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No 11, 15 August 2006, 21 Av 5766
The Future of the Jews in France
An Interview with Shmuel Trigano
- There are approximately 550,000 Jews in France. About 60 percent live in the Paris
region, mainly in suburban areas. In Paris itself, the number of Jews is shrinking
with the exception of the capital's west. Marseilles is the second largest Jewish
agglomeration in France. There, too, most Jews live in the suburbs. As in the
Paris environs, many Jews are poor, either unemployed or low-income. The next
largest Jewish communities are Lyon and Strasbourg.
- Among the Jewish institutions in France, three occupy central positions. The
Consistoire Central de France (Consistoire) deals with religious issues; the Fonds
Social Juif Unifié (FSJU) addresses social concerns; and the Conseil Représentatif
des Institutions Juives de France (CRIF) is the roof organization of France's major
Jewish institutions.
- The major Jewish organizations in France are in crisis. The organizational model
that has served the French community in the past decades is no longer viable. It
is unclear whether a new workable model will emerge that can replace it.
The Jews: A Screen for French Society
"In view of the current prejudices against the Jews in France, they have become
a kind of screen on which the French project their distress and their expectations.
For that reason, assessing French Jewry and its identity also becomes an analysis of
French society."
In his new book, The Future of the Jews in France,1 Shmuel Trigano analyzes the
Jewish community's situation in the context of its national environment. He claims this
situation is influenced by several major factors including the crisis in French national
identity and the demographic shock resulting from large-scale immigration, mainly
from North and West Africa. At the same time, several major Jewish institutions are
undergoing crisis. In Trigano's view, these and other developments have fundamentally
changed French Jewry's position in the societal landscape.
Trigano teaches sociology at the University of Paris X-Nanterre. The author of many
books, he founded L'Observatoire du Monde Juif, a research center on Jewish political
life. Trigano is also the editor of the magazines Pardes and Controverses.
Sixty Percent of Jews in Paris and Its Suburbs
"There are approximately 550,000 Jews in France.
About 60 percent live in the Paris region, mainly in suburban
areas. In Paris itself the number of Jews is shrinking with
the exception of the capital's west.
"Jews who live in more dangerous city neighborhoods
and have the means to move increasingly relocate to Paris's
16th district and to western suburbs such as Neuilly-sur-Seine. These are considered more bourgeois but also less
dangerous for Jews, with relatively low numbers of Arab
North African immigrants. The northern and eastern suburbs
have always been more proletarian, and the southern ones
somewhere in between.
"Marseilles is the second largest Jewish agglomeration
in France. There, too, most Jews live in the suburbs. As in
the Paris environs, there is a Jewish population that is poor,
either unemployed or low-income. The next largest Jewish
communities are Lyon and Strasbourg."
Major Institutions
Trigano says that among the Jewish institutions in
France, three occupy central positions. The Consistoire
Central de France (Consistoire) deals with religious issues;
the Fonds Social Juif Unifié (FSJU) addresses social concerns;
and the Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de
France (CRIF) is the roof organization of France's major
Jewish institutions.
"In terms of number of adherents, the Consistoire is
the largest. This institution dates from the days of Napoleon
and the Sanhedrin that he convened. At that time, all Jews
were forced to belong to the Consistoire. It has a central
body as well as regional ones.
"The Consistoire considers as adherents all those who
have made a contribution during the year, whatever its size.
These include, for instance, those who have given money,
however little, on the occasion of being called to the Torah,
or registering their children for a Jewish course, or paying
for a wedding to be performed. One then becomes a member
of the Consistoire and can vote.
"That does not make one a very active member. In
the elections for the Paris Consistoire, however, not more
than about six thousand people vote among thirty-three
thousand members."
Indicators of Decline
"There are various indicators of decline in the
Consistoire's status. Other religious communities are
emerging. There are now numerous modern-Orthodox
communities, mainly in the Parisian suburbs, which have
synagogues with their own rabbis and do not belong
administratively to the Consistoire. Many have united in
the Council of Jewish Communities, created in 1992. It has
a tense relationship with the Consistoire. The CRIF did not
want to accept this body as a member, though it represents
a large part of the Jews living in Parisian suburbs.
"The Lubavitch (Habad) Hasidic group has seen much
development owing to the fervor of its adherents and their
strong commitment to outreach. The previous president of
the Paris Consistoire, Moise Cohen, proposed to them to enter
the Consistoire and they agreed, which is rather odd because
they do not accept its kashrut and operate their own.
