A video of a mouth-opening encounter that took place between a kippah-wearing professor and TV panelists on French TV is going viral in France.
Prof. Cyrille Cohen, who is originally from France but lives in Israel and is the head of Immunology at Bar Ilan University, was interviewed on a French TV channel about COVID and was met with an astounding question by the head panelist.
“I’m going to ask you a question because many people are asking it,” he said. ” It doesn’t have any connection to medical issues but there are many people asking why the professor is wearing a religious symbol in the studio.”
Taken by surprise, Prof. Cohen responded: “Why? Because I wear it every day.”
A female TV panelist then interjected: “I also commented to him about it at the coffee corner.”
“Full disclosure, I wear it every day,” Prof. Cohen said. “I didn’t put it on especially for your program.”
Female TV panelist: “You understand, no? For us, secularism is discretion. It’s not a matter of being anti-religious but you keep your religion to yourself.”
At that point, Prof. Cohen lost his equanimity for a moment and said forcefully. “My name is Cohen! Why do you want me to keep my religion to myself? I’m from Israel!”
Even his obvious agitation didn’t shut up the TV panelist, who responded: ” But there are those whose name is Cohen who don’t wear a kippah, so that’s not it. Do you understand that in France…?”
Prof. Cohen then interjected: “And if a priest would come here, or the Pope, would you ask him to remove his cross or head covering?
The first TV panelist then interjected, saying jokingly: “The truth is that if the Pope would come to my morning program, I think something would happen here.”
Prof. Cohen then concluded by saying: “But it is by no means meant to offend any of the viewers.”
Once again, so-called “liberal” and “civilized” people display their complete intolerance to those with different views, with a shocking lack of respect and civility.
It should be noted that the TV panelists obviously neglected to do the most basic research about their guest since anyone taking a quick glance at Prof. Cohen’s Twitter account or YouTube interviews would see immediately that he regularly wears a kippah.
Chareidi journalist Sivan Rahav-Meir spoke with Prof. Cohen, who said: “Many French Jews told me that the clip davka caused them to feel proud of their Jewishness. This is what happens when secularism becomes a religion. I left France 30 years ago and made aliyah and I’m so happy about that.”
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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19 Responses
The French do not have a monopoly on stupidity. We have bona fide idiots here in the U.S. and I have heard, c’v, that some may exist in EY as well. Otherwise, “Vive la France”
The Alter Rebbe was right about Napoleon.
France has long been an insular, self-obsessed society. They are multicultural yet unidimensional.
A major cause of the French inferiority complex is the fact that they are no longer a superpower. Under Napoleon, for instance, the French Empire ruled much of the world. In the spring of 1940, however, despite having the largest, best-equipped, best-trained army on earth, they were trounced and humiliated by Germany. Until this day, it grates on them that the United States and Great Britain came to their rescue.
The emasculation of the République Française has caused many of her citizens to talk a good game when it comes to multi-culti wokeism. Yet when they are confronted by the image of an unpopular minority, they immediately transform into unabashed supremacists.
“Rabbi Yisroel Reisman [an Orthodox Rabbi] spoke out against
those Jews who plan their vacations for locations like:
Switzerland, FRANCE, or Italy where the people hate Jews.”
[He said:] “It would be better to visit the Land of Israel to
benefit from its holiness and help our brothers economically.”
SOURCE: Flatbush Jewish Journal, 2010/6/17, page 32
Ari Knobler:
It’s not only 1940. It’s also Dien Bien Phu (1954) in Vietnam, Suez in 1956 and the loss of Algeria (that’s why they tried to kill DeGaulle). The French are insignificant on the world stage and they can’t stand it.
“Like many Americans with dreams of Paris who confront Paris, they have found that they are living in a grouchy, heavily over-administered country, where everyone is socialized to be negative in the first instance, and where the small details of life are made as wrenchingly difficult as possible…”
SOURCE: The View from a Bridge by Adam Gopnik,
The New Yorker magazine, 2014 December 8, page 45
I don’t understand the claim of “keep your religion to yourself” he didn’t put the yarmulka on her, he put it on himself. but of course a goy has no brains. if it bothers her to look at his kappa she should look somewhere else
Maybe the host was afraid of offending the Muslims who have taken over large swaths of France. Germany too.
I don’t think people understand that concept of “Laïcité”, or secularism in France is very different than in the US. There is a much stronger emphasis on maintaining a distinction between the private and public spheres with regards to the expression of religion. And it’s not something that is only for Jews, there’s a whole controversy about banning the hijab in public as well.
Gadolhadorah,
And those idiots are primarily on the left 😜
So called tolerance and pluralism is just a facade.
This way everyone is forced to admit either you’re with us or you’re against us
And we’re forced to reassess what we stand up for
I much prefer it to remain this way
this is what happens when a society goes from secular to secularist
France has a quasi-religious belief in freedom FROM religion. Such prejudice against religion is normal there.
I have no heart , a have a huge heart, the second refers to my precious people and the first restorts to those I could care less about if they disappear…..shame on you, Hashem’s creations are the best….as well as his discipline
In year 1878 CE, Mark Twain wrote:
“France, has neither winter, nor summer, nor morals.
Apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country.”
SOURCE: Mark Twain: The Man and His Adventures
by Richard B. Lyttle, page 141, Athenium / MacMillian
Publishing, New York, 1994, ISBN 0-689-31712-3.
“According to a recent and still unpublished report
on anti-Semitism in eleven European countries —
based on two years of research overseen by
the former New York City police commissioner
Raymond Kelly — France is the nation most dangerous for Jews.”
SOURCE: France’s Anti-Semitism Problem Continues to Worsen,
While Its Government Continues to Do Too Little,
2020 February 27, Mosaic Magazine web site
@lotspark that was the argument back then to actually get it over back then or just push it off few hundred years. Don’t get involved in those differences between tzadikim…
Hahahaha soon their country is going to be a Muslim majority company and they’re phased by a Kippah?
Professor Cohen is a Jewish hero!
Tens of thousands of Jews have left France over the past decade due to the growing, systemic anti-Semitism that has made that awful country into a pissoir. Mort à la France!