’s Muslim communities over events in the Middle East. During Israel’s war in Gaza last summer, clashes broke out when members of the Jewish Defence League, a violent right-wing Zionist group banned in the United States and Israel, attacked pro-Palestinian protesters. Days later, however, Palestinian sympathizers attacked Jewish owned-businesses and a synagogue in the Parisian suburb of Sarcelles, known as “Little Jerusalem.” Jewish leaders attributed the attacks to the situation in Gaza, and some expressed frustration that European Jewish communities were being put at risk by the reverberations of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The attacks on Charlie Hebdo and the Jewish grocery are also grist to the mill of the anti-immigration politics of France’s National Front (FN) party, which has in recent years sought to boost its support among Jewish voters. That’s something of an innovation for a party rooted in traditionally antisemitic white, Catholic identity politics — Jean-Marie Le Pen, the party’s founder and father of its current leader, was found guilty of Holocaust denial in 2008, and his daughter publicly criticized him for antisemitism last year.

Even if the FN now courts Jewish support and directs campaigning largely against Muslim immigrants, the party faces a considerable obstacle in its own roots in a version of French identity that traditionally excluded Jews. Still, a September 2014 survey by the French Institute of Public Opinion (IFOP) revealed that, in 2012, 13.5 percent of French Jews had voted for the FN — a jump from just 4.4 percent in 2007. And amid increasing antisemitic sentiment, some wonder whether this far-rightward trend among French Jews would gain steam, particularly after Friday’s assault.

But the backlash against the Charlie Hebdo attack draws the French Jewish community into a wider mainstream revulsion at violent extremism that has focused on uniting the country around secular French values, and the mainstream political parties’ response to the attacks has excluded Le Pen’s party.

The outpouring of sympathy and support to the victims of the attacks certainly means that many French Jews won’t be feeling isolated by the recent wave of violence, or that they need to move to Israel for their safety. It is worth noting that opinion polls show French Jews as being largely satisfied with the government’s response to antisemitism, and many of those who have left for Israel cite economic and cultural reasons for their decision. Israel, additionally, isn’t the only destination for Jews leaving France: A number have reportedly moved, instead, to Montreal.

The track record of recent years suggests that last week’s attacks are unlikely to sway France’s Jews in large numbers to change their thinking on emigrating or on voting for Le Pen. But France’s Jews are hardly a monolith. The community spans multiple political and ethnic identities. Some will likely take the attacks as reason to leave for Israel. Others will see them as confirmation that French Jews share a common fate with the rest of liberal, secular France.

French Prime Minister Warns: If Jews Flee, the Republic Will Be Judged a Failure

Manuel Valls: “If 100,000 Jews leave, France will no longer be France.”

By Jeffrey Goldberg, Atlantic
January 10, 2015

The massacre at a kosher supermarket in Paris on Friday reinforced a fear, expressed openly and with distressing frequency by many in France’s half-million-strong Jewish community, that Islamist violence is compelling large numbers of Jews to flee. Already, several thousand have left over the past few years. But it is not merely the physical safety of France’s Jews that is imperiled by antisemitic violence, the country’s prime minister, Manuel Valls, argues, but the very idea of the French Republic itself. In an interview conducted before the Charlie Hebdo and kosher supermarket massacres, Valls told me that if French Jews were to flee in large numbers, the soul of the French Republic would be at risk.

Laying flowers outside the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket in Vincennes, Paris. Photo by Yves Herman/Reuters

“The choice was made by the French Revolution in 1789 to recognize Jews as full citizens,” Valls told me. “To understand what the idea of the republic is about, you have to understand the central role played by the emancipation of the Jews. It is a founding principle.”

Valls, a Socialist who is the son of Spanish immigrants, describes the threat of a Jewish exodus from France this way: “If 100,000 French people of Spanish origin were to leave, I would never say that France is not France anymore. But if 100,000 Jews leave, France will no longer be France. The French Republic will be judged a failure.”

I met Valls at the Hotel Matignon, the prime minister’s residence, in the 7th arrondissement. (We spoke for a while, and I’ll be incorporating the full interview with Valls into a longer article for the magazine about this set of issues. But, given the suddenly intensifying crisis, it seemed worthwhile to highlight some of the things he said.)

Valls made it a point, early in our meeting, to show me the desk used by one of his predecessors, the Jewish prime minister (and Dreyfusard) Leon Blum. “Jews were sometimes marginalized in France, but this was not Spain or other countries—they were never expelled, and they play a role in the life of France that is central,” he said.

Valls, who on Saturday declared that France was now at war with radical Islam, has become a hero to his country’s besieged Jews for speaking bluntly about the threat of Islamist antisemitism, a subject often discussed in euphemistic terms by the country’s political and intellectual elite. His fight, as interior minister, to ban performances of the antisemitic comedian Dieudonne (the innovator of the inverted Nazi salute known as the quenelle) endeared him to the country’s Jewish leadership, and he is almost alone on the European left in calling anti-Zionism a form of antisemitism.

