French immigrant to Israel explains why he returned to France
In a Facebook post in French, Alexandre Kassel, a young French Jew who immigrated to Israel from Paris' swanky 19th arrandissemente explains why he returned to France.
I'll be honest, the first few weeks [in Israel] and even the
first few months were a dream. Discovering a new country, especially a
special country like Israel and its new culture is a real opportunity.
But soon I realized that I didn’t come just to sightsee and had to start
building my life [in Israel] as well. That's when the wine turned sour,
the apple revealed its worm, the carriage became a Cinderella pumpkin,
and Israel, as Melissandre (a character in “Game of Thrones”), withdrew
her magic necklace and revealed herself in her ugliest nakedness.
Let's
begin with the weather…10 months out of 12, you can beg it to give us a
bit of the good old Parisian gloom, so we can feel a little of the
melancholy of the poets from our rich French literature, a little gray
depression that blends perfectly with our Ashkenazi genes. Oh no! Day
after day, week after week, the sun insisted to bring our morale up…It's
like living in the world of the Teletubbies and Care Bears. Every
morning when leaving, the black coat purchased from a Paris boutique
gave me an unbearably taunting look.
Outside, as in
Paris, I proudly wore the skullcap on my head. It took me a moment to
realize that something was wrong. I realized that…Oh misery...no one was
giving me acidic looks. I walked in the street, anonymous, as a member
of the whole population, [and] the yarmulke was no longer an object of
attention but naturally blended into the landscape. Do you have an idea
how hard it is to become a Mr-all-the-world once you’ve been used to
being the target of all the bitterness within one kilometer?
But
the Israelis do not stop at that! Not only did they not hate me, but
they all told me that I was their friend, or worse—their brother. You
know that in Israel, no one uses the family name or "Sir." Either they
call you by your first name, or you are jovially called "brother" as if
you did not even have a first name.
Under the blazing
daily sun, how do you not pine for the refreshing coolness of French
politeness? How do you not pine for the natural distance that all
citizens put between them, giving everyone the privilege, perhaps
illusory, of being a stranger in their own country? (I understood that
it's worthwhile to be a stranger in France.)
Those were
the first difficulties, but I did not give up and went forward by
beginning my studies in a secondary school deemed the toughest in
Israel: The Technion in Haifa. Having had a relatively easy schooling, I
needed tougher challenges.
To my amazement, when I saw
how my friends stayed in France to face the walls of intolerance, with
crucial exams falling on a Saturday (Shabbat) or a [Jewish] holiday
without alternatives, the Technion proposed a program that made it
ridiculously easy to avoid taking examinations on those days. The only
difficulty allowed to be imposed on us is the high level of education.
And
besides, it's crazy there at the Technion and in industry. Instead of
respecting the principle of inertia by resting on their laurels and
wallowing in existential immobility, as France knows to do so well, they
(Israelis) have only one word in their mouths:
Innovate….[and] "innovate more" and then continue…
Here
in Israel, we don’t know the beautiful and pleasant feeling of going for
a coffee or to the theater while the country crumbles around us. They
(Israelis) understand nothing of life.
And worse, you
know, when we talk about Israel on television, it’s like living in an
open, actual-size Call of Duty. The truth is that walking down the
street in Israel is rather like child’s play. Certainly there are
attacks, but otherwise it feels even too safe. No one has to spy out of
the corner of one’s eye to find bands of scum and figure out how to pass
by with the least damage. No, we just walk straight like idiots
directly towards our goal.
Heck! There was a school just
next to my home, where the kids are Jews and there's not a single damn
soldier. What kind of life is it where Jewish kids do not need an army
to be left to live?? You tell me.
But you know what? When
a bloody attack does happen, there are headlines in the local
newspapers the next day such as “A TERRORIST committed an attack and
killed lots of Israelis." Yes do not worry, there are also some
journalists justifying the act, but this does not prevent them from
daring to call these poor people terrorists. I felt myself compelled to
take out my wallet and buy the French press, which arrived two days late
but at least stated the facts correctly by writing "a Palestinian
killed in an attack in Jerusalem."
In short, as you have understood, with all this it seemed natural that I needed to return to France.
And yes, it's a satire - satiring French discomfort with the number of French Jews making aliya.
In May, the French newspaper Le Mondedecided
to invert the discussion on French Jews making aliyah by asking
French-Jewish readers who had made aliyah, but later decided to return
to their native country, about their reasons for deciding to move back
to France.
