France

Rabbi and son stabbed in Paris outside their synagogue

Anna Sheinman — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 14:10:10 +0100

A rabbi and his son have been stabbed outside a synagogue in Paris after leaving morning prayers, sources in France have reported.

Shimon Samuels at the Simon Weisenthal Centre in Paris said: “At 7am this morning, an Iranian screaming ‘Allahu Akbar’ attacked a rabbi and his son with a cutter outside his synagogue in the 9th district of Paris.”

The rabbi is believed to be in his 50s; his son is 18.

Mr Samuels continued: “After a chase into the synagogue and then back into the street, the assailant was reportedly apprehended by passers - by and the police.”

“The rabbi suffered cuts to his throat, his son was stabbed in the back. They were immediately hospitalised and are now out of danger.”

According to Le Monde newspaper, the attacker, who is thought to have been born in Tehran, is believed to have escaped from a French psychiatric institution.

The Simon Weisenthal Centre has asked police to investigate the crime as a pre-meditated, antisemitic hate crime.

Fit for a king, but not for a rabbi?

Geoffrey Alderman — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 09:35:08 +0100

The tragedy of Gilles Bernheim is symptomatic of a wider hypocrisy where issues of intellectual dishonesty are concerned.

In 2009 Bernheim became chief rabbi of France. He ought to have served seven years. Last week he tendered his resignation, triggered by revelations relating to instances of plagiarism and an accusation that he acquiesced in the incorrect public characterisation of his academic credentials.

I need to make it crystal clear that plagiarism - passing off the writings and ideas of others as one's own - is nothing more or less than intellectual theft. So far as the world of scholarship is concerned it is also, unfortunately, a growth industry, facilitated by technologies that permit the unscrupulous, without attribution, to "copy and paste" written material stolen (there is no other word for it) from the writings of others.

In its simplest form this type of academic deceit is now reasonably easy to spot: there is software that can facilitate detection, but I routinely demonstrate to my students how a simple Google search can often suffice. Less easy to recognise is the bespoke essay-writing service. Where I suspect this has been used (perhaps because an essay is of a quality far higher than I would have expected) I reserve the right to conduct an oral examination of that student, in the presence of an academic colleague. But these methods of detection are not fool-proof.

At the beginning of April a blogger, referring to Rabbi Bernheim's 2011 book Forty Jewish Meditations, accused him of having reproduced, without attribution, a statement made by the philosopher Jean-François Lyotard and published in 1996. Then another blogger declared that Bernheim had also plagiarised text in a book he had published in 2002. Worse still, accusations surfaced that a pamphlet authored by Bernheim last October - in which he declaimed against the French government's intention to legalise gay marriage - had also contained instances of plagiarism. And a French magazine revealed that he had not actually earned (by passing an exam known as the aggregation) the title of professor that publicity for his books reportedly claimed he possessed.

By resigning, Bernheim appears to have acknowledged his guilt. I am certainly not going to defend him. But I am going to place before you certain facts related to another theologian, and then ask you to ask yourselves why one serial plagiarist has been exposed and disgraced, while another has been - to all intents - canonised.

That theologian is Martin Luther King Jr, the celebrated civil rights activist who was infamously assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, 45 years ago this month.

King, in whose honour a national holiday is celebrated in the US, was not just a plagiarist. He was an habitual plagiarist. His Boston University PhD, awarded in 1955, contained numerous plagiarised passages - a conclusion endorsed by a board of inquiry established by that university some years later. To those of you interested in learning more about this I recommend Plagiarism & The Culture War, a meticulous exposé of King by Theodore Pappas from 1994. Pappas reproduces, side-by-side, passages from King's PhD and from the work of a fellow Boston University student, whose doctoral dissertation had been approved in 1952.

The evidence is irrefutable. Armed with his dishonestly earned doctorate, King went on to publish articles and books that incorporated - without attribution - passages lifted from the works of others. His celebrated 1963 oration ("I have a dream… "), which has been described as the "defining moment" of the American civil rights movement, climaxed with the invocation "let freedom ring". King failed to acknowledge that these very words had been used by another black preacher - Archibald Carey - at the Republican National Convention 11 years earlier.

Boston University has obstinately refused to revoke King's doctorate, while his supporters have actually sought to explain - and even to justify - his acts of intellectual dishonesty. Bernheim, whom Nicolas Sarkozy awarded the Legion of Honour in 2009, has been banished, in disgrace. Is this - I wonder - because King was the hero of the left, while Bernheim was an icon of the right?

