French people watched helplessly this week as Victor Hugo’s Notre Dame Cathedral was gutted by fire. It felt like 9/11 again, the victim this time the much-visited symbol of Paris and Christendom of another era. Morning brought the bleak spectacle of a roofless hulk with two flat topped towers of uncertain stability, a troubling symbol of Christianity in today’s secular society.
President Macron abandoned the speech to the nation he had just recorded. His response to millions of written submissions and weeks of country-wide discussion will have to wait, but not for long. European elections loom and the voting public expects answers on the tax burden, income inequality, the environment, decentralisation, a more “participative” democracy and a less high-handed governance style. Some say the rest the president’s 5-year mandate is on the line.
Antisemitism has slipped off the front pages, but Jews have not forgotten the shock of last month’s outbreak of antisemitic acts and verbal abuse. Some commentators see a return to the 1930s, with nationalism and populism dangerously on the rise and Europe struggling to keep its balance. A Rabbi friend sees a “new normal” where antisemitism is simply a given.
But Paris has much to offer and Jewish cultural life is rich and varied. Jews have won high profile positions in all walks of life. The annual board of deputies’ dinner (le “Diner du CRIF”) attracts the President himself as keynote speaker and many other non-Jewish notables.
Most Jews, therefore, are not going anywhere. It’s tough to leave family, adopt a new language and culture, find equivalent work and make new friends. Most Jews are thoroughly integrated into French society. Those I know live mostly in comfortable circumstances and peaceful neighbourhoods. Their children have good jobs and their grandchildren are in good schools. There is no artificial barrier to their professional success. They just need to keep their Judaism to themselves.
There are also deeper factors at work that hold French Jews to Marianne’s bosom.
Ashkenazi Jews remember that France was the first country to give them full rights as citizens and despite the Dreyfus affair and WWII collaboration their faith in France has remained largely intact.
For many Sephardic Jews, France is still synonymous with the emancipating ideas of western civilization they discovered at Rothschild’s Alliance schools in French Algeria, Morocco or Tunisia.
Israel is still a divisive topic and a new flare-up in Gaza or the West Bank could provoke a nasty reaction in France. Macron’s declaration that anti-Zionism is a new form of antisemitism drew a rebuke from intellectuals. French foreign policy and mainstream media regard UN Resolution 242 as holy writ and sympathise with the Palestinians no matter how they behave.
But the fundamentals are changing. With the rise of China and the US pulling back, French foreign policy is focused on its national interest, not on issues of human rights. What matters is immigration and integration, the implications of upheavals in the Arab world and Africa, Islamism, terrorism and fear of returning French jihadis. People are aware that Arab countries are more concerned about Iran than the Palestinian cause. Divisions within Europe stymie anti-Israel voices in the EU Commission.
Jews in the 1930s ignored more vivid danger signs in Austria and Germany than those evident in France today. So we should not be surprised that most Jews are staying put.
"Reuven Levi" has been a Paris resident since 1981. He married in the United States and is father of three and grandfather of six. He is an active member of the Jewish Community
