“I was told not to wear a yarmulka on the street in Paris. I suspect there are many more Arabs there now, so it’s probably even riskier.”
I went to Paris two summers ago. I didn’t want to go; I had heard that the country was anti-Semitic, anti-American, and hostile to people like me who can’t speak French. But my office insisted.
All three of my preconceptions proved wrong. I wore my yarmulke all over the city on the streets and subways and saw many other frum guys wearing yarmulkes — the ONLY place outside of Eretz Yisrael and New York where I have seen that. I didn’t get a single nasty look, even from the large numbers of Muslims there. And the Parisians were quite happy to practice their English with me and didn’t mind that I was a clueless monolingual American.
I also found one of the friendliest little synagogues anywhere. I was saying kaddish, so after landing in Paris on July 14 I found the closest synagogue to my hotel and ran over there for minchah. They were having a kiddush in honor of Bastille Day between minchah and arvit! In America it is hard enough to get people to skip tachanun on July 4!!!
They quickly figured out that I was a clueless non-Francophone Ashkenazic American and they started arguing over who would get to host me for Shabat meals despite my total lack of French and lack of understanding of the Sefardic nusach. The Sefardic Shabat food was great, and they told me that in the past 20 years attitudes among French people — with the exception of non-assimilated Muslim immigrants — has completely changed and they no longer hold by their anti-American and anti-Semitic views, and also know that they need to know English to function in the modern world. Even Marine Le Pen, the leader of the racist National Front Party, dropped anti-Semitism from the party platform in the last election and the country would have elected a pro-Israel Jew, Dominique Stauss-Kahn, as President had he not been France’s equivalent of Bob Filner. 🙁 The French government also generously funds Jewish day schools, but OTOH it has not permitted an eruv anywhere in France.
I should mention that Paris has hundreds of kosher restaurants as well, all over the city. I spent a week trying to find a bad one and was unsuccessful. And the Bastille Day fireworks were as impressive as any I’ve seen in New York or Washington on July 4.
Enjoy!