25 Feb 2015

Paris attacks one month on: Jewish families facing difficult choices

The figures are startling. Last month, 3,000 French Jews applied to emigrate to Israel.

That compares with 7,200 for all of last year – which was in itself a doubling of the figure of the year before.

It is not an exodus, but it does send out a deeply worrying message – that anti-semitism, intolerance and terrorism may be winning where French society has failed.

Last month France witnessed remarkable displays of public unity in the wake of terrorist attacks which left 17 dead, including four Jews.

The Kosher supermarket where one gunman shot and killed hostages is still under armed police guard. Inside, workmen are redecorating – tiling the floors, papering over the cracks.

The fear now is that France will gradually forget: that the “Je suis Charlie” spirit will fade, along with the mounds of remembrance flowers wilting beneath the cordon of police tape.

France, along with much of Europe, is focused on stopping jihadists from leaving for Syria in search of war. But in the meantime thousands of Jews are planning trips to Israel in search of peace, no longer believing that France is safe.

We met the Layani family, who applied to emigrate last week.

They’ve had enough of the verbal abuse: the cries of “dirty Jew” or “Go Back to your Country”.

Their four children are already learning Hebrew and they are young enough to start life again somewhere else.

Tug of war

“Everybody’s seen what happened in the last weeks and we are afraid it will start again and again, more and more,” the father Dov Layani told me.

His wife, Sarah, pointed out that they had both been born, raised and married in France: the children would find it far easier to adapt to Israel than they would, but it was time to think ahead on behalf of the next generation.

Recorded incidents of violent anti-Semitic attacks doubled here last year. Last week, hundreds of Jewish graves were desecrated in eastern France.

President Francois Hollande visited the scene and he issues almost constant messages of reassurance.

But there are no easy answers to the issue of young Muslims radicalised in prisons and run down suburbs – and the wider issue of racism across French society.

Opinion polls predict the National Front winning the first round of local elections next month. The question many French Jews are asking themselves is how long they are prepared to wait for things possibly to get better.

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Israel’s immigration agency is housed in a deliberately anonymous Paris office block. Its chairman in Jerusalem reckons 15,000 French Jews will emigrate this year.

A tug of war has broken out between the French and Israeli governments – one side discretely trying to keep French Jewry, and the other blatantly trying to recruit them.

“I would never have a critical word against a French Jew who would have this decision to go to Israel,” says Gilles Clavreul, France’s anti-racism tsar. “But our message is you are in France, it is your country.”

Mr Clavreul told me tough new legislation would tackle hate crimes. That hotbeds of radicalism in impoverished suburbs would not be ignored.

That an education programme would ensure that the spirit of 11 January – the day over one million people turned out on the streets of Paris – would not be forgotten.

But if 15,000 Jews do leave this year, France will be losing that battle.

Some half a million Jews live here, the biggest population anywhere outside Israel and America, and some of those who have emigrated in the past have then decided to return.

‘We must not run away’

Others rule out Israel as a destination, on the grounds that it’s a highly controversial war zone where their children will have to do compulsory military service.

“We have a large Excel worksheet where we write all the options down,” Fabrice Teicher, a charity consultant, told me.

“I don’t want to live in Europe any more. Because of anti-semitism, but also because of economic crisis.

“So we are thinking outside of Europe, maybe North America, maybe Asia.”

25_Jewsmemorialsign_270x270Others say it is too soon to cut and run. Sacha, an accountant too frightened of reprisals to allow us to broadcast his surname, hasn’t ruled out moving to Israel, but not yet.

Even though his friend, Yoav, was among those killed in the kosher supermarket last month.

“I am convinced that staying in France is the best plan for now,” he said.

“We must not run away because we are afraid. In fact, we must stay and prove to these people with hatred in their mouths that they will not win.

“Because that is what they want: they want to scare us and make us run away, and that will never be the case.”

The Layani family understands that argument, but is not prepared to risk its future in the name of standing up to terror. They appreciate the government’s warm words of reassurance but doubt French society is ready to change.

So for them it is time to get out – not time to repeat the mistakes of French Jewry’s past, by staying until it’s too late.

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