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11 Tishrei 5763 - September 17, 2002 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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NEWS
A Year of Antisemitism
By Arnon Yaffe, Paris

One Pesach night, a dozen masked Arabs, called just "youths" by the media, sped through Lyons in three cars, towards the shul in the La Douchierre neighborhood. One of the cars smashed through the gates and the shattering glass woke the neighbors. The Arabs tried to set the shul alight and fled. Boruch Hashem only the gate burned. The police are still searching for the perpetrators.

In contrast to this, a shul in Marseilles burned down, and the five sifrei Torah inside had to be buried. In Parisian suburbs Arabs attacked shuls and Jews, who suffered stoning, harassment, spitting, graffiti, and anti- Jewish articles in the newspapers. In the heart of Paris and Brussels, joint Arab and French demonstrators shouted "Death to the Jews!" This and more happened last year in France, a year of antisemitism and anti-Israel demonstrations, a situation which is not likely to change this coming year.

Jews throughout Europe were once again pursued by violence and antisemitic hatred this past year. They felt it in the streets, in the suburbs, incitement in the newspapers and in intellectual circles. No Jew could evade the consequences. The chareidim felt it on their skin. The assimilated Jews perceived it in the changing attitudes towards them at work and in society. Jewish intellectuals, doctors and professors went over to the other side of the divide due to the extortionate pressure and were enlisted to the antisemitic Palestinian propaganda in order to maintain their standing and keep their jobs. Others ignored the situation so that they could continue living in France in peace.

The appearance of these old phenomena in new forms was not expected in the era of the European Community, which takes pride in its progressive and cultured society. The Trotskyist Left allied itself with the Fascist Right, and both were joined by the European bureaucracy in Brussels, the European Parliament and the foreign ministers -- in antisemitic and anti-Israel incitement. Maybe the Israeli consulate in Paris burned simply because of all the hatred in the air.

They have not yet solved the puzzle of the mysterious fire which burned down the Israeli Embassy near the Champs Elysees during all the incidents. The obsessive preoccupation with Israel and the Jews is a symptom of an old European illness. Despite all the progress, the struggle for civil rights and justice, nothing much has changed.

In response, the authorities were generally silent and the police regarded these attacks as "gang skirmishes," or "drunken brawls." They call the perpetrators general names like "youths" or "marginal juveniles." If they mention the word "Arab" they will be accused of racism and of being anti- Arab.

Other incidents also happened because of antisemitism, although on the surface it seemed as if they had nothing to do with it. The war waged against Israel, the new friction between Jews and antisemites, the disgrace and humiliation from Le Pen's victory in France, the transition to one European currency and the strengthening of the European bloc into a world power -- all are happening simultaneously with an increased hatred of all foreigners, nationalistic feelings and casting whole sections of the population to the periphery.

The tendency towards the Right of the political scale and Le Pen's victory in the first round of the elections in France are based in the lower socioeconomic layers of French society who feel neglected.

The government, both the Right and the Left, hate America. Everything is connected. The Europeans assume that the Jews have great influence on the American government and see this as a threat to their becoming a superpower. The previous French foreign minister, Hubert Vaudrin, said explicitly that he had an anti-American policy in order to decrease the influence of the Jewish-Israeli lobby on the American government.

Maybe because of the shock or the fear from the new Government, the physical attacks on the Jews stopped. But the incitement continued. The Jews continued their day-to-day life. Those who live in difficult areas bypass dangerous roads, do not go out at night and change cars on the Metro if there are suspicious passengers. The non-Jews deny the phenomenon and expect the Jews to suppress it too.

Some Jews from the upper echelons of society like the lawyer Theo Klein, deny that there are antisemitic attacks. Jewish philosopher Alain Finkelkraut says that Klein considers himself a liberated Jew and uses his liberty to say things that the dominant public opinion wants to hear, namely that there is no antisemitism. From his office on the Champs Elysees, antisemitic violence seems like suburban gang warfare. Perhaps it is a matter of dispute whether this is new antisemitism or old Christian antisemitism or neither.

Others say that it does not come from within Europe. Europe, the champion of civil rights, is at peace with itself. The antisemitism is a side effect of the occupation and the war waged by the Israelis against Palestinian terror. It is not their fault; it is Israel's.

