French Jews Still Anxious, Despite Calm

Falafel shop owner feels at home in Paris, but not all Jews agree. Sharon Udasin

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Paris — Nestled among Parisian gefilte fish proprietors, pickled herring vendors and boulangeries stocked with chocolate rugelach, an Israeli restaurateur yanks otherwise oblivious customers into his teeming falafel palace while Chabad boys sell palm fronds for Sukkot across the cobblestone Rue des Rosiers.

In the Marais, the traditional Jewish quarter of the French capital, neon leaflets advertise Hebrew classes and nearly every shop window has a stamp of approval from the Beth Din of Paris.

“We are in our home here,” says Yomi, the owner of the popular falafel shop, L’as du Fallafel (The Ace of Falafel), who refused to give his last name.

But step outside the close-knit quarters of the Marais district, and France’s Jews will tell you they hardly feel at home and that a low-grade but chronic anxiety gnaws at them because of their Jewish identity. And because of a persistent fear that tensions in the Middle East could escalate at a moment’s notice, leaving them vulnerable.

The war in Gaza ended 10 months ago, Hamas rocket fire into the southern Israeli town of Sderot is almost nonexistent and Iran, Israel’s existential enemy, is torn apart by internal political dissent. In other words, things are relatively quiet in Israel and the status quo is more than tolerable, say many Israelis. Yet in interviews with dozens of French Jews from Paris to Lille to Nice over the course of 10 days earlier this month, a picture emerges of a French Jewish population walking on eggshells.

Despite the 1,800 miles that separate Paris from Tel Aviv, Jews in France say they face ongoing repercussions from the ongoing Middle Eastern tensions. And it’s not only from the country’s large Arab population but perhaps even more so from native French citizens and political leaders. France, with a population of more than 62 million, boasts the largest Jewish population in Europe, as well as a growing Arab population — more than 600,000 Jews and an estimated 4 to 7 million Arabs, according to Time magazine.

“Even at university you can’t even show that you’re Jewish,” said Leah Soussan, 20, at a kosher sushi restaurant in the Marais, where she was catching up with five girlfriends home for Sukkot and Simchat Torah.

Soussan, who said she’d never dare wear a Star of David in public, decided to attend university in Israel at the Interdisciplinary Center of Herzliya, rather than stay in France. Perhaps the least traditionally dressed among her friends — she wore tight jeans while her friends all sported long skirts — Soussan actually attended a Catholic high school, where she said she tried to convert her Catholic friends into respecting her Jewish faith.

“Here there is no respect at all if they know you are Jewish,” said her friend Jessica Antunes, also 20.  Continue reading…

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Also take a look at this clip of Philippe Karsenty’s speech for American Friends of the Likud, 10/22/09:

What a day.

It started out great — I woke up on time for my early train, and one of my new friends — Kristy — walked me to the train station in Nice. At 6 a.m. that train station area is kinda shady, with some vagrants loitering around the vacant sex shops and otherwise seedy premises. I fell asleep on the train, naturally, but set an alarm clock and got off at the correct stop in Avignon.

Getting from the TGV station to the village centre in Avignon was a breeze — I paid just 1.20 Euro for a shuttle bus and then locked my bulky bag in a safe at the train station. Then I headed into the quaint old town, where I saw church after church (big surprise?), and then found a BNP Paribas bank chain. That’s where shit hit the fan.

BNP Paribas has some sort of agreement with Bank of America, where you can use their ATMs at no extra fee. So being the frugal traveler that I am, I was more than happy to find that bank! But apparently, the bank was not happy to see me, and the ATM decided to manger ma carte (EAT my card). Then inside the branch, I was told that no technicians were available till later in the afternoon, but even if they were available, the bank could not give me my ATM card back because for some reason, this would be illegal by French law. They would have to go through some huge bureaucratic exchange process with Bank of America, which would take a while.

So yes, now I have no bank card. Which while incredibly annoying, is not the worst thing in the world that could happen because there are other ways of getting money. If this is the worst thing that happens along my travels, I’d say I’d be pretty lucky.

After this minor mishap, I made my way to the pope’s palace, where there was a second offshoot of the papacy in the Middle Ages. I’m trying to remember why exactly there were competing papacies in the Vatican City and in Avignon…so if someone wants to remind me? Anyway, the palace was huge but kind of stuffy, and there was a German high school class all over the place the whole time. One thing I do remember though was that the pope liked to have 95,000 loaves of bread. I don’t know if that was per day or per year or per what? But that sounded insanely selfish, when I’m assuming all the peasants in surrounding villages were paying him tithes and starving. Or maybe I’m wrong.

