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   From: FlyC750s@loveUSA.edu   
      
   Anti-Semitism: The French Crisis   
   By Michel Gurfinkiel   
   January 26, 2004   
      
      
   There is currently an upsurge of anti-Semitism all over Europe. In France,   
   the European country with the largest Jewish community (600,000 to 1   
   million, or 1% to 1.5 % of a global population of 62 million), it is   
   reaching alarming proportions. According to recent polls, anywhere from   
   one-third to one-half of French Jews either feels threatened enough or   
   unsure enough about the future to   
   consider leaving the country or to advise his children to leave the country.   
      
   This is not petty anti-Semitism, as we may have known it for about 50 years   
   in North America and in most of Western Europe - a tale of marginal   
   incidents being carried on by fringe extremists - but rather a development   
   that affects the entire nation. This is not a case of mere anti-Zionism   
   either. The contemporary French anti-Semites are explicitly targeting Jews   
   and Judaism, not Zionists. And they make no distinctions between the Jewish   
   people at large, whether the Jewish community in France, in Europe, or in   
   Israel.   
      
   And finally, this is not a case of bigotry, where anti-Jewish prejudice is   
   derived from a lack of information about Judaism and the Holocaust. On the   
   contrary, Judaism has been playing an important and visible national role in   
   France throughout the last decades of the 20th century, and Holocaust   
   awareness or pieties about the Holocaust are deemed to be part and parcel of   
   the   
   contemporary national culture of France. The 16th of July, the anniversary   
   of the infamous roundup of Parisian Jews in 1942, is now a national day.   
   Every school where Jewish pupils were arrested either by the German Gestapo   
   or the Vichy France police has been turned into a national landmark. For all   
   that, the new anti-Semitism has been gaining ground day by day.   
      
   President Chirac, who first flatly denied anything like that was taking   
   place, now acknowledges it as a major political concern. On November 17,   
   2003, he solemnly warned that "attacks against French Jews are attacks   
   against France" and issued orders for a monthly review, at the highest   
   government level, of anti-Semitic incidents.   
      
   What Are the Facts?   
      
   Since 2000, anti-Semitic violence has been rampant in France. According to   
   the Interior Ministry, anti-Jewish violence has dramatically increased, to a   
   yearly average of about 120 incidents in the 2000-02 period from a yearly   
   average of about 10 incidents throughout the 1990s. Some 80% of all racist   
   incidents in mainland France (except for the island of Corsica), are   
   anti-Semitic. Some   
   20 synagogues, schools, and other communal facilities were destroyed either   
   by arson or vandalization in the 2000-02 period. Two further cases of   
   complete vandalization (one synagogue, one high school) occurred in 2003.   
      
   Several Jewish shops have been attacked. Jewish people are routinely being   
   molested or harassed in some areas, especially on their way to synagogue or   
   school or at school. Several rabbis have been attacked and beaten in the   
   street. Jewish youths have been attacked while exercising at public sports   
   facilities. Jewish school buses have been stoned or even shot at. One case   
   of abduction   
   and one of near lynching in the street have been reported. And there is some   
   reason to believe that two murder cases in 2003 were motivated by   
   anti-Jewish hatred.   
      
   Even if and when actual violence is subsiding, the climate of the country is   
   deteriorating. Murderous anti-Jewish slogans such as "Death to Jews!" are   
   routinely being shouted at large-scale street demonstrations. Various groups   
   and even elected officials are campaigning for a global boycott of Israeli   
   and "Israeli-related" (i.e., Jewish) goods, or for the suspension or the   
   termination of academic cooperation with Israel or even with individual   
   Israeli scientists, a move prohibited under French law.   
      
   Explicitly anti-Jewish books have been published by major publishing houses,   
   including books intended for children and teenagers, a market that, in   
   theory, is strictly regulated by law in France.   
      
   A radical Islamist preacher who publicly singled out some French   
   intellectuals for being Jewish and therefore foes of Islam, Tariq Ramadan,   
   was turned into a television superstar of sorts. So has an Afro-French   
   humorist who indulges in provocative anti-Jewish jokes and statements,   
   Dieudonne Mbala.   
      
   Moreover, according to various reports and at least two recently published   
   books ("Les Territoires Perdus de la Republique," edited by Emmanuel   
   Brenner, and "La Republique et L'Islam," by Michele Tribalat and   
   Jeanne-Helene Kaltenbach), schools and universities are becoming major   
   hotbeds of anti-Semitism.   
      
   In some cases, both parents and pupils insist on rewriting the textbooks in   
   a more anti-Jewish or anti-Israel way, and dropping programs and debates   
   about Judaism and the Holocaust, which are part of the government-mandated   
   curriculum. In many places, Jewish students, teachers, and academics feel   
   physically or verbally threatened or abused but get precious little support   
   from principals or teachers and colleagues.   
      
   The Response   
      
   The response from the government and the other powers that be has been   
   limited or ineffective for too long. It took more than a year, from October   
   2000 to November 2001, for the French press (some exceptions   
   notwithstanding) to report extensively about the anti-Semitic crisis. Even   
   now, some press and broadcast groups keep referring to "intergroup   
   friction," as if Jews were engaging in racist violence as well or   
   retaliating, which is not the case. The French political class has reacted   
   in an even more awkward manner.   
      
   Political parties and nongovernmental organizations didn't call for   
   demonstrations against anti-Semitic violence, as might have been expected,   
   or as it has occurred in the past (in 1980, 1982, and 1988), nor associated,   
   on April 7, 2002, with a mass rally against anti-Semitism and terrorism   
   sponsored by the Conseil Representatif des Institutions Juives de France   
   (the Representative   
   Council of Jewish Organizations in France).   
      
   Under the socialist government of Lionel Jospin, until April 22, 2002,   
   officials - especially at the Interior Ministry - were busy denying or   
   downplaying the crisis. Things have improved since the 2002 elections, with   
   the conservative government led by Jean-Pierre Raffarin. Still, the Interior   
   Ministry remains very cautious in its estimates of anti-Semitic incidents   
   and seems at times   
   reluctant to enforce the existing antiracist laws, including a new law   
   passed by the conservative-dominated National Assembly at the request of the   
   conservative Jewish representative for the 9th District of Paris, Pierre   
   Lellouche.   
      
   An extremely small number of people have been prosecuted or indicted for   
   anti-Semitic offenses. Those who have, unfortunately, have not been   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)