Posted on 01/09/2003 4:56:51 PM PST by Nachum
PARIS - Jewish parents tell their sons not to wear yarmulkes. A rabbi is stabbed while preparing for a Sabbath service. Elderly women are frisked before entering synagogues - just in case.
As the stresses of being Jewish in France multiply, some feel it safer to hide their religion. Others have decided the only solution is to pack up and leave.
Statistics released this week by the Jewish Agency, the body that arranges immigration to Israel, show that 2,326 French Jews emigrated to Israel in 2002, more than double the number of a year earlier.
French arrivals were a mere 6.7 percent of the total, but it represented the largest percentage of French immigrants to Israel since 1972. At that time, Israel had quadrupled its territory from the 1967 Six Day War and Jews flocked there full of hope.
Today, their reasons for going are different. In synagogues and at Jewish gatherings, people say they are afraid and fed up. Though the new conservative government has loudly condemned recent attacks, many wonder if France's leaders are committed to fighting anti-Semitism.
"In Israel, at least we know the government is on our side," said Stephanie Ohana, a 34-year-old Parisian Jew, at a prayer service this week for her rabbi, who was injured in a stabbing. "It's paradoxical, isn't it? But we have the feeling we'd be safer in Israel."
Last Friday's knifing of Rabbi Gabriel Farhi stunned France. It came after a relative lull in anti-Semitic attacks that coincided with violence in the Middle East.
It started with a menacing letter the morning of the attack that said: "We want the skin of Rabbi Gabriel Farhi and will avenge the blood of our Palestinian brothers," according to the Liberal Jewish Movement of France, a group founded by Farhi's father.
Later that day, Farhi was preparing for Friday night services when the synagogue doorbell rang. As he opened the door, he says, an attacker in a motorcycle helmet lunged forward with a knife, shouted "God is great!" in Arabic and fled. The man has not been caught.
Farhi, 34, a leading figure in France's liberal Jewish community, was slightly injured and released from the hospital the same day. Then, on Monday, his car was torched in his apartment parking lot.
"I want to believe that this was an isolated act," Farhi said, "and not the prelude to other attacks and a new wave of anti-Semitism."
At an ecumenical prayer service held in support of Farhi at his Paris synagogue this week, the turnout was impressive. Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders attended, along with many political leaders. Four former prime ministers: Lionel Jospin, Alain Juppe, Edouard Balladur and Laurent Fabius, sat beside each other wearing yarmulkes, the traditional Jewish skull cap.
France's tough new law-and-order interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, also attended. Sarkozy, who has launched a sweeping anti-crime campaign, guaranteed new measures to prevent future attacks, Farhi said.
"It's clear that the government is listening better now," Farhi said, adding that he wanted to see results. "I'm waiting for concrete measures."
Authorities increased security at Jewish religious sites last year, following a wave of attacks at synagogues, Jewish schools and cemeteries. In the most serious case, a synagogue in southern Marseille was burned to the ground.
But Farhi and others say police presence and metal detectors alone are not the answer. Asked what needs to be done, he replied: "Perhaps stricter laws. Perhaps some more concern, I would say, from the police and from the government."
Last spring, French President Jacques Chirac insisted there was no anti-Semitism in France even as Jewish groups placed the number of anti-Jewish attacks at the highest level since World War II.
Of late, he has taken a tougher tone.
"There is no room in our country for anti-Semitism, racism, xenophobia or for manifestations of religious intolerance," Chirac wrote in a letter to the rabbi cited by Le Monde newspaper.
France is home to an estimated 600,000 Jews - the largest Jewish community in western Europe - and one of the continent's largest Muslim populations. Islam is France's second-largest religion after Roman Catholicism.
Jews find themselves taking pains to hide their identity in public.
"My son goes to a Jewish school," said Francis Lentschner, vice president of the liberal Jewish movement. "He can wear his kippah (yarmulke) in school. But I prefer him not to wear one outside."
Ohana wears a Hebrew letter on a gold chain around her neck. Lately, she said, she keeps it tucked inside her collar.
"It hurts. It really does," she said. "We're starting to hide that we're Jewish."
Hizbollah said that in 20 years (I guess now 13) France will be an Islamic Republic.
Wow!
The great fashion houses of Chanel, St. Laurent--will soon be featuring burquas, abayas, chadors and assorted hijab for the women of Paris, at the point of a scimitar.
How many years before the Louvre is sacked, and who will weep for the effete?
Disgusting. Jews should be wearing flourescent yarmulkes, travel in groups of three, and carry concealed weapons everywhere they go. Any Arab who so much as hits a Jew should be killed. They must show that Jewish blood is not cheap. That is the only way the assault will stop. There must be one Jewish multi-millionare who would be willing to finance to arming of Jews worldwide.
The JPost apparently uses the word "liberal" in the American sense, as in "rabidly left-wing," and not in the European sense, which is classical liberalism.
It's usually funny when left-wingers are stabbed by the monsters they spend so much time defending.
We both know that the Frankfurt School came to America with bad results; e.g., Herbert Marcuse. I'm no apologist for that Gramscian garbage.
It's in Australia I heard about that. I read the Free Republic and haven't heard it mentioned here.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,482120,00.html
I realize that the source of the first link is a controversial figure, but, while there may be cause to question his overall views, there is little cause to question his accuracy on this particular point.
Not that this behavior is limited to France, or Australia, for that matter. It's happening all over Europe and seems to happen in proportion to the number of Third Worlders present in a particular nation.
England is in not much better shape.
All of Europe needs our missionary activity and prayer!
"WILL do that?" "WILL DO THAT?!!!!"
I am once again rolling on the floor laughing.
In a society that believes in "liberte, egalite, et fraternite," the correct answer is: "here are the examples of how we HAVE DONE that."
Too late. Sarkozy is posturing for the media. French Jews see the handwriting on the wall. What Charles Martel stopped at Tours, the French are abetting today: Namely surrender of their culture, security, and women to the Satanic cult of Islam.
Ann Coulter just may be right when she suggests that we: Bomb France.
Second, when the perpetrators of these offenses have been apprehended, they have been punished. Now, the new Interior Minister, not previously in a position to anything about it (since he wasn't the Interior Minister before) is going to take additional measures. One good measure that probably won't be taken- stop Muslim immigration to France (and maybe start deporting Muslims to boot!). If that measure is suggested, Jewish groups such as the ADL will immediately scream about "racism". Ironic, don't you think?
Finally, Ann Coulter is hardly a foreign policy expert. Having said that, her odious column, obnoxious as it was, was written tongue in cheek and is hardly a sound basis for American policy.
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