Seeing a kind of “malice” in the request by Le Monde, a writer for the French-Jewish news website rootsisrael.com
asked readers to instead inundate the newspaper with responses by
people who have made aliyah and stayed in Israel. The news website later
published one such letter by Alexandre Kassel, which he originally
posted on Facebook. The letter then went viral and was shared more than
2,000 times. The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth has also featured the letter, which it translated into Hebrew.
Sunday marked ten years since the murder of Ilan Halimi. That's Halimi in the square with the purplish pink around it. It's from a Muslim dating site. It was eventually taken down. Halimi was brutally murdered by a gang of Muslims, all but one of whom have been let go ten years later. On Sunday, there were a number of very small ceremonies in Paris marking Halimi's murder. They were only attended by Jews.
The small crowd and its Jewish focus illustrate the wide disconnect between how the Halimi case is understood within and outside of France’s Jewish community – and what that might mean for the French Jewish future.
For France’s Jews, it remains an intimately tragic affair, marking arguably the most savage and sadistic anti-Semitic crime in France since World War II. For many citizens of French or European Christian origins, it is indeed a despicable violent crime, but not one fuelled by anti-Semitism. For me this is a form of blindness, of denial – but also a mark of the failure of France's government and Jewish community to establish violent anti-Semitism as a central concern for the whole of society.
...
Guershon N'duwa, president of the FJN, the Black-Jewish Federation of France, a constituent member of the French Jewish umbrella body CRIF, has organized the ceremony for Ilan Halimi for the past ten years, but he will not organize an eleventh. "The French government has always minimized the case of Ilan Halimi, and even now, has still not woken up to establish the link with the attacks of the past few years," says N'duwa, "and there is a definite link, a hatred of Jews.”
He continued: "But while Jewish community leaders have reached upwards, if you like, to French political parties on the right and left, they have not reached out to the non-Jewish public. So in spite of grandiose statements by politicians about fighting anti-Semitism, many French people still believe that Ilan's horrific death was a specifically Jewish affair, with few emotional links to the overall French nation, and not even necessarily a case of anti-Semitism. In reality, the intense emotional reaction by Jews here became a line that separated them from other French people, who reacted with intellectual disgust, but little more."
Both the Jewish community and the French government have been unable to engage the wider French public with the need to see, recognize and confront violent anti-Semitism and incitement against the community. This has diminished the number of French people who see anti-Semitic violence as a problem for all of France, not only its Jews and the government and security elite. For many, World War II had ended long ago, so it was easier to believe that this was a simple indecent but random tragedy committed by sociopaths.
...
The anniversary event’s low turnout was also an indication of intra-Jewish politics that have weakened the community’s resonance to speak as a united voice on this issue. In fact there were five other competing Halimi commemoration ceremonies around Paris this year, somewhat atomizing the effect of fewer and more robustly attended events. There were no Halimi family members present at Sunday’s Boulevard Voltaire gathering either, though his sisters reportedly attended one of the other ceremonies.
"This has become a very politicized affair and I am unhappy enough about that not to do it again," says N'duwa, who comes from a Protestant family in Congo-Brazzaville, Africa. He converted to Judaism years ago in France and has also lived in Israel.
...
Youssouf Fofana, who organized his kidnapping for ransom, will be in prison for years, in theory for life. Most of the others involved, including the woman used as bait, and the building superintendent who gave them the basement room and apartment in which Halimi was tortured in exchange for 1500 euros (which he never saw), have already been released.
Ten years after Halimi's murder, I still wonder why Jews remain in France. Neither they nor their non-Jewish neighbors understand what's going on in their country.
It's come to this: The leader of the Jewish community in Marseille, France, has advised his constituents not to walk around outside with kipot (skullcaps) on their heads.
The president of the Marseille Israelite Consistory, Zvi Ammar, said that it was an "exceptional decision".
"Life is more sacred than anything else. We are now forced to hide a
little bit," he told the AFP, adding that the move made him "sick to the
stomach".
The teacher escaped with only minor injuries. His attacker, aged 15, was caught soon after fleeing and arrested.
The teen later claimed to have been acting in the name of Daesh, the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group.
“He said several times he was acting in the name of Isis, because
Muslims in France were dishonouring Islam and French soldiers were
protecting Jews,” said Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin.
A Jewish councilman was found dead in his apartment on Tuesday morning,
prompting French media speculation of a racially motivated killing.
