Anti-semitism in France

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Registered: 06-15-2003
Anti-semitism in France
Wed, 09-01-2004 - 4:22am
Jew may have torched Paris soup kitchen

By Amiram Barkat and Daniel Ben Simon

Tue., August 31, 2004 Elul 14, 5764

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/471352.html


A 50-year-old Jewish man appears to have been

behind the torching of the Jewish community center

in Paris some 10 days ago, French police have

confirmed. The man, whose first name, Raphael, was

released for publication, was arrested yesterday.



According to French police sources, Raphael was a

regular visitor to the community center's soup

kitchen, and is believed to have set fire to the

building in the wake of a dispute with the people

who run it.

The man has not confessed to the arson, but the

police investigation has turned up considerable

evidence tying him to the incident.

Jewish community leaders in France reacted with

anger and embarrassment following the latest

revelations about the fire.

If the police suspicions prove true, the affair

will mark the second time in two months that an

incident labeled as anti-Semitic and covered

widely in the media has turned out to be motivated

by other factors entirely. The first incident

involved a non-Jewish Parisian woman who claimed

to have been assaulted by six North African

immigrants on a train, but later confessed to have

fabricated the story.

French government sources and Jewish organizations

have yet to comment officially on the affair, and

are waiting for a public announcement from the

police.

Since the story broke, however, France's Jews have

been beside themselves with shame, with some

calling Jewish radio stations yesterday to express

their frustration. Others have spoken of profound

embarrassment in light of the latest development

in the fight against anti-Semitism.

One radio listener said that in the past he had

been afraid of Muslims, but had now decided to be

wary of Jews. Another shouted that he was ashamed

to show his face in the building in which he

lived, noting that after the fire at the community

center, his neighbors had visited him to express

their disgust at the incident.

Little by little, the sense of being the victims

that had enveloped the Jews of France is being

replaced by the sense that the series of

deceptions is threatening to blur the severity of

the problem. In particular, the French Jews are

concerned that from now, any incident against the

Jews will be immediately accompanied by suspicion.

Till now, radical Muslim elements have been

automatically suspected of any allegedly

anti-Semitic incident. Now, the suspicions will be

directed against those who have been deemed the

principal victims of anti-Semitism, and the public

and official outcry against any attack on Jews is

expected to weaken.

Every time a report of an anti-Semitic incident

broke, French leaders made a concerted effort to

bolster the Jewish community and express their

support for its members. Time and again, French

President Jacques Chirac found himself harnessing

the republic's institutions and public opinion so

as to convey a sense of security to the Jewish

community, and almost every location at which

anti-Semitic incidents occured was visited by

French leaders as a sign of solidarity with the

country's Jewish community.

And as if the sense of guilt that the French felt

in the wake of attacks on Jews wasn't enough,

Israel added fuel to the fire. Prime Minister

Ariel Sharon and his cabinet colleagues never

failed to miss an opportunity to paint France as

the most dangerous place on earth for Jews. Sharon

even went so far as to urge French Jews to

immigrate to Israel before falling victim to

France's large Muslim sector.

Now that it appears that a mentally unstable

Jewish man was behind the arson attack, the Jewish

community is likely to see the sympathy of the

French public dwindle.

"Don't forget that we are dealing with a community

that lives under tension, concern and fear all the

time," Henri Cohen Solal, a Jewish psychoanalyst

from Paris, told Haaretz yesterday. "To this you

must add the fact that in most instances, the Jews

encounter quiet anti-Semitism - invisible and not

transparent... This marginal situation is very

problematic, and it sometimes causes members of

the community to take extreme action so as to cry

wolf. But it must be clear that the wolf exists,

even if it isn't always seen."