CRIF President’s speech at CRIF dinner – March 04, 2014

Mr. President of the Republic, you honor us by presiding over our dinner after having so warmly welcomed us to the Elysée Palace to celebrate 70 years of existence of our institution/. You have amply shown your sincere interest for the concerns of the Jewish French people, and this touches and honors us. I would particularly like to mention your speeches for the Vel d’Hiv ceremony in July 2012, and for the inauguration of the Drancy Memorial, and not least your visit to Israel that was greeted by all as being historic. How I would have loved to be able this evening to say: “This year all is well!” I would have loved to be able to repeat the saying “Happy like a Jew in France” that spoke of a longstanding and harmonious Jewish presence in our country. But I must unfortunately resort to Jewish humor, with its often bitter edge: “Who is an anti-Semite? Someone who hates Jews more than necessary.” Yes, I will this evening be yet again speaking about anti-Semitism. For the “vile beast” is, alas, alive and kicking today in France. I was a hidden child. Hitler and his accomplices gassed and burned my grand parents, my uncles, my aunts, my cousins. So I know what I’m talking about when I speak of anti-Semitism... France, in 2014, is a country marked by unemployment, looking for references, worried about the future, and this economic crisis is leading to a moral crisis. I think with sadness, with anxiety, with anguish, of the infamous slogans shouted by thousands of individuals among the demonstrators who took to the streets of Paris on 26 January this year. They were shouting: “Jew get out, France does not belong to you”! Slogans that treat with disdain our 2000 years of presence in France, who despise the French citizenship granted to us since 1791, who treat with disdain the huge contribution we have made to the greatness of France in all areas of human endeavor and particularly the arts, culture and science. Slogans that despise the Jews who died for France in all the conflicts where France was engaged. When anger takes to the streets of Paris and turns to anti-Semitic insults, I fear for France. The Minister of Justice, Ms. Taubira, has been yet another emblematic victim of that pervasive racism. When a Minister of the Republic is dragged in the mud like she was, I am ashamed of my country. Mr. President, there is today in our country a climate that recalls a painful past. The fact is that Jews today are caught between several threats. First, there is the physical violence towards Jews, against a paradoxical backdrop: it is often young people, who themselves are potential victims of racism, who are the perpetrators of such violence. To wear a kippa in the Paris metro is to run the risk of being aggressed. The gangrene of anti-Semitism has even reached to the playgrounds of the Republic’s schools, where the word Jew has become an insult. For sure, the number of anti-Semitic acts has dropped since the incredible flare up in 2012 that followed the Merah affair. But beyond statistics, there is the underlying trend of an increasing violence of the acts committed, and an increase in the hatred of others. In the difficult neighborhoods of our cities and their suburbs, murderers Youssouf Fofana and Mohamed Merah are often considered to be heroes. The lies spread about the Jewish people and about the State of Israel are not harmless: Alexandre Arcady’s very moving film, “24 hours” reminds us, if needs be, that it was anti-Semitism that led to the murders of Ilan Halimi and of the children Arié Sandler, 3, Gabriel Sandler, 6, and Myriam Monsonego, 8, and not forgetting the adults Jonathan Sandler and the soldiers in Montauban, Imad Ibn Zlaten, Abel Chennouf and Mohammed Legouad. I greet their families present with us this evening. Claude Lanzmann’s last masterpiece (The Last of the Unrighteous) also helps remind us of what anti-Semitism can lead to. On the 19th of March, on the Trocadero square facing the Eiffel tower, we shall be calling for a great gathering with the purpose of helping each French man and woman to draw the lessons of those murders, including the ones on 19 March 2012. Together! Speaking with one voice! We MUST say no to racism and anti-Semitism. And on the far right, the spectacular progression of the National Front in public opinion can only be a source of worry, coming as it does with its attendant anti-Semites, Vichyites and Holocaust-deniers, hiding behind their leader who takes care not to commit any errors. On the far left, anti-Zionism is the new cloak of anti-Semitism. For while it is politically incorrect in those spheres to be anti-Semitic, it is fashionable to lambast the State of Israel and even sometimes go as far as questioning the legitimacy of its existence. And what are we to say about the demonstration that took place just a few days ago in Toulouse against homophobia, racism and anti-Semitism, where activists from the extreme left aggressed and threw out the president of the regional chapter of CRIF, shouting at her “Fuck off you fascist CRIF, you Zionist CRIF!” There is another particularly worrisome threat. Some radical Islamic currents are encouraging young French Muslims to go and fight Jihad in Syria and elsewhere. What will become of them when they return? What will happen then to us? Another threat. Uniformity maniacs have found nothing better and more urgent than to condemn traditions that are thousands of years old: circumcision and ritual slaughtering. Honestly, I fail to understand those European parliamentarians who are so sensitive to the pain that animals supposedly suffer when ritually slaughtered, but who are so ineffective in the face of the massacres of hundreds of thousands of human beings in Syria and in the conflicts between Sunnis and Shiites, not to mention the pure and simple elimination of Middle Eastern Christians. Another threat. The demonization of the State of Israel in France. Anti-Zionists deny the right of the Jewish people to have a state. How is it that calls for boycott in France are targeting only one of the UN’s 200 countries? I could list 50 countries whose borders are disputed by their neighbors, in Africa, the Middle East and the vast Asian continent. Who even dreams of boycotting those countries? No one. Sorry, yes, there is one country and one country alone that self-righteous consciences seek to