"The Habad movement has about twenty synagogues in
Paris. Although very active, it is not so important in terms of
numbers. It has also succeeded in attracting Sephardi Jews.
I attended the bar mitzvah of the son of a friend, who is
of Moroccan origin. The boy gave his speech in Yiddish not
understanding a word of what he was saying."
Non-Orthodox Communities
"Since the 1980s the non-Orthodox communities have
also developed. The Reform movement is rather fragmented.
One of its oldest synagogues is in the Rue Copernic in Paris. The
Reform synagogues seem to be frequented mainly by people
who were remote from Jewish tradition and have found a way
to identify, as well as others who were dissatisfied by the
religious radicalization of the Consistoire. Reform's openness
to conversion is another reason it attracts membership.
"The Consistoire, for its part, has changed since the
Tunisian-born Joseph Sitruk became Chief Rabbi of France
in 1987. He and many rabbis, often of Moroccan origin, have
aligned themselves with Israel's ultra-Orthodox Sephardi
party, Shas.
"Conservative synagogues now function in Paris,
Marseilles, Nice, and other cities. This phenomenon shows
an increase in recent years. Like the Reform synagogues,
they draw some of their participants from those who have
left the Consistoire.
"In France, there is no Reform or Conservative tradition
as in the United States. These movements are certainly alien
to the world of North African Jews, but a population that
has never received any tradition joins more easily. These
groups are not represented toward the state, which only
recognizes the Consistoire's Chief Rabbi as the Jewish
religious authority."
The Weakening of the Consistoire Kashrut
System
"Another indicator of decline is the competition with
the Consistoire's kashrut system. It is under attack in various
ways. The Chief Rabbi does not eat the meat slaughtered
under the supervision of the Consistoire's Rabbinical Court
of which he is the guarantor.
"Last year, the Chief Rabbi announced a plan to have
animals slaughtered in Ireland and have their meat prepacked.
This meat would be available in general supermarkets. That
would deal a major blow to the Consistoire's main source
of income; it draws most of its funds from the taxes that
butchers, restaurants, grocers, and producers of kosher
products pay to it as a supervisor of kashrut. The Chief Rabbi's
aim to create a rabbinical tribunal under the authority of
an Israeli ultra-Orthodox rabbi will also undermine the
Consistoire's legitimacy. All these are further indications of
the community's fragmentation."
The FSJU
"The Fonds Social is the major Jewish organization
dealing with social work. It raises funds through a unified
appeal. In recent years, collecting money for tzedaka (charity)
has become the FSJU's principal task. It mainly publicizes its
support for needy Jews in France, such as the unemployed,
the handicapped, single-parent families, and so on. It no
longer emphasizes that a percentage of the money that
is raised goes to Israel. This is an important sign of the
ideological evolution.
"Many Israeli organizations nowadays raise money in
France directly. For instance, the various Israeli universities
have their organizations of friends. An organization such as
Hadassah raises money, and so do many yeshivas. The Chief
Rabbi of France also has his own fund.
"In the past, operating community centers was a major
FSJU activity. The 1970s were the years of glory for these
centers. They came into being largely modeled on the general
cultural centers initiated by the then French minister of
culture and well-known writer, André Malraux. These have
declined in importance and so have the Jewish community
centers. Furthermore, their relationship with the FSJU has
loosened, though they still remain in its orbit."
The CRIF
Trigano recalls that the CRIF was created in 1944 when
under German occupation there was no legitimate French
state. The CRIF aimed to represent the Jews, as the National
Resistance Council sought to represent France.
In an earlier interview, Trigano said that initially the
CRIF sought "to be the representative body of French Jews;
but this was impossible in a very centralistic state. Thus it
became the representative body of Jewish institutions, i.e.
the organized community."2
Now he adds: "Until the early 1980s, the president
of the Consistoire was also usually president of the CRIF.
Hence there was no need to define the political and
religious spheres separately. When the two positions were
dissociated, a mistaken image was created. Many believed
that the CRIF represented the political dimension of the
Jewish community, while the Consistoire continued to
embody the religious dimension.
"This was never true. The Consistoire is managed by
lay leaders. It employs rabbis, but is embodied by these
lay leaders who are not necessarily Orthodox. Instead,
the separation of the two top positions can be viewed as a
division of the Jewish lay leadership.
"A further distorted image was created when Theo Klein
became the CRIF chairman in 1981. He involved the Jewish
institutions in national politics and gave the impression that
the Jewish community was a political power. This disturbed
a delicate equilibrium.