Alain
Ghozland of the Parisian suburb of Créteil was found by his brother,
who checked in on the city councillor after he failed to show in
synagogue the previous evening.
While a police source who spoke
with Metro News admitted that it was “too early to know the cause of
death,” Ghozland was reportedly found with stab wounds and bruising. His
apartment appeared to have been ransacked and his car was missing from
its spot outside.
The victim, whose father helped found the local
Jewish cultural association, was active in Jewish affairs and his death
has shaken his coreligionists, according to the French newspaper.
He
was described by the Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de
France (CRIF), the umbrella organization representing French Jewry, as
“a prominent leader of the local Jewish Community.”
“People are upset. They do not know what to think and ask a lot of questions,” one relative was quoted as saying.
And last week marked the anniversary of the attack on the Hyper Cacher supermarket in Paris, which was the icing on the cake of a week in which mass murder was committed in the name of Islam at the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Sorry but I don't understand why the flow of immigration from France to Israel isn't a wave. Why would any Jew want to stay there?
When I was in Chicago last week, I visited two old family friends who had a grandson visiting. I assumed it was one of their local grandsons, but it turned out to be the son of their daughter who married a Spaniard and was living in France. No more. The daughter and son-in-law are moving to Israel. This incident - in which a 13-year old wearing a kippa (skullcap) was beaten and robbed by six men outside his school in a clearly anti-Semitic attack - makes me wonder why any Jews remain in France. It's not like they are not free to leave....
The incident occurred on July 7 in the French
capital’s 19th arrondissement, near the Gare du Nord train station,
according to a report published by BNCVA, the National Bureau for
Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism.
The 13-year-old boy, who was not named, was
followed by six men of African descent as he exited the school while
wearing a kippa, the report said. One of his aggressors shouted: “Take
that, dirty Jew” while the group was hitting the boy. One of the young
men also stole the boy’s cellular phone before fleeing the scene.
The boy was taken to a hospital where he received stitches to wounds on his head.
Last year, the Jewish community recorded a
total of 241 violent attacks on Jews out of a total of 851 anti-Semitic
incidents. The previous year, those figures were 105 and 423,
respectively. In January, an armed Islamist killed four Jews at a Paris
kosher supermarket.
Belgium, Britain and the Netherlands are among
the other countries that saw increases in anti-Semitic attacks over the
same period.
Why Jews are remaining in France - or anywhere in Europe - is simply a mystery to me. They're free to leave, the costs are not prohibitive and the governments are not holding them hostage (unlike, for example, the Soviet Union). Why would anyone stay? Even if you have a business, move your family and commute (many Israelis commute to Europe - some even commute to the US traveling even more often than I do).
It's come to this: Louvre and other French tourist sites refuse to book Israeli student groups
Paris' famous Louvre art museum and several other French cultural sites have refused to book reservations for a group of art history students from Tel Aviv University who were planning to visit.
Last month, Sefy Hendler, who teaches in the university’s art history
department, began finalizing the itinerary. Hendler, who also writes
for Haaretz, contacted the administration of the Louvre and of
Sainte-Chapelle, the medieval Gothic chapel, to schedule visits there.
Both institutions declined his request. Sainte-Chapelle responded that
there was no space available on the date requested. The Louvre refused
to allow the visit even though three possible dates were proposed for
it.
“It surprised me that a place that receives nine
million visitors a year didn’t find room for us,” Hendler told Haaretz,
referring to the Louvre, “even though we asked to tour in the middle of
the week.”
After being turned down, Hendler attempted to make
arrangements for a visit on the same dates and times, using names of
fictitious educational institutions from Italy and Abu Dhabi in the
Persian Gulf – and was told that space was available.
At that point, the TAU faculty member said he
considered cancelling the entire tour, but ultimately he decided to
provide details of the incident to the president of French Friends of
TAU, Francois Heilbronn, who pursued the matter with the institutions
involved, as well as with French Culture Minister Fleur Pellerin.
The Louvre is claiming that they don't understand how this happened.
The administration of the Louvre responded that it was “disturbed”
over the incident and initiated an internal investigation into the
matter, but told Heilbronn added that the reservation system at the
world-famous museum is almost entirely automated. By contrast,
reservations for visits to Sainte-Chapelle are handed manually by staff.