After the palace, I finally went to go walk on the “Pont d’Avignon” — the famous bridge in Avignon that is the subject of every middle school French student’s favorite song.

“Sur le pont d’Avignon,
L’on y danse, l’on y danse,
Sur le pont d’Avignon
L’on y danse tout en rond.”

I have to admit, it was kinda amazing to be on that little fairytale bridge and pretend I was a little girl dancing across it.

From Avignon, I hopped on an early afternoon train to Carcassonne, this really petite city with a humongous medieval castle that must have once acted as a fortress. Problem was, there was no where to store my luggage, and it was a 45-minute, partially uphill trek to the castle. Having Jess Dweck’s backpack has been really convenient, but having it on my back for 45 minutes straight was a bit difficult. It’s still sore!

When I finally did get to the foot of the castle though, I had my most interesting experience for the day. I was probably about to keel over from the weight of the bag when a man called out to me in English (accent, but I didn’t know what), asking whether or not the castle was still open. Moments later, he introduced himself as Archie, 37 years old, from Holland. He offered me to store my backpack in his car, and as collateral — so that I’d trust him — he’d let me carry his car key during our trip through the castle so that there was no way he could leave with my bag. I thought that was pretty damn fair, so I took him up on his offer, figuring, worse comes to worse, I lose some sweaty clothing (all my valuables were on me).

So we enjoyed the Carcassonne castle and its surroundings together, and meanwhile, I learned all about Archie. An avid traveler, Archie just got back three months ago from a long trip to India, which was preceded by a trip to Thailand. For the past three weeks or so, he bought a cheap car and has been driving all over France and Spain, site-seeing and living in his car — a small white car that features a huge happy face on the back-right-window.

How was Archie able to afford all these vacations? Well, he answered that question completely honestly. He has been growing, selling and using huge amounts of marijuana for years and years — since he was a teenager I think. Apparently, this business in Holland is extremely lucrative, and he was telling me how you can get so much farther financially by going into this business — all of his friends do it. He said he sticks to pot though because one of his friends ended up essentially terminally ill from a heroine addiction. He also just sold his business to another friend, so he has no idea what to occupy himself with when he gets back to Holland. In Archie’s opinion, marijuana seems to be the one thing that keeps The Netherlands’ economy relatively stable.

When we got back to his car, I retrieved my bag and didn’t end up accepting a ride from him — mostly because he said he smokes pot about five times per day, so I didn’t want to be a passenger in that vehicle. So we parted ways — he to go shower at the campgrounds and type another chapter in his unpublished book — and I to go back to the newer area of Carcassonne.  Don’t worry though, I did do my Sharon duty and advised Archie to stop smoking and doing any such drugs in the future. I wanted to upload a photo of Archie and his automobile here, but for some reason the Internet won’t let me — so check Facebook.

For the past hour and a half or so, and I guess for about the next hour, I’ll be sitting in this Carcassonne Internet cafe finishing up some writing and relaxing. This town seems to pretty much shut down at 6 p.m., and my train doesn’t leave until 11:40 or something I think (I probably should check that? haha). It’s an overnight train to Paris, and I’ll meet my new friend Sarah (who I met in Nice) in the city mid-day.

I hope I enjoy Paris as much as I did when I was 15! See my Facebook profile for updated photos of Nice, Saint Paul de Vence, Avignon et Carcassonne.

Today was one great adventure after another, but I will type briefly because it’s 1 a.m. and I have to be on a 6:39 a.m. train to Avignon. This morning, Sarah and I made the trip out to Saint Paul de Vence, as recommended by my co-worker, and it was a 1 Euro, one-hour ride from Nice on the public bus. Saint Paul was such a beautiful little medieval village, with steep cobblestone twists and turns everywhere, and little glaceries mingled with pricey restaurants, galleries and a New York-themed diner (of course, what else do you expect from a medieval French village?). While there, we also saw the Maught Foundation’s Joan Miro exhibit, with some really beautiful paintings and – most notably to me – a huge sculpture that resembles Disney’s Wall-E, but with a penis. I somehow imagine that Miro’s sculpture came before Disney’s Wall-E, even though Wall-E is one of the most adorable Disney characters of all time in my personal opinion (well, he does have a close run-in with Chip and Flounder).

After our visit, yours truly got about 8 mosquito bites waiting for the return bus, and then slept the entire ride back to Nice. I think Sarah had trouble waking me up. When we got back to the hostel/hotel room, we met our newest addition to the four-person suite, Kristy, from Australia. I took a short run along the boardwalk just before sunset, and then the three of us headed out for a nice dinner at a brasserie. Amazing European pizza, white wine (okay, so I had only two sips, but whatever) and an adorable Tunisian-French waiter (Chaker) – what more could we ask for? We must have sat at that restaurant for like three hours, but they certainly enjoyed our company there.