Plagiarism by chief rabbi shocks France

Shirli Sitbon — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 21:00:22 +0100

France’s chief rabbi has stunned the Jewish community after admitting to plagiarism in his latest book, Forty Jewish Meditations, and to deception about his academic credentials.

Rabbi Gilles Bernheim, who initially denied plagiarism, defended himself last week saying that his ghostwriter had fooled him and copied other writers. Bloggers were arguing that the Chief Rabbi had lifted passages from books by Jean-François Lyotard, Elie Wiesel and Jean-Marie Domenach.

Referring to his ghostwriter, the Chief Rabbi wrote in an statement: “It’s the only time I have had such an arrangement.”

But, instead of dying down, the controversy grew even bigger. Bloggers began to claim that Rabbi Bernheim had copied another philosopher in a previous book in 2002.

Then, weekly magazine L’Express published an article saying that the rabbi had also lied about getting the prestigious French philosophy degree, l’agrégation. Journalists examined graduate lists from 1968 to 1986 and found no trace of Rabbi Bernheim’s name.

This week, in a radio interview, the rabbi admitted that he did not obtain the degree. He said he had suffered an injury just before he was supposed to take the exam. He refused to resign, however.

L’Express argued that the Chief Rabbi should step down. “Are forgery and plagiarism compatible with a highly moral position such as Chief Rabbi? This sensitive question can only be answered by Gilles Bernheim,” the magazine wrote.

Reports: The chief rabbi of France has resigned

Jennifer Lipman — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 13:37:55 +0100

The chief rabbi of France has resigned following the revelation that he plagiarised part of his latest book, according to a report by Le Figaro.

Rabbi Gilles Bernheim also admitted that he had not been truthful about his academic credentials, having never taken the final exam in his philosophy degree.

The rabbi shocked French congregants when it emerged that his 2011 book "40 Jewish Meditations" was not all his own work, although he blamed an assistant for lifting passages from other writers without his knowledge. However he is also facing allegations of plagiarism in other works.

Rabbi Bernheim became France's most senior rabbi in 2008, and was appointed with the expectation that he would serve a seven - year term.

Survey: antisemitism rises 30 per cent worldwide

Zoe Winograd — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 15:11:41 +0100

A survey has shown a 30 per cent increase in global acts of antisemitism.

The survey, carried out by the Kantor Centre at Tel Aviv University, highlighted Hungary as experiencing the most worrying examples of antisemitism in Europe. The report noted Hungary’s “escalation of antisemitic incitement” and a “correlation observed between the political strengthening of extreme-right parties and the high level of antisemitic manifestations including incidents of violence and vandalism.”

European Jewish Congress President Moshe Kantor said: “In Hungary, barely a week passes without an attack on minorities or outrageous comments from far-right politicians.”

“Unfortunately, red lines keep being crossed and there needs to be an extremely strong reaction, both from the Hungarian government and the European Union, to push back against these phenomena.”

At a press conference today, Dr Kantor expressed his concerns about increasing antisemitism in Greece, Ukraine and France. According to a report by French-Jewish security unit SPCJ earlier this year, there has been a 58 per cent rise in antisemitic incidents in France since 2011.

“It appears that rather than the Toulouse attacks being a shock to the system, they had the opposite effect and perhaps allowed terrorist groups in Europe to become more emboldened,” Dr Kantor said.

Air France fined for refusing to fly activist to Israel

Zoe Winograd — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 12:39:22 +0100

Air France has been court ordered to pay a $12,800 (£8,400) fine for taking a pro-Palestinian activist off a plane for not being Jewish.

Horia Ankour, 30, was escorted off a plane bound for Tel Aviv last April after an attendant asked whether she was Jewish and Ms Ankour replied that she was not. The French airline was found guilty of racial discrimination in a Parisian court on Thursday and was ordered to pay $3,000 in damages to Ms Ankour.

The nursing student, was flying to Israel from Nice to take part in the Flytilla campaign in the Palestinian territories. There were 29 activists on the same flight as Ms Ankour, 21 of whom were detained at the airport.

Air France said her name was on a list of undesirables provided by Israel.

