Jews are unsure where they belong. Should they stay in
France? Leave? Most of them do not have the liberty to
choose. Jews barely making ends meet are stuck in the
suburbs.
Some 5,000 Jews streamed in to take part in a one-day aliya
fair at the France-Israel House in Paris' Eighth Quarter
designed to accelerate aliya procedures for French Jews ready
to make the move. Jewish Agency organizers say such high
levels of participation at aliya events have never been seen
before. They believe recent antisemitic incidents, the
indifference of the typical (non-Jewish) man-in-the-street to
attacks against Jews and the dark sentiments towards Israel
have impelled many Jews to take an interest in making aliya
and purchasing apartments in Israel. Many are buying
apartments to prepare a place to flee to upon leaving France.
But still, few are making the move.
The thousands of participants stood in a long line winding
down the street and expressed despair over what is taking
place in France. The sight of dozens of gravestones spray-
painted with red crosses was even more disheartening.
Antisemitism is not fading away. "We feel like we are being
expelled from France," said Bruno, a Jew from the Parisian
suburb of Vitry-sur-Seine. "They identify us more and more
with Israelis so we might as well be Israelis."
Most Jews in France already packed up their belongings and
left when they fled from North African countries. Now some of
them and their children are wondering whether the time has
come to leave France. But most of them remain for the time
being and are forced to hear the denunciatory ideas of people
like United Nations Envoy to Iraq Lakdar Barhimi who says,
"Israel poisons the Middle East."
According to Shamla, the head of a pro-Israeli internet site,
even assimilated secular Jews far from religion and from the
State of Israel feel discomfited over recent events in
France, though they consider the calls for aliya injurious to
their loyalty to France. "The calls by the Jewish Agency and
Israeli ministers for Jews to come on aliya remain unanswered
and place the Jews in an uncomfortable situation," writes
Shamla.
Nevertheless several thousand came to look into the
possibilities. Even with the aliya emissaries they don't feel
at ease. Jewish Agency representatives always regard every
Jew with suspicion, checking him inside and out to be sure he
is not the descendent of an Israeli and therefore should be
denied immigrant rights.
The French press claimed the Chief Rabbis visited Paris in
order to promote aliya among French Jews. In reality they had
come for the Conference of European Rabbis. But the French
have little appreciation for aliya and accuse the Sharon
government of exploiting antisemitism to enlist more Jews and
to settle them in the Disputed Territories. In its editorial
column Liberation claimed the Jews are not the only
victims of racism, but Arab immigrants also suffer "from Jews
who do not like Arabs."
According to CRIF, this accusation is unfounded. Not a single
Jew has attacked Arabs. Left-wing newspapers still present
antisemitic attacks as folklore or deny them outright. Former
Interior Minister Nicolai Sarcousa suffers from attacks
against him because he ran the battle against antisemitism. A
left-wing newspaper called Politics denied that
violence against Jewish students at schools constitutes
antisemitism, attributing the beatings Jews take at schools
or in the street to other factors. Only desecrating a
cemetery shocks them.
The Jewish Community in France
After an 800-year hiatus a chareidi kashrus committee and the
first yeshiva in Paris, Yad Mordechai, grew from a large 90-
year-old beis knesses with gilded candelabra, wooden
benches, decorated pillars and a chamber ceiling located in
the city's old Jewish quarter of Marais. HaRav Chaim Yaakov
Rotenberg set up the yeshiva in the wedding hall on the
fourth floor after founding a mehadrin kashrus
department, which was previously unknown in Paris. Later a
large and stately beis medrash was built on top of the
roof.
Within a few years bochurim and avreichim had
gathered around HaRav Rotenberg, delving into their Torah
studies and ridding France of the curse that had kept
Talmudic studies outside its borders. During the period of
the French Haskoloh the Talmud was destroyed a second time.
Today his son, HaRav Mordechai Rotenberg, perpetuates the
leadership of the chareidi kehilloh, including a
school, a beis din headed by HaRav Moshe Mordechai
Karp and a kashrus organization.
On Pave Street, behind an ancient wooden gate, lies the
courtyard of Yad Mordechai Institutions, headed by HaRav
Yitzchok Katz. On one side towers a building made of glass
and steel for the kindergarten, school and mesivto.
After World War II Baron Rothschild built a Jewish school
there. On the other side, a castle from the Middle Ages
houses Yeshivas Nishmas Yisroel. Above it is a yeshiva
ketanoh named Avi Ezri. With the exception of the age of
the building it could pass for a yeshiva in Bnei Brak.
The sounds of Torah are heard once again in le Marais, just
like the sounds of Torah heard in the beis medrash of
Baalei HaTosfos in the yeshiva of Rabbenu Yechiel of Paris.
The church built on it sits, silent and empty, while the
yeshiva and other institutions are brimming with life.
Upstairs HaRav Kokis and HaRav Yehoshua Solomons deliver
shiurim. HaRav Sternbuch sets ablaze the fire of Torah
and tefilloh with the bochurim. Mussar talks
are given by the Mashgiach, HaRav Aryeh Leib Shapira. The
noble who built the castle does not know who he built it for.
Perhaps he was among the expellers of the Jews.
Further up, on Rue de Rosia, tempers are flaring. The mayor
decided to renovate the Jewish quarter's old main street and
"countrify" it. Narrow and grimy with narrow sidewalks,
botei knesses, butcher shops, bookstores and
antiquated restaurants and grocery stores, the street has
changed very little since the Jews of Eastern Europe began to
arrive in the Middle Ages. Today shady businesses are
beginning to spread here.
Despite the proliferation of Torah in the botei
medrash and kollelim and the Jews' success in
business and academia it's still hard to be a Jew in Paris.
The more openly a Jew reveals his identity the more he is
regarded with stares, disdain and revulsion. Even those who
do not show their Jewishness and have assimilated suffer in
the work place and in schools.
While we went for a walk in the woods somebody stuck a knife
into the tire of our parked car and cut it maliciously. This
type of treachery toward chareidim conveys the increasing
intolerance for Jews who appear Jewish externally. A
Frenchman who slashes a tire because the car belongs to a Jew
shows how deeply antisemitism is entrenched despite the
Enlightenment, rationalism, the decline of the church and the
Holocaust.