Outside the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket, Place de Vincennes

“There is a new antisemitism in France,” he told me. “We have the old antisemitism, and I’m obviously not downplaying it, that comes from the extreme right, but this new antisemitism comes from the difficult neighborhoods, from immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa, who have turned anger about Gaza into something very dangerous. Israel and Palestine are just a pretext. There is something far more profound taking place now.”

In discussing the attacks on French synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses this summer, during the Gaza war, he said, “It is legitimate to criticize the politics of Israel. This criticism exists in Israel itself. But this is not what we are talking about in France. This is radical criticism of the very existence of Israel, which is antisemitic. There is an incontestable link between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. Behind anti-Zionism is antisemitism.”

Though he worries about fear-driven emigration, Valls told me he believes that the government can work with the Jewish community to make it more secure. “The Jews of France are profoundly attached to France but they need reassurance that they are welcome here, that they are secure here.”

The French government, under President Francois Hollande and Valls, provides substantial funding each year to help physically secure French Jewish institutions, but Jewish leaders say that the government alone cannot make French Jews feel at ease. “The prime minister has led some courageous battles,” Simone Rodan-Benzaquen, the director of the American Jewish Committee’s Paris office, who is close to the prime minister and other senior officials, told me this weekend. “He’s the first one who has spoken out so clearly, without any ambiguity, about the reality we are facing.” She also praised Hollande for quickly labeling the kosher supermarket attack antisemitic. “The issue is that the government cannot protect every Jewish person and Jewish institution. There’s always more to do, but they can’t do everything. Even if they did all that needs to be done—counter-radicalization, education, making sure that imprisoned people don’t become radicalized, and so on—there’s always more to do. We have a very, very profound problem.”

A woman attaches signs proclaiming ‘I am in mourning’ and ‘I am Jewish’ near the Hyper Cacher store. Photo by Reuters


Netanyahu to French Jews: Israel is your home

Prime minister say a special ministerial committee will convene next week to discuss steps to encourage immigration from France and from Europe in general.

By Barak Ravid, Haaretz
January 10, 2015

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reached out to France’s Jews on Saturday, following deadly terrorist attacks last week in Paris, one of which targeting a Jewish supermarket, telling them that Israel is their home.

Netanyahu said a special ministerial committee will convene next week to discuss steps to encourage immigration from France and from Europe in general.

“I wish to tell to all French and European Jews – Israel is your home,” Netanyahu said. “If they world doesn’t come to its senses, terror will strike in other places as well.”

Netanyahu will travel to France on Tuesday to attend an event by the Jewish community, held in the wake of the attacks, in which 17 people were killed by Islamist terrorists in separate attacks on the Charlie Hebdo magazine’s offices and on a kosher supermarket.

In 2014, immigration from France outpaced immigration from the United States for the second year running, with a total reaching nearly 7,000 – more than double that of 2013.

The sharp increase in immigration from France in recent years has been attributed to a combination of growing antisemitism in the country and a bad economy.

Minister of Aliyah and Immigrant Absorption Sofa Landver predicted that more than 10,000 Jews from France would immigrate to Israel in 2015.

Judy Maltz contributed to this report

Orthodox Jews in the Marais quarter, Paris. Photo by Alamy.

Jewish-Muslim neighbourhood reels from attack on kosher supermarket

‘What’s happening is so sad for our country,’ says father whose son survived the supermarket siege on Friday.

By Shirli Sitbon, Haaretz
January 11, 2015

Sadness and pessimism were the overwhelming emotions in the Parisian neighbourhood of Porte de Vincennes on Friday evening, after four hostages had been killed during a siege at the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket.

Hundreds of residents of the usually quiet neighbourhood had gathered 300 meters from the store. At such a distance they couldn’t see much except for police cars rushing in and out of the area, but officers wouldn’t let them get any closer. Quizzing the dozens of journalists there, they tried to learn as much as possible about the attack that rocked their neighbourhood, listening to the explanations of every witness, policeman and expert.

At about 5 P.M. local time, several loud noises were heard – the sound of stun grenades that Special Forces troops had thrown into the store before firing their way inside. Within minutes, people looked at their mobile phones where news alerts announced that four hostages had been found dead in the store and that officers had killed the gunman, Amedy Coulibaly, and, reportedly, his accomplice. (The reports about the death of his accomplice turned out to be false.)

Two people in the crowd were horrified but also relieved, because their relative had survived the attack. “It’s a miracle he’s alive!” said P. Haddad, whose brother survived by hiding in the supermarket’s cold storage room in the basement.

His father, however, seemed crushed. “What’s happening is so sad for our country,” he told Haaretz.

A meter away, two non-Jewish residents shared their concern for the future.

“In the supermarket, they obviously targeted Jews. Two days ago they hit journalists and the free press, but tomorrow they might attack any one of us. It’s frightening,” said Guilaine.

A policeman representing an officers’ union hailed the attitude of the hostages who managed to hide.

“Throughout the attack, these witnesses informed police with their mobile phones about what was happening inside the store,” said Gaël Fabiano. “The death toll is terrible, but we did everything we could to save lives. Police acted very quickly, so the hostage takers wouldn’t kill more people.”

The operation was very quick, lasting only a few minutes.