The historian Jacob Palmon writes in his book The Myth of the Nation that the Jews suffered similarly in 1880, with the resurgence of a new European antisemitism which reached its terrible zenith in the Nazi era. Today's antisemitism is not based directly on the Nazi antisemitism, but sprouts from the same old foundations of the denunciation of the Chosen People.

Andre Tagieffe researches modern antisemitism and he writes in the Jewish magazine Laroche, "We find two sorts of antisemitism: first, the age old extreme right-wing antisemitism which is flourishing today throughout Europe, and second, a worldwide anti-Jewish ideology, spread by the networks of Islam, the Palestinians, and the new Left, anti- globalization activists, Trotskyites and Communists. They are both exploiting the Palestinian issue.

Tagieffe could not publish his article in a French newspaper because the liberals who control the press are the ones waging the war against the Jews. Human rights and anti-racist organizations set up by Jews after the war in order to prevent antisemitism are now in the forefront of the antisemitism that the founders hoped to get rid of permanently. This is another perverse innovation: The accusations against Israel and the Jews are couched as noble calls for respect for human rights and a "Just Peace."

The young researchers of antisemitism continue to unmask the hypocrisy of the humanitarian organizations, which have supposedly recruited themselves to help the Palestinians and anti-Jewish activists.

Finkelkraut says, "They love the Jews as Holocaust victims and hate them because of Israel. One can't just hate Jews for no reason. In order to hate Jews because of Israel they have to have some good Jews of their own.

Le Monde publishes articles about Nazi crimes and their French collaborators during the Holocaust, and then, apparently without any connection, besmirches the living Jews in Israel and France. Everyone denigrates the Jewish character of Israel, connecting it with the "apartheid" policy of the Chosen Nation.

"Paris in a mixture of blacks, whites and Arabs marched against Fascism," was written. The Jews were left out of both the supporters or Le Pen and of the anti-Fascists who marched against him.

The antisemitic coalition in France -- Le Pen, the Greens, and the extreme Left -- received 35 percent of the vote in the last elections. All three, present Zionism as Nazism, demonize Israel and denounce "Zionist-American Imperialism."

Unfortunately many Jews have joined this coalition. The Jews are tolerated on condition that they demonstrate unconditional support for the Palestinians with fanatic anti- Zionism. Even Jews from Israel come to take part in their demonstrations.

Edgar Moran, Sammy Nair and Daniella Selanev, three anti- Semitic intellectuals, wrote the nauseating "Israel- Palestine, the Cancer." A long time ago Selanev sold herself to the antisemitic propaganda by supporting the Palestinians in her writings. The Jews are described as a "nation who behaves like a master race." In every line of the article the Jews are depicted as murderers, viruses -- a malignant disease of humanity.

Le Pen never dared express himself with such appalling phraseology as these three authors. Finkelkraut says that one can see the manifestation of Jew hatred in the 21st Century in their writing. From their point of view, "Jews disrupt the equality between all human beings." The Shoah is also depicted as "making the Jewish victims' suffering unique and thereby minimizing the suffering of the Gulag victims, the gypsies and the black slaves. The Jews reserve the status of victims for themselves in order to legitimize their becoming Nazis and oppressors of the Palestinian Nation." Le Monde would not publish an article like this about the Arabs or Islam.

The authorities were calm. They ignored the violence and the incitement and denied it existed. The official networks and governmental news channels, are still inciting. President Chirac reproaches those who say France is antisemitic as being anti-French. The Jews who came to see him got the impression that he wanted the Jews to join in condemnation of the anti-French criticism, as if they should say that nothing has happened in order to preserve France's public image. France is not really antisemitic itself although there has no precedent to the violence of the Arabs and extreme Left against the Jews since the Second World War.

The Socialists recognized the existence of the sad reality only after Pesach, when three shuls were burned, in Lyons, Marseilles and Strasbourg, but they did not do anything so as not to alienate voters. A month later the Left suffered its unexpected defeat and Prime Minister Jospin disappeared.

