Violence against Jews escalates in France

CRÉTEIL, France – The call came in the middle of the night. When Rahamim Oliel picked up the phone, he learned that the Ozar Hatorah school he directed – the Jewish place of learning he had cherished for 28 years – had been set ablaze.

That same night, vandals tried to deface the only synagogue in Créteil, a grim suburb just south of Paris where the city blocks are studded with cheerless, socialist-style apartment complexes.

Despondent, Mr. Oliel, a small man who wears the black hat and long beard associated with conservative Jews, said he realized then that a climate of open anti-Semitism had returned to France six decades after the Nazi horror.

"I couldn't believe it when I came and found the fire roaring," he said, surveying severe damage to several classrooms at one of the school's two buildings. "I saw this school grow from 14 students when I came in 1973 to more than 1,100 students. So you can imagine what it did to me to see it on fire. I can't even begin to tell you how I feel."

The incidents in Créteil on the last day of 2001 were not isolated events. The vicious conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East has apparently had a startling spillover effect in France, where officials report a sharp rise in the number of attacks on Jewish schools, synagogues and rabbis.

The Jewish community has been shaken to its core by the violence, which Jewish leaders blame on France's burgeoning population of Arab immigrants from North Africa who are angry about Israel's harsh treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Anti-Semitic acts in France were extremely rare during the 1990s – a period of relative calm in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza – but have become commonplace as Israeli-Palestinian violence has intensified with the breakdown of the Middle East peace process, figures from the National Human Rights Commission show. In 1998, one serious anti-Semitic attack was reported in France; in 1999, there were nine such attacks. But in 2000, the commission reported, there were 116 serious acts of violence against Jewish institutions, almost all of them taking place after the Palestinian uprising began in October of that year. This ripple effect can be felt in dozens of towns and cities where Jewish facilities have been hit by Molotov cocktails in the middle of the night. Most perpetrators have escaped. The case in Créteil is unusual only because three men – an African from Mali, a French citizen of North African origin, and another man born in France – were arrested at the scene.

Jewish schools have been burned in Marseille, the synagogue in Goussainville has been firebombed – along with many others – and Jewish-owned businesses have been defaced with racist graffiti in most major French cities.

In October, arsonists burned part of a Jewish elementary school in southern France and left graffiti that read "Death to the Jews" and "Bin Laden Will Conquer," slogans often found in the West Bank and Gaza Strip but rare in France.

Even seemingly innocent events – such as the screening of the Harry Potter movie for Jewish schoolchildren as part of the Hanukkah celebration – have provoked confrontations. The Paris movie theater that had planned to show the film canceled the screening after receiving threats, the manager said.

Some Jewish leaders said the atmosphere is reminiscent of the period before the outbreak of World War II, when many Frenchmen started to discriminate against Jews because of social pressures to do so. Emmanuel Weintraub, a member of the executive board of the Representative Council of French Jewry, said the government wants the Jewish community "to be quiet" about the worsening problem. He said the judicial system is failing to take racist crimes seriously, encouraging young people to feel they can attack Jewish sites in France with impunity. He said, for example, that the three young men convicted of attacking the synagogue in Créteil, and thought to be responsible for the arson at the school, were not required to serve time in prison because the crime was not classified as anti-Semitic. It was treated as a common street crime, and the men received suspended sentences. "That means they got off completely," he said.

The violence has had a chilling effect on French Jews who are now reluctant to walk to their synagogues because they are often jostled or insulted, Mr. Weintraub said. "So far, thank God, there have been no fatalities, but if there is one, all hell will break loose," he said. "We have angry young men as well, and they will want revenge, and it will be an explosive situation."

The Jewish community is also upset by what is perceived as the French government's tolerance of anti-Semitism, as reflected by comments made in late December by France's ambassador to Britain, Daniel Bernard. He used a vulgar term to describe Israel and blamed Israelis for bringing the world close to a third world war.

The senior diplomat was not reprimanded or removed by the French government after the comments were published.

The Israeli government has announced plans to increase financial assistance to French Jews who want to move to Israel, and Jewish community leaders report a jump in the number of people considering emigration. Israeli officials say France has become the most anti-Semitic country in Western Europe.

National leaders of the growing Muslim community, upset about the attacks, have advised the imams at hundreds of mosques throughout France to preach a message of tolerance and brotherhood as spelled out in the Quran. Kechat Larbi, director of the Adda'wa mosque in Paris, said the conflicts between the Jewish and North African communities in France have been exaggerated by the French news media. But he said that televised images of Palestinians suffering at the hands of Israelis have inflamed tensions and that a just solution to the Middle East crisis would calm the situation in France. "Events in the Middle East make people here angry," he said. "People get angry when they see on television what is going on there. We have to find a way to live harmoniously and in peace."

The French president, Jacques Chirac, said after the attacks in Créteil that "great attention" will be paid to any anti-Jewish crimes and that those responsible will be "punished as necessary."

French officials have been trying to play down the violence, suggesting that it is not anti-Semitic in nature but is part of a larger societal drift afflicting much of France, particularly the crowded, working-class suburbs where jobs and educational opportunities are scarce. But this position is rejected by Jews who say that when Jewish children are attacked on a school bus, it is an anti-Semitic act, said Serge Klarsfeld, France's foremost Nazi hunter. "The Jewish community is extremely worried," he said. "It is a shame that these anti-Jewish actions are coming back and the political world prefers to close its eyes." Nonetheless, he said the situation is not comparable to the circumstances of the Nazi era because the new anti-Semitism is not coming from the extreme right wing of the French political spectrum but primarily from young Arabs who identify with Palestinians. "It's not the same," he said. "What we fear is that young people in the Islamic schools are learning from imams from the Arabic countries who propagate the hatred of Jews. It can be very seductive for them to fight against Jews."