Philippe Belaval, the president of the National
Monuments Center, which administers Sainte-Chapelle, said his
organization conducted an internal investigation that revealed recurring
irregularities, but at this stage it was not clear that the incident
involving the TAU students constituted a case of discrimination due to
their origins.
Hendler said he does not accept this explanation.
“It’s clear to me that when you say no to Israelis, it’s a
discriminatory and racist act. They don’t care whether you’re left- or
right-wing. They simple don’t want the Israeli in the narrow sense
through which they view him. It’s an incident that I simply don’t
understand,” he noted.
You don't say. And I thought that if we gave the 'Palestinians' their reichlet, the Europeans would suddenly become our biggest fans. You mean they won't? Oh my....
“What was the idea? That if we don’t see the 'Mona Lisa' [at the Louvre]
then the occupation [of the West Bank] would end? It’s completely
foolish,” Hendler said.
As my kids would say, "boker tov Eliyahu" (a colloquial way of saying "Welcome to the real world").
To be sure major French companies, like Total,
are quite active in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara, with the apparent
approval of the French government. But it turns out that Orange itself directly
and openly operates in occupied territory. Orange provides cell phone
service in Nagorno-Karabakh, an area of Azerbaijan that has been
occupied by Armenia since seizing it in a bloody 1992-94 war. The U.N.,
along with the E.U. and U.S., considers the area occupied territory.
Nonetheless, Armenian settlers have moved into the occupied territory in in significant numbers, amid constant complaints from Baku and others.
Nor
is this Karabakh some long-forgotten frozen conflict. Fighting broke
out this year across the line of control, killing dozens, and a full
scale war over the occupied territory is looming.
In other words,
Orange, and the French government, is committing what a senior French
official just described as a war crime. Indeed, by the theoretical
international law standards applied to Israel, Orange’s behavior in
Armenia is particularly egregious. Having cell phone towers in the West
Bank (the purported crime of Orange’s Israeli licensee) does not involve
any recognition of Israeli sovereignty or any judgement about the
status of the territory.
On the other hand, Orange’s website
touting its Karabakh service refers to the territory as “NKR”, or the
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. This refers to the self-proclaimed, entirely
unrecognized state (akin to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus)
which is entirely controlled by Armenia. U.N. Resolutions have
specifically called for the “nonrecognition” of the NKR. Orange’s
Armenian website also calls the area “Artsakh,”
the ancient name for the region favored by Armenia nationalists. It
would be as if Orange, instead of complaining about, boasted of its
“service in Judea and Samaria.” Indeed, Orange cravenly calls NKR a
“country,” despite the clear admonition of its own government and UN
against recognition of what is universally regarded as Azerbaijani
territory. It would be as if Orange boasted of its service in the “Golan
Heights of Israel.”
Orange proudly advertises its Nagorno-Karabakh service on the homepage of its Armenia site. A press release announcing the
service said its goal is make things more “convenient” for Armenians
traveling into the occupied territory. And the service is done in
cooperation with a local telecom firm based entirely in, and dedicated
to primarily serving, the occupied territory.
Unlike
its Israel service, which is operated by a local company that merely
licenses the trademark, Orange Armenia is directly run by the
French-based company, and headed by a French executive, Francis Gelibter.
Orange itself is quarter-owned by the French government. So France has,
just this year, begun participating in what its own senior foreign
ministry officials call a war crime when Israel does it.
Orange CEO 'apologizes' but they're leaving anyway
The CEO of French international cell phone company Orange has apologized for anti-Israel remarks that he made in Egypt on Wednesday. This is from the first link.
“I spoke with the CEO of Orange, Stephane Richard, and I told him that
the people of Israel are angered and hurt by his statements,” Deputy
Prime Minister Silvan Shalom wrote on his Facebook page. “I told him how
it saddened me that he had turned into a tool in the struggle against
Israel and that he had lent a hand to the assault by Israel-haters who
are trying to harm Israel not just militarily but economically.”
“Richard
apologized for his remarks that he made during a conference in Egypt
and told me that he is a friend of Israel,” Shalom wrote. “He claimed
that his comments were not properly understood and that he spoke only
about the economic aspect [of his decision].”
“He apologized on
behalf of himself and the company for the remarks, and he said that they
condemn all forms of boycotts,” the deputy prime minister wrote.
But Orange isn't staying here (and their brand name is worthless here anyway).
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius sought to calm a row with Israel
on Friday, saying France opposed any boycott of the Jewish state but
stressing that Orange, which plans to end its license deal there, was
free to define its own policy.
