The French media was abuzz reporting on Sunday’s 20 Teves “silent march” in response to the wave of terrorism in that country that claimed 17 lives last week. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Diaspora Affairs Minister Naftali Bennett and MK Eli Yishai, who represented the Knesset attended.
The topic of anti-Semitism in that country has received prominent media coverage since the erev Shabbos attack in the Paris kosher supermarket, which claimed the lives of four members of the local Jewish community. French24 News reported that there were 400 recorded acts of anti-Semitism in all of 2013. That figure increased by 91% during the first half of 2014.
CRIF spokesman Roger Cukierman was a member of the community’s Jewish representatives meeting with government officials on Sunday before the march. He told the media following the meeting that state officials promise to take all measures required including the deployment of police and the army if necessary.
Some 2,000 policemen were assigned to the march in addition to 1,350 members of the military.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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2 Responses
1. The picture has nothing to do with the article. Nazis are not a problem in France. They haven’t been since 1944 (when towards the middle of the year, all the French joined the “resistance” retroactive to 1940). The far-right nationalists in France (the “National Front” party) whose intellectual roots have some connections with French collaboration in WW2 and the anti-Dreyfus movements, have by now decided that Jews aren’t all that bad, and that’s its Muslims they want to attack.
2. The French (and other Europeans) are deciding now whether to decide that the radical Musims (the “jihadists”/al Queda/ Islamic State) are enemies of the Europeans (which would result in action against them), or only enemies of the Jews (which is not the sort of thing to bother most Europeans).
3. The stakes are very high since France is the largest and among the oldest non-Anglophone Jewish communities, and if it breaks up it would have a major impact on both Israel and the other Diaspora Jewish communities.
4. One should remember that most of the people fighting the Islamic Terrorists are other Muslims who have takev very heavy casulties (e.g. Nigeria, Syria, Iraq, Pakestan). In France, several of the casulties have been French Muslims serving in the army and police. It is important whether the Europeans (and Americans) see themselves as entering a Muslim civil war to support one side, rather than declaring war on Islam.
France is very afraid that its jews will vacate France. That will be devastating to France, as history has shown.