Letter to France's Chief Rabbi targets journalists

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 20:00:30 +0100

France’s chief Rabbi has been sent a threatening letter warning of “brutal action” if he does not halt the activities of Jewish journalists who are trying to “curb the liberty of the French”.

The letter, sent to Rabbi Gilles Bernheim by an obscure outfit calling itself Interaction of Forces of Order, claimed the group had “no racist or extremist animosity” and even said it respected the Jewish community in France.

The letter’s authors protested about “the Stalinist attitude of certain radio and television journalists who are spreading propaganda… Before employing brutal measures, we come to you, as these corrupt journalists are Jewish.”

The letter even noted how Moses had given the people of Israel permission to fight to ensure freedom.

Police have launched an investigation to track down the IFO, which is believed also to have sent a death threat this week to Jean-Michel Gentil, the judge who ordered a criminal investigation into former French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s funding of his 2007 election.

A police spokesman said: “We take every threat to the Jewish community very seriously.”

Maurice Levy's inspiration: his grandfather rabbi

Anna Sheinman — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 11:00:30 +0000

Maurice Lévy, one of the most powerful men in global advertising, has named his rabbi grandfather as his greatest inspiration.

Mr Lévy is chief executive officer of the French Publicis Groupe, one of the three largest advertising companies in the world, with a £5bn revenue last year.

In a video interview for the trade magazine Campaign about inspiration, Mr Lévy said he admired his grandfather, who was a rabbi in southern Spain, for making complicated philosophy easier to understand.

He said his grandfather was fascinating because “he spent his life learning”, describing his grandfather reading the works of Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza, whose work was rejected by the rabbis, as an example of his commitment to learning.

He said: “I was extremely inspired by all his thinking. It was always simple ideas, he made the most complex philosophy extremely simple.”

Mr Lévy also spoke about his father’s wartime escape from Spain under the fascist leader, General Franco.

He explained that his father, a left-wing activist, was imprisoned but then escaped to the south of France, only to have to flee again to Morocco as the Nazis drew closer.

“The Nazis were coming down to France, and were coming closer and closer to Perpignan, and the only way to escape was to go to Morocco.

“He couldn’t go back to Spain, he couldn’t go to Algeria because there was [a policy of] numerus clausus [a limitation on entry, used as an antisemitic policy] for professors, and my father was a professor of philosophy,” Mr Lévy said.

As a consequence, he grew up in the small Moroccan town of Oudja, close to the border with Algeria.

The interview was a rare example of the famously private businessman talking about his family.

It was the first in a series called “Talking Inspiration”, which is presented by Marc Nohr, the chief executive of Kitcatt Nohr Digitas, a company owned by Mr Lévy’s Publicis Groupe.

Mr Lévy was in London this week for the inaugural conference, Advertising Week Europe, the first time such an event has been held on this continent after 10 years of such meetings in the US.

Over 250 lecturers will give talks, including Sir Martin Sorrell, founder of rival advertising giant, WPP.

Publicis Groupe employs 54,000 people and has a presence in 109 countries. Agencies it owns include Saatchi and Saatchi, Digitas and Rosetta and its high-profile British clients include the BBC, BP, easyJet and Cadbury.

French students to sue Twitter over antisemitic posts

Jennifer Lipman — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 12:49:08 +0000

Social networking site Twitter is facing a £33 million lawsuit for refusing to divulge the identities of antisemitic users.

The site, which turns seven today, is being sued by the Union of French Jewish Students for ignoring a court ruling to turn over details of the users.

Twitter was told to work to help identify the authors of a string of abusive and antisemitic tweets, posted by various users under the tag #unbonjuif (#agoodjew) in October last year.

But the January court ruling was not binding, since the company does not have an office in France, and it has so far not complied.

Jonathan Hayoun, UEJF president, criticised the site for "playing the indifference card".

He said: "In protecting the anonymity of the author of these tweets it is making itself an accomplice and offering a highway for racists and antisemites."

The group has filed a claim with a Paris tribunal and is now seeking more than £33 million in damages, which it said would be donated to the Shoah Memorial fund.

A spokesman forTwitter criticised UEJF for being "more interested in these grand gestures than in finding an adequate international procedure to obtain the requested information".

A year after the Toulouse school slaughter, the hatred that drove it still thrives

Liam Hoare — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 18:30:40 +0000

In the easterly part of Toulouse, where the detached houses range from washed white to poached salmon and burnt peach, sits the Ohr Torah school. Set within a formidable compound, gated behind walls flanked by security cameras, it has been this way for a long time, for the safety and security of the children. Since last March, however, the walls have become a little higher, the front gate a little sturdier, the security cameras more numerous.

