One year after the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, an Ipsos survey for Crif (Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France) takes stock of French perceptions of anti-Semitism and the situation of French Jews. The results are a thunderclap in a calm sky, although distressing warnings have existed in recent years, notably with the murders of Ilan Halimi in 2006, of the children of the Ozar-Hatorah school in Toulouse in 2012 as well as the Hyper Cacher attack at Porte de Vincennes in 2015.
This poll reveals that 64% of French people believe that Jews have reason to be afraid of living in France. 12% of the general population believes that the departure of certain Jews from France to live abroad is a good thing for France; with the population of France being just over 68 million in 2024, this means that over 8 million citizens hold this opinion.
Eight million hostile citizens
These results raise several questions. Apparently, a large majority of non-Jewish French people have fears for the latter. Does this mean that Jews are also in the majority who think so? Could this also translate into a broad sense of empathy among non-Jews for this community and assurance of support should problems arise? This also demonstrates that we cannot suspect French Jews of paranoia.
The second is to note that we must question these 8 million hostile citizens. Is this a resurgence of right-wing or far-right anti-Judaism that had been residual for many years, or even of Christian dissidents from Rome? Yet we cannot forget, with emotion, that after the work of Jules Isaac The Teaching of Contempt (Fasquelle, 1962), Vatican II in the person of John XXIII came to affirm the abandonment of the accusation of “deicidal people”. Is it the influence of radical Islamist theses whose writings found in the trial files unequivocally mention the desire to “kill the crusaders, the Jews and the apostates without forgetting the homosexuals” affirming that we should have no regard for the blood shed by victims of all sexes and all ages? Is it the convergence of these different sources?
What is certain is that the consequences are terrible and full of suffering for the Jewish community, which represents less than 1% of the population and is the victim of 57% of all anti-religious attacks, as Bruno Retailleau pointed out. , Minister of the Interior.
The new marranos
Now the Yiddish expression of Ashkenazi Jews coming from Central Europe, affirming “Happy as God in France”, is obsolete. The results of this sad situation are that a very large number of Jews, believers or not, practicing or not, have rediscovered reflexes of invisibility, discretion and sometimes behave without knowing it like the “Marranos”. Let us recall that the Jews or descendants of Jews from Spain or Portugal, who converted to Christianity from the 15th century but who continued to practice their religion in secret.
French Jews, in their vast majority, if not unanimously, have integrated into French society with its history, its culture, its traditions, often participating with happiness and pride in the influence of France in very numerous and immense areas. intellectual, professional, artistic, commercial and industrial.
However, since October 7, 2023, the public wearing of the kippah has been abandoned, the mezuza, a small roll of parchment containing two biblical passages nested in a receptacle, has been removed from the front doors of homes,
the number of files requesting departure to Israel (aliyah) has increased by 430% (5,700 people have opened a file with the Jewish Agency)…
It is a terrible and painful reality, especially in a context despite everything old highlighted by the sociologist Georges Bensoussan, who reported in 2019 that, in ten years, 80% of the Jews of Seine-Saint-Denis had left this department, realizing what we refer to as “internal aliyah” for the benefit in particular of the 17th arrondissement of Paris and towns like Levallois-Perret.
Reasonable confidence
October 7, 2023 marked the rebirth of a pogrom, yesterday described by our parents and grandparents who fortunately are no longer here to relive such nightmares. But above all, the aftermath of the anti-Jewish outbursts ended up destabilizing with infinite suffering the fragile balance of minds of both Ashkenazim and Sephardim. When we see the State of Israel come to the aid of Israelis threatened in Amsterdam and organize their evacuation, we begin to shudder that this situation is premonitory for many Jews in Europe.
We do not understand this hatred that, far from bowing our heads, we are determined to fight with the pain for some of seeing the extreme left maintain it and a part of the classic left being discreet or cautious, electorally betraying its humanist principles . Men and women are the result of their actions because words without action are nonsense. Let the anti-Jews be convinced of a simple reality: the time of “striped pajamas and registration numbers” is over.
The reactions of many politicians, many courageous Christians and Muslims invite us to have reasonable confidence. We know what we owe to France as we affirm that we have given a lot to our country. It is absolutely necessary that combat and courage contradict the sentiment expressed by Edgar Quinet: “True exile is not to be torn from one’s country; it’s living there and no longer finding anything that made him love it. »
May the vast majority of our compatriots give us the reasons for an even stronger love so that this horrible feeling of loneliness stops!
Related News :