"While it is up to the president
of the Orange group to define the commercial strategy of its company,
France is firmly opposed to any boycott of Israel," he said in a
statement.
And the apology is not much of an apology.
"Moreover, the position of France and the European Union on settlements
is consistent and widely known." France in June 2014 issued a warning to
French investors that investments in Israeli settlement areas carried
legal risks, a move which already raised concerns in Israel.
Northwestern University law professor Eugene Kontorovich points out some of the hypocrisy in the way that the French government (25% shareholder) is relating to the Israeli 'occupation' of Judea and Samaria, as compared with how it relates to the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara and the Turkish occupation of Cyprus.
On Wednesday the CEO of the French telecom firm Orange announced that
he sought to “drop” his business in Israel, done through an Israeli
subsidiary. Speaking at a meeting in Cairo, he emphasized that this was
action was mostly to win the “trust”
of Arab countries. But there was also a suggestion that this is because
the Israeli affiliate has some cellular antennae across the Green Line.
The French Ambassador to the U.S., (and formerly Israel), defended the Orange CEO’s statement on Twitter:‘
“4th Geneva convention : settlement policy in occupied territories is illegal. It is illegal to contribute to it in any way.”
That
statement is entirely baseless. Even if settlements are illegal, there
is no ban on business in the territories, or with settlers. Certainly
there is no tertiary obligation to not do business with businesses that
have some tangential business in such territory. All this is
demonstrated extensively in my new paper, some of which I tried to share
with Amb. Araud.
...
The Orange incident, and the Ambassador’s legal claim, are also bad
news for a number of French companies, like the oil giant Total, which
is active in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara against the vociferous protests of the indigenous Sawahari people. (There are many other examples, like Michelin in Turkish-occupied Cyprus.)
The French government has never criticized any of these controversial
activities in any way. But if the Ambassador’s legal claim is right, he
has provided the basis for war crimes prosecutions of France’s leading
executives.
Amb. Araud responded to my question
by revealing that he had no idea one of his country’s largest companies
was engaged in an major project that, by his account, is a war crime.
The Ambassador, after blocking me, revealed that his international law claims are not really about international law:
I
speak of one occupied territory. I am answered on other territories. I
conclude that everybody agrees on what I say on the former.
In other words, no fairs to cite precedents and practice. But of course, if you are talking about international law, “other territories” are entirely relevant. First, for something to be law, it has to be a rule that applies to similar situations. And for it to be international, well, those situations will involve different countries.
So we have a diplomat blocking a university professor on Twitter for pointing out that he was mistaken. And notfor the firsttime, we have proof that those who oppose the Israeli 'occupation' of Judea and Samaria are incapable of passing Natan Sharansky's 3D test.
Buttes Chaumont Park in Paris (pictured) looks lovely, doesn't it? But on Friday afternoon, it nearly became a death trap for a 16-year old Jewish boy who was attacked by a group of Arabs.
The 16-year-old boy, who was wearing a Kippa (skullcap) at the time,
was attacked while returning to his home to prepare for Shabbat dinner.
According to French news service JSS, he was then approached
by four men, which the report described as looking North African and
between the ages of 17-20. The men robbed him, took his shoes, and
shattered his phone into the ground.
During the assault, two of the attackers held the victim down while a
third repeatedly delivered blows to his body and head, injuring one of
his eyes severely.
According to a witness, another man - also described as North African
- approached the group, but instead of helping the victim proceeded to
verbally assault him by calling him a “coward,” and then advised the
attackers to “break” the teen.
The attackers fled when a witness called the police. A report was filed with the police at the scene.
The Bureau National de Vigilance Contre L’Antisemitisme (BNVCA),
which monitors anti-Semitic attacks in France, has publicly pledged to
help the victim and his family, and has asked the police to make every
effort to identify, question, and detain the attackers.
The Buttes Chaumont district is home to many Jewish families, and has
recently been targeted on numerous occasions, including attacks on
Jewish businesses, and a recent shocking attack on a Jewish mother by three assailants of African origin.
The attack took place in Paris' 19th arondissement, which has a large Jewish population. I wonder if US President Hussein Obama will classify this incident as another 'random attack.'
In any event, for French Jews, the message ought to be clear: It's time to leave France. Jews aren't welcome there anymore (if they ever were).