Jewish community organizers say they feel betrayed by political leaders who seem to have weighed the electoral clout of France's 600,000 Jews against the potential power of roughly 6 million immigrants from North Africa and concluded that it is not necessary to win support among Jewish voters.

"People feel abandoned," said Andre Benayoun, a lawyer who is president of the Jewish Community in Créteil and neighboring cities. "The politicians from both the right and the left don't react to repeated attacks. It could be because Arabs are more numerous than Jews and we are in an election period now. But we don't understand how politicians can sacrifice our long-term integration and loyalty for purely electoral reasons." Despite his revulsion at the attacks in Créteil, and what he believes is an overly tolerant response from the government, Mr. Benayoun said he does not believe France has become an anti-Semitic country. He said the anti-Jewish sentiments are confined to a relatively small group – a view buttressed by the large public rallies in support of French Jews that have been held after several prominent attacks. "The great majority of French society condemns this," he said.

Despite his revulsion at the attacks in Créteil, and what he believes is an overly tolerant response from the government, Mr. Benayoun said he does not believe France has become an anti-Semitic country. He said the anti-Jewish sentiments are confined to a relatively small group – a view buttressed by the large public rallies in support of French Jews that have been held after several prominent attacks. "The great majority of French society condemns this," he said.

Qui s'excuse, s'accuse! N'est-ce-pas?

The French were always the most antisemitic of the Europeans, until the previously most tolerant Germans outdid them.

While the German government did outdo the Frog government by virtue of running the death camps, it is still true that as a population the French people were at least as enthusiastic about taking action against Jews than the German people, and perhaps more so. The horrid acts against Jews by common Frogs is well documented and a scandal thay try very hard to downplay. While today the Germans have tried to come to grips with their acts, the Frogs go blithely on pretending a resistance that simply did not exist.

"Events in the Middle East make people here angry," he said. "People get angry when they see on television what is going on there. We have to find a way to live harmoniously and in peace."

The Israelis cannot keep using helicopter gunships against civilians in the occupied territories, and imagine that all the bad press is not going to effect them.

On daily basis, Israel has been getting bad press from its militaristic responses to the terrorists. There is a compelling reasons that Sharon needs to acknoweldge that you can't get everything by brute force. A more diplomatic leader is needed to craft an arragement of coexistance with the Arabs. I know it is easier said than done. And I know that the Arabs are only looking at this as a temporary peace until they kill all the Jews! However, a pragmatic solution with the help of the US can ease this tention. Israel needs that NOW. The more bad press it gets, the more difficult it becomes to reform that bad image around the world.

Just remember, the militant bombers were passified in the seventies eighties, and nineties, this rapid escalation in violance started under Sharon.

Please, I don't need a foaming at the mouth right winger to teach me who started what, and who is evil! I know, it is the Arab terrorists who are causing the violance to go out-of-hand. However, pragmatism is the way cool the tempo! Especially, when a stupid religeon is envolved!

Oh, no, it goes back far beyond the Dreyfuss affair back at least into the Counter-Reformation, perhaps even into the middle ages. French intolerance generally is a theme: think of the Glorious Sun King who massacred Protestants after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685!

One could fairly plausibly construct a theory of history that everything that has gone significantly wrong in Europe since 800 (formation of the Holy Roman Empire by Charlemagne) can be blamed on the French. When I was training to be an historian in the late 1960's, I knew every historian had to have at least one irrational prejudice, conscious or unconscious. I determined I wanted to be aware of my prejudice, so I had to choose one. Rejecting irrational hatred of the English (a lower class prejudice in America), the Germans (too common at the time) or the Jews (shows a lack of imagination), I picked the French. Then, I started reading French history and discovered the French really are inferior!

In our popular culture the French come off way better than they deserve in WWII. In our movies and television programs about WWII one would come away with the belief that the French "resistance" was some powerful force and that it was a widespread network tirelessly fighting the Germans. Pure hogwash. It was tiny and ineffective. While in the rest of Europe there were active guerilla combat units harassing the Germans the French had no such thing. Indeed- France supplied several hundred thousand men to serve in the Wernacht in French battalions and regiments and the Charlamagne SS regiment fought to the bitter defending Berlin in the final Soviet assault. American airmen were routinely turned in by Frenchmen to the Germans. Escaping POWS didn't meet up with "resistance" as we see in our stupid movies but were always routinely turned in by french civilians.

The French were an active ally of the Germans. They have never dealt with that fact. Indeed- everyone claims to have been in this mythical "resistance". Some french politicans who claimed to have been in the resitance have been exposed as being active collaborators with the Germans! Total white wash.

an African from Mali, a French citizen of North African origin, and another man born in France – were arrested at the scene.

People on this thread are suffering from willful blindness. These crimes are not motivated by French nativism or neo-NAZIism, but are primarily the fruit of liberal multiculturalism. Jews of all societies should take this lesson to heart.

"The latest version of the Action Française at work."

Now, wait a minute! The alleged perpetrators of these crimes are not French nationalists, but Moslems. If anyone is the rightful ideological descendant of the AF it would have to be the Front Nationale and, last time I heard, they wanted to terminate (and reverse) Islamic imigration into France. How on earth can you blame French nationalists for crimes committed by their arch-enemies?

Despite France's poor record with respect to the Jews, these anti-Semitic crimes did not start happening until after massive Islamic invasion. I see a clear cause and effect. And, as everywhere else in the world, it is the Moslems that are the cause.

Find me the religion that France will actually support. They are anti-religious as a whole because they are socialists. They have not stood up for faith in this century. This type of violence and anti-religious indifference by the French government and French people has been going on in the past 3 decades at least but the Jews are just not the biggest name to be on the hit list. No other religions who have been persecuted have gotten much press prior to this.

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