For it was at this Jewish day school, then called Ozar Hatorah, that on March 19 2012, Mohammed Merah gunned down Jonathan Sandler, a rabbi, and his two sons Aryeh, six, and Gabriel, three. Rabbi Sandler was shot as he tried to save his sons, while one of his boys was killed as he attempted to crawl away to safety.

Myriam Monsonego, aged eight, the daughter of the headmaster, Rabbi Yaacov Monsonego, was also murdered. After killing Rabbi Sandler and his two sons, Merah chased Myriam across the school playground, grabbing her by her hair. With the pistol at point-blank range, the murderer’s weapon jammed. Merah kept a grip on Myriam as he calmly changed to a .45 calibre hand-gun and fired it while holding it to her temple.

Merah grew up on a housing estate within Les Izards in the far reaches of northern Toulouse. He was said to have been a loner, and became radicalised in the French prison system. He watched terrorist videos on the internet, and was involved in a network that extended to Pakistan and Afghanistan, which he visited.
To this extent, then, Merah was an exception but, sadly, it would be a mistake to view March 19 as a substantial break from normality.

It is true that, after Merah’s attacks — which were not exclusively antisemitic but included the murders of French soldiers in uniform — there was a spike in assaults on Jews throughout France in March and April. In 2012, the SPCJ (the French equivalent of the Community Security Trust) recorded 614 antisemitic acts, a 58 per cent increase over 2011. Within that, the number of physical and verbal attacks increased by 82 per cent.

But the problem in Toulouse — and in France generally — runs deeper. As Nicole Yardéni, President of Crif Midi-Pyrénées (a regional section of the French Jewish umbrella body) points out, the statistics for 2012 come after 12 years of heightened antisemitism, beginning in 2000 after the Camp David talks collapsed and the Second Intifada began. In 2004, there were almost 1,000 recorded hate crimes, and in 2009 — the year of Operation Cast Lead — there were 832. As Marc Sztulman, Secretary General of Crif Midi-Pyrénées put it, the charge has always been there, but “Merah was the dynamite”.

On a day-to-day basis, the most visible and consistent threat to the 20,000-30,000 Jews of Toulouse — over 90 per cent of whom are of Sephardi origin — comes from within the Muslim community. The specific problem in Toulouse, unlike Paris and other cities, Ms Yardéni asserts, is the “lack of a charismatic Muslim leader”.

Crif and the other Jewish associations in Toulouse have repeatedly attempted to reach out to the city’s imams but found them lacking. “The imams’ speeches are more hateful than they were 10 years ago,” Ms Yardéni says, a reflection of the atmosphere on the street, on satellite television and the internet.

Like the rest of France, Toulouse suffers from unemployment and a lack of education and opportunities for those living in the working-class banlieues. For Toulouse’s Muslims, there is an “absence of a positive identity”, Ms Yardéni believes, but also they “don’t see how they can belong” within a society that has failed to provide a satisfactory model for integration.

There are also problems emanating from the far-left and the far-right. On the one hand, there is a very active anti-Zionist socialist and communist left. On the other, although Marine Le Pen has made attempts to appear moderate in her recent election campaign, the far-right continues to hold dear the idea of “France pour les Français de souche” — France for the “true French”. This excludes all immigrants, including Jews. The problem of skinheads and neo-Nazis is also a source of anxiety for Toulouse Jews.

The mayor of Toulouse, Pierre Cohen, is Jewish on his father’s side, and the Jewish community has had a very good relationship with the municipality. However, his instinctive secularism means he does not always wish to be seen to be doing too much for the Jewish community and, as Ms Yardéni puts it, “doesn’t want to hear all the time about the problems of disintegration”.

On a national level, Ms Yardéni believes there is a greater understanding of the problems facing French Jewry. François Hollande has said: “The Jews of France should be aware that the Republic will do everything to protect them. Guaranteeing their safety is a national cause.”

To the Jews of Toulouse, Mr Hollande’s November visit to the city with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was as important as Jacques Chirac’s declaration in 1995 that the fascist Vichy regime was not an aberration but part of the French national story, and that the whole nation bore responsibility for collaboration and the Holocaust.