French police
have thwarted five attacks, including a suspected plan to target
church-goers foiled in recent days, since the Islamist killings at a
satirical weekly and Jewish food shop in January, Prime Minster Manuel
Valls said on Thursday.
"Never has the threat been so
high," Valls told France Inter radio, noting the fact that hundreds of
French nationals were now in Syria where they risked being radicalized.
Valls
was speaking a day after authorities said they had arrested a
24-year-old Algerian national in Paris suspected of the murder of a
woman at the weekend and an aborted plan to launch an armed attack on at
least one church.
These people don't seem to get that first they come for the Jews, but it never ends there.
24 days - The truth about Ilan Halimi HY"D to be released on April 24
Received via email:
My name is Heidi Oshin and I work with Menemsha Films, a film distribution company. We are the distributors of the French film "24 Jours: La Verite sur l'affaire Ilan Halimi" (a/k/a "24 Days") (see the synopsis below). I am writing to let you know about the theatrical release of this film nationally.
We are opening "24 Days" on April 24, 2015. "24 Days" will have a nationwide release on that day. The film will be playing in several areas of South Florida, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and a few other cities currently being finalized. "24 Days" will also be available in the US and Canada on iTunes the same day.
"24 Days" is a very timely film and is certainly riveting. Screen Daily writes that French director Alexandre Arcady delivers one of the most “wrenching and politically astute” films to come out of France. Given the news of rampant anti-Semitism sweeping Europe, the film's message should be heard as widely as possible.
I am happy to provide you with a link to the film and trailer for your previewing. We are also happy to provide you with posters and flyers (either or both hard copies or digitally) as well a email blasts that you can send on to your email lists. Please let your friends, family, colleagues and students know about this important film.
I look forward to hearing back from you,
Heidi
--
Here's a synopsis of the film:
January 20, 2006. After dinner with his family, Ilan Halimi called an attractive girl he had met at work and made plans to meet her for coffee. Ilan did not suspect a thing; he was 23 and had his whole life ahead of him. The next time Ilan’s family heard from him, it was through a cryptic online message from kidnappers demanding a ransom in exchange for their son’s life. Based on a book co-written by the victim’s mother, Ruth Halimi, director Alexandre Arcady’s cinematic adaptation offers a vicious circle of dangerously realistic events: from the kidnapping and torture of Ilan Halimi at the hands of the Gang of Barbarians, to the the 600-plus phone calls, insults, and threats received by the family, through the Parisian police’s incompetence in dealing with what was clearly an anti-Semitic crime.-- -- --
--
Menemsha Films
Heidi Bogin Oshin
2601 Ocean Park Blvd., Suite 100
Santa Monica, California 90405
Tel 310.452.1775
Fax 310.452.3740
heidio@menemshafilms.com
Here's a video of Maariv reporter Zvika Klein walking the streets of Paris wearing a yarmulka (skullcap) and tzitzith (fringes) worn by religious Jews.
Introducing the video, Klein writes,
"Welcome to Paris 2015, where soldiers are walking every street that
houses a Jewish institution, and where keffiyeh-wearing men and veiled
women speak Arabic on every street corner."
Klein tells of being yelled at, intimidated, and spat upon. Adults
shouted, "Viva Palestine," and "I'm joking, the dog will not eat you."
Klein recalled a teenage girl saying: "Look at that – it's the first
time I've ever seen such a thing." A child asked his mother, "What is he
doing here Mommy? Doesn’t he know he will be killed?"
Spending the day in Paris with a bodyguard and a photographer with a
hidden camera, Klein walked in the cold through Jewish neighborhoods,
around the Eiffel Tower, and then through mostly Muslim neighborhoods.
While the tourist areas were mostly calm, Klein said in other areas he
experienced "hateful stares," "belligerent remarks," and "hostile body
language."
"Is this what life is like for Paris' Jews?" Klein asked. He then
explains that Jewish leaders in France have told their community to wear
hats or nothing on their heads while walking the streets. Klein said
most Jews prefer staying indoors at night because it is safer at home.
French soldiers attacked outside Jewish Community Center
Three French soldiers were attacked by a knife-wielding assailant on Tuesday outside the Jewish Community Center they were guarding in Nice, France (Hat Tip: Lance K).
Two of the servicemen were injured. Both were treated at the scene. Police sources said the soldiers' lives were not in danger.
President Francois Hollande issued a statement condemning what he
called a "criminal act" and promised the incident would be investigated.
