2023-11-06 12:00:09
The numbers are there, and so is the fear. Since October 7, French Jews have reconnected with this concern to which each new explosion of the conflict in the Middle East exposes them: ostracism; the designation of their community as co-responsible for violence that arises elsewhere; the feeling of danger too, in the face of the increase in attacks and acts of hatred – the police have recorded more than a thousand in the past month.
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Experts trace what is now commonly called the rise of anti-Semitism in France to the second Palestinian Intifada, in 2000. It would be wrong, however, to consider this phenomenon as an episodic eruption, linked to regular outbreaks of fever in the Middle East. In reality, anti-Semitism, in its various forms, has taken hold in our society. To the deep anti-Semitism of the far right, which, under its new clothes, has not completely denied the DNA of its origins, have been added the ambiguities or excesses of a part of the far left under the guise of anti-Zionism, and the anti-Semitism of radical Islam.
The concern of French Jews is amplified by a feeling of isolation and abandonment in the face of society’s growing indifference to this rise in anti-Semitism. Over the years, after the first wave of indignation, the ranks of demonstrators who came to protest against anti-Semitic crimes have thinned, as if we were witnessing a trivialization of this violence. More and more, Jews find themselves alone in these gatherings. “There aren’t many people left to support us”notes a demonstrator in Paris the day after the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7 in the investigation that The world published today.
A global phenomenon
This terrorist attack by Hamas, unprecedented in its scale and barbarity, and the global reactions to Israel’s massive and indiscriminate response in Gaza have produced another dimension in the fear of French Jews: aliya no longer appears as shelter. With each eruption of anti-Semitic violence in France since the 2000s, a growing number of them chose to leave to join Israel. Today, Hamas’ attack showed that even Israel was no longer able to ensure their security.
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The increase in anti-Semitic acts is not exclusively French. In the United States, the United Kingdom, and also in Germany, where the phenomenon is particularly worrying, incidents and attacks have increased, and intolerance has increased, particularly in intellectual debate. But France cannot find this an excuse. It is home to the largest Jewish community in Europe, the third largest in the world after Israel and the United States. French Jews are part of its identity and its history. It is unacceptable that a category of the French nation, whatever its origin or religion, is the target of regular hate campaigns and lives in fear.
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By carrying out nearly 500 arrests since October 7, the authorities have shown that they intend to react vigorously to this new wave of anti-Semitic acts. It is also up to the whole of French society to remobilize on its fundamental values, to remind again and again, in particular through education, that anti-Semitism, like racism, is unacceptable. There must be no ordinary, trivialized or inexorable anti-Semitism.
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