At the end of October 2023, after the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel, an Ifop survey showed that 48% of those questioned considered that French Jews were in greater danger since the outbreak of the conflict and feared that it would be exported. on our soil. At the same time, 60% said they trusted public authorities to ensure their safety. This did not prevent the number of anti-Semitic acts from reaching record rates in the months that followed.
Since October 7, 22,000 new immigrants have arrived in Israel, the Jewish Agency and the Ministry of Immigration and Absorption reported last July. The number of cases opened in France since the start of the war has increased by 510%. In total, 6,440 people, compared to 1,057 people in the same period a year ago, had on this date opened an aliyah file, preparing to leave for Israel, according to the agency supporting the applicants. Hatred of Jews, renunciations, support… What has changed since October 7, 2023 for Jews in France? Haïm Korsia, chief rabbi of France, defender of interreligious dialogue, responds to West France. Author of the book How violent hope ispublished by Flammarion, he evokes his faith in peace, unity and the Republic.
How has the situation of Jews in France evolved since October 7, 2023?
We realized that the hatred that manifested itself in Israel took the same form here. The massacre at the Nova music festival reminded us of that at the Bataclan in Paris in November 2015. We saw tremendous signs of brotherhood. We could have imagined a time of solidarity. But the hatred was poured out with incredible violence: between October and December, anti-Semitic acts jumped by 1,000%. During the period, the rate of elucidation of facts also reached an unprecedented level. The State has put in place the means to find and bring the culprits to justice.
In what form does this anti-Semitism manifest itself?
Daily violence. It’s my daughter who orders a dish and it isn’t delivered because it comes from a kosher restaurant. It’s this delivery man, denounced and sanctioned because he refused a ride for Jewish customers in Strasbourg. It’s an individual who starts yelling at a Jew on a tram in Montpellier and whom the surrounding passengers, who had a tremendous reaction, kicked out. The attacker was found and convicted.
This daily anti-Semitism pushes so many Jews to no longer wear the kippah outside the home, to remove the mezuzah from the door of their home, to ask for a neutral bag at the kosher store or to hide any distinctive sign. This injunction to become invisible is the terrible double punishment of anti-Semitism. This should be unthinkable in the Republic.
Masks have fallen, do you think… Which ones?
How can we not be moved by the fate of the hostages held by Hamas? Why have so many feminist associations not had a word to speak out against the treatment inflicted on women who could be raped, objectified, dehumanized because they are Israeli? In France, we have the culture of fraternity, not simply because it appears in the republican triptych, but because that is how we build citizenship. Identity does not prevent otherness. However, there are people with whom we can no longer do much. How do you talk to someone who compares Hamas to a resistance movement?
Are you referring to the controversial declarations of Jean-Luc Mélenchon and rebellious elected officials?
These words, repeated, say who you are. Jean-Luc Mélenchon is sending very clear, anti-Semitic signals to his electorate by playing on the darkest impulses of part of his electorate. It brings rage and hatred in its wake. It is an immense historical responsibility for someone who has turned his back on the values of culture and secularism that he defended in the past.
Netanyahu’s policies are criticized. Do you consider that his response since October 7 is measured?
Its goal is to protect its population. It is a war of defense which consists of preventing Hamas from carrying out its desire to eradicate Israel. This goal will be achieved when stability is assured and Lebanon regains the real dimension of a State. I was a military chaplain. I have not forgotten the Hezbollah attack which killed 58 French paratroopers at the Drakkar in Beirut in 1983. In France, we know who the bad guys are.
On May 6, 2024, the government launched a meeting to combat anti-Semitism. What did you expect?
Let us make the struggle a great national cause. The State must devote all the tools at its disposal to this. With the Dreyfus affair, at the end of the 19th century, the Republic faltered, but it prevailed. Each time we defended the Republic, we improved the condition of the Jews. Their situation is a reflection of the overall state of society. I was shocked by the declaration of the French episcopate on 1is February 2021, affirming that this struggle is also the business of the Catholic Church. That it is a duty as a Catholic and a citizen. We must fight against separatism, against the communitarianization of social life. Society must be unitary, not uniform. Each citizen brings something to the whole. There is nothing other than the Republic to bring us together.
You were accused of lighting a candle, on December 7, 2023, at the Élysée, in the presence of Emmanuel Macron, for the celebration of Hanukkah, the festival of lights. Did this gesture go beyond the framework of secularism?
This earned me a recurring joke. For Johnny Hallyday, who lit the fire, we had a national funeral, but for me, someone fell on me for a few candles… The 2004 law prohibits the display of religious symbols in school spaces. There was nothing derogatory in this gesture, unless you consider that the Élysée is a school. Rabbis came to present an award to the president rewarding his tireless involvement in the fight against anti-Semitism. It was a message addressed to the entire Jewish community of France, in order to show that this cult has its place, like all the others, at the table of the Republic. And I don’t know a mayor of a big city with whom I haven’t lit a candle in the town hall for this celebration. Secularism, an essential, vital concept, is not atheism which seeks to obliterate religion in the public space.
You deplored that few imams took part in the march against anti-Semitism organized on November 12, 2023…
What is embarrassing about marching for the Republic and against anti-Semitism? That the official structures of Islam in France did not call for people to take part disappointed me. Fortunately, Muslims participated in the demonstration.
You are an ardent defender of interreligious dialogue. Does the situation in the Middle East make it more difficult?
This dialogue has never stopped. This horizon of fraternity was demonstrated to exist this summer in Paris, at the interreligious center of the Olympic village. We were seen laughing together, the imam, the pastor, the priest, the rabbi, the Orthodox, the Buddhist… It was a wonderful moment.
The number of submissions for aliyah has started to rise again since October 7. What pushes these French people to want to start a new life in Israel?
This reality says something and should make us think. But we must not forget that we live in a more open world, that our children will study all over the world, in New York, London, Madrid, Porto or Rome. This choice of aliyah must be voluntary, not forced. These departures are only successful if they take place under positive conditions.
What keeps you hopeful?
After the war will come peace. This is everyone’s hope. We must hope to rebuild in the Middle East, here, and everywhere else in the world. It cannot be otherwise. The only possible horizon for these neighboring states is peace, obviously. They must dream of living together, happily.
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