The soldiers were on patrol outside the Jewish center as part of
stepped-up security measures in France following last month's attacks in
Paris on the offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine and a
kosher grocery that left 20 people dead, including the attackers.
City authorities said that the attacker had an identity card with the
name Moussa Coulibaly. The family name, relatively common among people
of Malian descent, is the same as that of Amedy Coulibaly, who killed a
policeman and four Jewish shoppers in last month's attack on the kosher
grocery in Paris. Police said the two apparently were not related.
According to police, French security services questioned Moussa
Coulibaly after he traveled to Turkey on a one-way ticket in late
January. Turkish police blocked him from traveling along a route used by
jihadi fighters from Europe to join Islamic extremist groups fighting
in Syria and Iraq and returned him to France.
It's not ending.... Time to make aliya while you still have the option.
Prime Minister Manuel Valls' sincere empathy notwithstanding, French Jews are leaving. Here's one whose family has lived in France for nearly 300 years who has decided this week that enough is enough (Hat Tip: Instapundit).
In January 1992, I took my Uncle René to the Bastille. It was our
last opportunity to go to the opera. René was about to join his daughter
in Israel, ending three centuries of our family's existence as French
Jews - Jews who were as proud of their republican heritage as they were
meticulous in their religious devotions.
Our family lived in the ninth arrondissement and normally went to
the opera at the old Palais Garnier, a chandeliered relic of French
pomp. René did not think much of the concrete Opéra Bastille. Nor of the
country's direction. When I asked why he was leaving France, he said:
"C'est terminé."
...
In the wake of last week's Islamist attacks on cherished freedoms
- and on innocent families out shopping for the Sabbath - there has been
much talk of renewed unity. Yesterday's march through Paris was a
stirring symbol of that.
But the rift between the Republic and its Jewish citizens did not begin last week. It has a longer history.
My family were hugely proud of being French. We can trace our
lineage back to the dawn of citizenship records, to 1727, in a village
on the outskirts of Strasbourg. Our patriarch was Grand Rabbin of the
Lower Rhine, the first Jewish preacher to deliver sermons in French.
When the Germans occupied Alsace-Lorraine in 1870, we moved to Paris. My
ancestors were never going to live under any flag but the Tricolore.
We founded an orthodox synagogue at the back of the Folies-Bergère.
My Aunt Fifi would giggle as we passed display cases of half-naked
entertainers, whispering to me about what went on in there. On the day
she was born - Aug. 1, 1914 - my grandfather went off to the Front,
serving for the full four years, never omitting to wrap a Jewish talit
around his French uniform at morning prayers. A wooden board in the rue
Cadet synagogue lists more than 20 members of our family who gave their
lives for France in that war and others - who "fell on the field of
honour," in the official phrase.
Oh my.... Two of the three times I have been to Paris, I have stayed in the 9th arrondissement. I remember that street well, although usually I prayed in the nearby Rashi Synagogue (link in French).
We were part of France - until France ceased to be France. The problem
was not the waves of North African immigration from the Sixties onwards.
Those waves actually contained many Jews: Uncle René, annoyed by a
young Israeli rabbi, stormed out of rue Cadet to form a new community
with Moroccans and Tunisians.
...
But the alienated populace in the outer suburbs, ignored by the
Republic and exploited by radical preachers, contributed to Jewish
unease. Some streets were no longer safe to walk in a skullcap.
Anti-Semitic rhetoric was heard on the Right, on the Left, and from the
banlieues. Murderous attacks on Jewish schools aroused no national
outrage on the scale seen in the past week.
So Jews fled in their thousands - many to London, where two new
communities have sprung up in my own neighbourhood. Some 3,300 left for
Israel in 2013, rising to 5,000 last year. Many more French Jews
acquired homes abroad.
France awoke too late to the exodus. Last September, prime minister
Manuel Valls, whose violinist wife is Jewish, put on a skullcap at a
central synagogue and announced to the world that "a France without Jews
is no longer France." This weekend, for the first time since the Nazi
era, that same synagogue had to shut for the Sabbath because the state
was unable to protect its worshippers.
France is in a state of moral confusion. Yesterday a million marched
in Paris and the impressive Mr. Valls declared: "We are all Charlie, we
are all police, we are all Jews of France."