The new government is not connected to or dependent on the Leftist antisemitic coalition. The Interior Minister Nikole Sarkosi sent police to the Arab neighborhoods to enforce law and order. Since then there have been no more attacks on the Jews. Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Refrain gave a speech to the community on the 60th anniversary of the Great Roundup of Jews in Paris during the Nazi regime. He said that anyone who attacks the Jews attacks France and the "values of the Republic." But within the Government there is competition between the pro-Palestinians and pro-Israelis.

The division between Left and Right has changed and now the pro-Palestinians and antisemites are uniting with their counterparts on the Right. The Europeans are obsessed with the details of the conflict as if they are personally involved.

America's preparation to attack Iraq is heating the atmosphere and the government is dreading an eruption. The pro-Iraqis are aiding and abetting Sadam Hussein's propaganda, while readers' letters to the newspapers defend Israel and America.

The problems of the French and the Jews remain intact. Another little spark and the Arabs will begin their assaults again. The networks and rumors feed their aggressiveness. Tagieffe cautions about the Islamic and leftist anti-Jewish danger.

Fanatic Moslems recruit, produce and lure many brainwashed people for their terror. Their Imams are using the demagoguery of the socioeconomic injustice accompanied with Jew hatred to brainwash many in the Arab neighborhoods.

Islam is highly esteemed in the media and one is not allowed to criticize it. Its antisemitism arouses aversion, as something that is better off not being mentioned since it bothers and frightens us.

In France and London the Moslems have united with the Left against the Jews. They send joint groups of activists to disrupt the Israelis in the territories and to try to recruit Israeli militants. When they return they display videos of their bravery against Israeli soldiers. It is doubtful whether the Jews will feel as safe in Europe as they have until now. There was a saying "There is no one happier than a Jew in France."

"When I walk in the street they mock my beard, they call me Rabbi Jacob or `Palestinian murderer'," the rov of Lyons, Richard Vertanchlag, said during the peak of the antisemitic assaults.

In the suburbs and the rural areas many Jews are considering aliya -- the Jewish Agency says thousands. But many are not happy in Eretz Yisroel and return to France. There is no work, there is no community life like there is in France, and the children are in danger of deterioration in the cities where the olim live.

Especially in these difficult times the yeshivos and talmudei Torah are flourishing in France. Rav Aharon Yehuda Leib Shteinman this year visited yeshivos in Paris, Rancy and Aix-les-Bains, Strasbourg and St. Louis. He brought about the reawakening and chizuk of the bnei Torah and helped the traditional Jews to strengthen themselves with Torah and learn more.

In a gathering of 8000 people he told them not to give up the gift Hashem gave them and to send their children to yeshivos ketanos and not to non-Jewish schools where they think their children will get a better education for parnossoh. A Jew was not created only to eat and sleep. Today many Jews are sitting and learning in yeshiva and everything else is not worth anything.

The yeshivos ketanos have grown. In the Avi Ezri Yeshiva in Paris there are 55 boys. A floor below them there are dozens of bochurim and avreichim in Nishmas Yisroel. The beautiful sound of Torah learning is heard above the roofs in the Jewish Quarter in contrast to the tumult below, far away from the antisemitic coalition. In the Ohr Yosef yeshiva in Armantiers, in the heart of fields and forests, 40 youths sit with their roshei yeshivos, HaRav Yechezkel Rotter and HaRav Meir Aharoni.

Rav Chaim Halperin, his sons and sons-in-law support a lonely village of avreichim with great mesirus nefesh. There is nothing there but Torah. In a booklet of sichos by the founder of the Ohr Yosef institutions and the Armantiers settlement, HaRav Gershon Liebman zt"l, one of the great baalei mussar from Novardok, he writes as follows: "In this world we see only Hashem's patience so we assume that He is lenient and we therefore are lacking in yiras shomayim. But if we wold realize that there is a din vecheshbon of govi dilei, we would be seized with fear. If someone does not investigate and strive to know the ways of Hashem, he is led to think that Hakodosh Boruch Hu is lenient (a vatran) and the same thing happens to him. We all stood on the Day of Judgment and prayed for ourselves. We only see Hashem's patience. So far we have come out successful from the judgment, but who knows if we are not chas vesholom coming closer to the din vecheshbon of govi dilei.

 

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