boycott: the only democracy of its region, that is home to one thousandth of the global population. Israel is the Jew of the nations. Israel’s ambassador, who is here with us and who I greet, is the only ambassador here this evening who is the object of such disgrace. Concerning Israel, CRIF has been accused of adopting extremist positions. Wrongly so. Please allow me to recall our fundamental positions: We love and support the State of Israel. Our aim is to see the State of Israel live in peace alongside a State of Palestine. We are opposed to Iran having the atomic weapon. We want to see Israel, where twenty percent of the population is French speaking, finally admitted as a member of the Organization of French speaking nations that is funded by French taxpayers. That would be a fair gesture. As for Jerusalem, how can we explain that the eternal capital of the Jewish people is still not recognized as the capital of the State of Israel? De Gaulle stood out from other nations by being the first to recognize China. Dare I suggest that France should similarly be willing to distinguish itself from the rest of the world by acknowledging Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Such a move would in no way harm the much longed for peace. A former humorist recently presented an anti-Zionist electoral list in France, sponsored by Teheran! He has since become a political activist. He seeks to make his business prosper by using his hatred of the Jews. He hoped to get people to laugh when he said that he was sorry the Nazis hadn’t finished their extermination work. To support his message he is promoting a reverted Nazi salute. I want to pay tribute here to your mobilization, the mobilization of the Government and more particularly that of the Minister of Home Affairs, Manuel Valls, against such actions. One question should challenge us: how ever did we reach the point where tens of thousands of our fellow citizens rush to go and see shows in which the hatred of the Jews is the main driver of their laughter? The point where millions of our fellow citizens watch his videos on the Internet? How ever did we get to the point where the freedom of speech is invoked to defend the freedom to hate? Freedom of speech is a value to be treasured. It cannot be, it must not be the freedom to make calls for hatred. Our country already has an arsenal of laws that punish racist, anti-Semitic and negationist talk. It is essential to explain these laws and measures better, to apply them more rigorously, to support the victims and, above all, to carry out the sentences enforcing them. This raises the question of the extraterritoriality of the communications giants and of social networks. The need to internationally regulate the fantastic tool that is Internet has become all the more urgent because Internet is disseminating, in almost total impunity, the promotion of hatred, fanaticism and indoctrination. Your government, Mr. President, must speak out with a firmer voice on these issues, not forgetting that it is in France that we find the Internet specialists who are generating the biggest commercial and advertising revenues. Internet is a space where the laws against racism and anti-Semitism find it difficult to be implemented. Yet, such a measure is possible, because Internet operators have been able to oppose another cancer, namely pedophilia. The real challenge is education. Education is the antidote to the poison of racism and anti-Semitism. The propagation of hatred needs to be attacked very early on. People are not born anti-Semitic, they become anti-Semitic, out of stupidity, ignorance or prejudice. One of the great and rewarding missions of schools is to be able to push back these scourges. It is urgent that this be done! Because the territories lost to the Republic are expanding. Mr. President, could we not introduce very early on, right from the age of six or seven, the teaching of the need to respect others, to accept differences, whatever the color of skin, religion or origin? Those who are in charge of education carry a huge responsibility. They must show courage and boldness when fighting racism and anti-Semitism, for example by using digital tools and teaching how to use the Internet. We need to support those teachers who are being prevented from doing their job when they teach subjects such as the Holocaust, the Middle East or the history of religions. Education is also a matter for parents, the media and other stakeholders in civil society, including religious leaders who represent the faith communities. Mr. President, anti-Semitism is not a Jewish problem. Anti-Semitism is a French problem. When Jews are attacked, the freedom of all people is jeopardized. France has already experienced periods that were cruel to Jews. But in the end, its deep seated values of justice and humanism have always won the day. I do not forget that more than two thirds of France’s Jews escaped the Nazi clutches, thanks to modest and humble people who had understood that honor lies in resisting. I do not forget the courageous speech by President Chirac on 16 July 1995, acknowledging France’s responsibility in the behavior of the Vichy government. And I shall never forget the nuns who saved my life risking theirs. Mr. President, thank you to you and your government, for fighting so firmly against the drifts of anti-Semitic hatred. Mr. President, please mobilize France against the scourges that are racism and anti-Semitism! Make it a national cause! Let us fight this corruption of minds that is so in keeping with the spirit of our times. And I this say loudly and clearly to those who would want us to leave France, to those who aggress our children on their way to school, to those who kill our brothers, to those who promise to finish off the work that Hitler did not manage to complete. I say loud and clear to these enemies of the Republic, to these threatening anti-Semites: enough of this hatred of Jews! I am a Jew. I do not only bear the heritage of my fathers. I am responsible for the future of my children and grandchildren in a country, my country, that is the living symbol of the highest human and moral values. I do not want them to have to relive the nightmares of my childhood; I refuse to tolerate anything that could change the France I love, the France where justice, humanism and respect for others reigns! Long live the Republic, long live France!