How I long to believe that. My Jewish friends were out on the
streets of Paris this weekend, hoping that, after this tragic moment,
the tide will turn. For myself, I am unable to pretend that life will go
on as before. My history, as a Jew of France, is over.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls blasts anti-Semitism
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls made a blistering speech to his country's national assembly on Tuesday, in which he blasted his countrymen's lack of response to anti-Semitism, vowed to fight jihad, and even took on France's anti-Semitic comedian Dieudonne.
Here's one English translation video I managed to find.
In his speech, Valls was explicit that the “first question that has
to be dealt with clearly is the struggle against antisemitism.”
“History has taught us that the awakening of antisemitism is the
symptom of a crisis for democracy and of a crisis for the Republic. That
is why we must respond with force,” Valls said. Recalling a series of
antisemitic outrages in France in recent years, such as the abduction,
torture and murder of the young Parisian Jew Ilan Halimi in 2006, the
murder of three small children and a rabbi by an Islamist gunman at a
Jewish school in Toulouse in 2012, and the rape of a young Jewish woman
during an antisemitic assault on a Jewish home in the Paris suburb of
Creteil in December 2014, Valls asserted that these and other incidents
“did not not produce the national outrage that our Jewish compatriots
expected.”
“How can we accept that in France, where the Jews were emancipated
two centuries ago, but which was also where they were martyred [during
the Nazi Holocaust] 70 years ago, that cries of ‘death to the Jews’ can
be heard on the streets?” Valls asked, the indignation in his voice
steadily rising. “How can we accept that French people can be murdered
for being Jews? How can we accept that compatriots, or a Tunisian
citizen whose father sent him to France so that he would be safe, is
killed when he goes out to buy his bread for Shabbat?”
Valls observed that there “is a historical antisemitism that goes
back centuries.” But, he added, “there is also a new antisemitism that
is born in our neighborhoods, coming through the internet, satellite
dishes, against the backdrop of loathing of the State of Israel, which
advocates hatred of the Jews and all the Jews.”
Implored the French Prime Minister: “It has to be spelled out – the
right words must be used to fight this unacceptable antisemitism.”
Valls emphasized an additional point that he has made repeatedly over
the last few days: that a France shorn of its Jewish community would no
longer be France. “This is the message we have to communicate loud and
clear,” he said. “How can we accept that in certain schools and colleges
the Holocaust can’t be taught? How can we accept that when a child is
asked, ‘who is your enemy,’ the response is ‘the Jew?’ When the Jews of
France are attacked, France is attacked, the conscience of humanity is
attacked. Let us never forget that.”
The speech was also an opportunity for Valls to directly confront
Dieudonné M’Bala M’bala, the anti-Semitic French provocateur infamous
for devising the “quenelle,” an inverted Nazi salute, as well as for his
frequent mocking of the Holocaust. Yesterday, the French authorities
confirmed that Dieudonné, along with 53 other defendants, had been
arrested for offenses including hate speech, antisemitism, and
glorifying terrorism.
Refusing to mention the self-styled comedian by name, Valls spoke of
“the indignity of a serial hater having a full house on Saturday night,
when the country was mourning for what happened [at the HyperCacher
market] in Porte de Vincennes.” As the National Assembly rose in a
standing ovation for the Prime Minister, Valls thundered, “Let us never
pass over these matters in silence, and let justice be implacable with
those who preach hate. And I say that emphatically here at the National
Assembly.”
A quarter of Jews
in Britain have considered leaving the country in the last two years
and well over half feel they have no long term future in Europe,
according to a survey published on Wednesday.
Additionally, anti-Semitic
beliefs are widely prevalent among the wider public with 45 percent of
Britons agreeing with at least one anti-Semitic sentiment, the YouGov
poll for the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) group found.
The
survey comes a week after four French Jews were killed in an attack on a
Kosher supermarket in Paris which led to police stepping up security at
synagogues and other Jewish venues across Britain.
...
According to the CAA's poll of 2,230 British
Jews, 58 percent felt Jews might have no long-term future in Europe, 45
percent felt their family was threatened by Islamist extremism and more
than half had witnessed more anti-Semitism in the last two years than
ever before.
The survey of the
wider public found a quarter of Britons believed "Jews chase money more
than other British people", and one in six agreed that "Jews think they
are better than other people" and "Jews have too much power in the
media".
In all, 45 percent of the 3,411 questioned believed at least one anti-Semitic statement shown to them to be true.
Maybe Carmelli - one of the best (if not the best) Kosher bakeries I have ever been in - would consider relocating to Jerusalem? (See the picture). That would be awesome.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