Some refreshing gelato followed, and then we stumbled upon the most amazing bookshop in all of Nice, where I found some Jewish-French books, as well as a book vendor with an AWESOME story. I hope my editors like it. He’s 76, and during World War II, he lived on the French-Swiss border, where his father – a Lutheran pastor – led the local resistance army. His mother and father saved so many Jews before the occupation by hiding them in their basement and then shuttling them over the border in the very early hours of the morning. Perhaps even more interestingly, one group of people who his parents saved were family members of Ben Gurion – the Israeli prime minister!!! And just two or three years after the State of Israel was established, Ben Gurion sent his parents on a fully-paid vacation in the Middle East out of thanks for saving his family. UN-FREAKING-BELIEVABLE. Wow. Oh yeah, and he’s mailing me the book I bought.

I’ll post more pics tomorrow or the next day on Facebook, but the Internet connection is pretty slow here. So goodnight for now! Our fourth roommate (male), who just got in from Hong Kong, smells like smoke and snores. Tomorrow is half the day in Avignon, half the day in Carcassonne…and then an overnight train to…PARIS!!!

Before I start typing about today, I’d like to expand about yesterday and my glorious five hour bike ride. I honestly can’t believe I made it around that entire like, all 50 kilometers of it, the ups and downs, the narrow climbs and falls. My every muscle may have been sore today, but it was totally worth it. For 15 Euros, I thrust myself into the Alpes and saw some of the most picturesque scenery that the Swiss-French border has to offer. And- I only fell once! On my butt, of course, trekking down a rocky slope from the Cascade d’Angon. Oops. But I’m Sharon, so that was to be expected, and no harm done. Anyway, I will definitely be returning one day to Annecy, the Lac, Talloires and everything in that immediate region. Even the hostel I stayed in was fantastic – amazingly clean, showers in the room, strong WiFi connection – worth the hour-long uphill trek from the train station.

This morning, I did that very same trek – but luckily the downhill version – back to the train station at about 5:30 a.m. I wasn’t the only one awake; there were a few street cleaners sweeping Annecy’s pristine streets and sidewalks, and a couple chefs were preparing for the day ahead. But aside from these few, I was only to breathe that deliciously pure Rhone-Alpes air.

My train rides today, which totaled about 6 hours, were largely uneventful, and I slept pretty much four hours straight on the second one. The passenger next to me had to wake me when we finally arrived in Nice, which was luckily the last stop on this train. Anyone surprised here? Sharon falling asleep on command in random places…no way! But I groggily stumbled out of the train and managed to hold onto all my stuff through the seedier area of Nice, enjoying the suddenly Mediterranean weather.

Nice has been nice so far, though I definitely think Annecy was much more beautiful. After checking into the hotel/hostel, I made my way to the Marc Chagall Museum. Yes, where the Jews go, Sharon goes. But in all seriousness, I was really interested to see his works after seeing the movie Varien’s War with my grandmother, in which Chagall is one of the artists escaping Nazi Germany through the hands of some very righteous gentiles. The museum was beautiful, especially the Biblical paintings, but I was slightly disappointed to see almost no mention of Chagall and the Holocaust. Hopefully I’ll find that in different Jewish places in Paris. This museum was great though, even more so because it was relatively small, so I didn’t even have time to get museum-exhausted!

After that, I walked all around Nice, along the main avenue, down to the beach, on the boardwalk, and through Vieux Nice. Staring at the Mediterranean Sea from above and from its rocky shores was incredible as always, yet I wanted to reach out across the water and pull Israel just a bit closer. Luckily, I reminded myself, I’ll be in Israel in 6 days – God willing. I hope that I remain just as enchanted with Israel this time – my fifth time – as I have always been, even though certain circumstances in my life have drastically changed against my favor. Standing at the foot of an ocean or sea always gives me some sort of vague nostalgia, an ambivalence about whatever is going on in my life and a clearer perspective into my own self.

On that note, I think I’ll sign off and go to sleep for the night. I’m going to try and go with one of my really nice new hostel-mates, Sarah, to go see a medieval village called Saint Paul de Vence tomorrow, as recommended by Ruth at The Jewish Week. It’s only about an hour bus ride from Nice, and bus fare apparently only costs 1 Euro. Leave me your thoughts, comments, criticisms as always!

Bonne nuit and love to all.