"The crucial point here is that France is a highly
centralist democracy. Hence the Jewish community, which
is politically active, has to be organized in this way. Yet
it is impossible - for the same reason - to pretend that the
CRIF, which is not democratically elected by French Jews,
represents the political interests of the entire French Jewish
community."
The CRIF's Representativity
Trigano observes: "Jews are private citizens who do not
and cannot control the body that claims to represent them
politically. The CRIF is a federation of institutions. As such it
can only represent these and not any institutions that do not
belong to it. Nor does it speak on behalf of individuals, even
less all French Jews. It is also evident that people who do not
feel themselves represented by the CRIF or other bodies do
not stop being Jews. The Consistoire, the main organization
of French Jewry, is not today a member of the CRIF.
"The CRIF can only represent those major Jewish concerns
on which a broad consensus exists. As a voluntary body, it can
legitimately defend Jewish interests of this kind.
"However, over the past twenty years, the CRIF helped
create the illusion that it was the political representative of
all French Jews. When dealing with the Jews, the government
addressed the CRIF. This old model is already disintegrating
to some extent because France faces such a major overall
crisis. The progress of European unification endangers the
centralistic state, and the simultaneous influx of immigrants
threatens France's national identity.
"In future the community model of French Jewry may
disintegrate even further as a result of both internal and
external developments. Internally, the tensions between
Jewish lay and religious leaders are increasing."
Condemning All Religions
"As far as the external environment was concerned, the
headscarf problem emerged in 1989 for the first time in the
town of Creil. There a number of Muslim girls insisted on wearing
the headscarf in schools. In reaction, a very demanding, almost
intolerant, secularism developed in French society. Also parts
of the Jewish elite started to condemn the Jewish community,
accusing it of 'communitarism.' Until then, the issue of the Jews
belonging to a specific community had not been a major one,
even if occasionally there were some tensions.
"In 1989 the French Republic celebrated its two
hundredth anniversary. The intelligentsia and media
wanted to condemn Islam without appearing to do so.
To remain politically correct and avoid stressing that the
enemy was Islamism, they invented other enemies - and
thus condemned all religions.
"Many secular Jews strongly opposed all
fundamentalisms. The French Jewish Left also started to
attack the Jewish world, characterizing many of its elements
as fundamentalist. These included Israeli settlers, religious
Jews, Jewish communitarism, and religious intolerance.
"In this way part of the Jewish elite turned against
the Jewish community. This may lead to an unmanageable
situation. It marked the beginning of the decomposition
of the Jewish communal structure of the postwar period.
Yet a Jewish community in a democratic regime - and not a
ghetto - has to be present in all social strata."
The Consistoire Leaves the CRIF
"Around that time the Consistoire left the CRIF. There
were personal rivalries involved, but these were not the only
factor. Emile Touati, the then president of the Consistoire,
opposed the CRIF joining the new European Jewish Congress.
He considered that its policy would be determined by the
parent World Jewish Congress, and did not want American
Jews to have influence in French affairs.
"There had long been a French section of the World
Jewish Congress, but it was mainly known for financing an
annual symposium of Jewish intellectuals. This gathering
lost its significance when several leading French Jewish
intellectuals, such as André Néher, Léon Ashkenazi, Eliane
Amado Lévi-Valensi, Benno Gross, and Théo Dreyfuss, left
for Israel. In that league, only Emanuel Levinas remained in
France. Many activists emigrated as well.
"Looking back, we now know that the 1970s were
intellectually a golden age. French Jewry then had an
intellectual dimension. The community centers were full.
Lectures often drew hundreds of people."
The Community Adrift
"The community's decline during the 1980s was in line
with what happened in French society during the Mitterrand
presidency. In those years, France sank under the weight of a
new political strategy.
"Initially, the Socialists' coming to power in 1981 was
received very positively by most French Jews, including
myself. Some Jews believed that the 'Jewish vote' had
helped the Socialist candidate win. This, though, is a myth:
if there is a Jewish vote at all, it only exists in two or three
Parisian suburbs.
"De Gaulle had stigmatized the Jews, calling them
in 1967 'a domineering and arrogant people.' Since then
it had become clear that the authorities were taking aim
at the Jewish community, claiming it had a dual loyalty to
France and to Israel. De Gaulle also moved France toward
a pro-Arab policy.
"His successor as president, Georges Pompidou, had
imposed an embargo on the delivery of Mirage combat
planes that had been sold to Israel. Valéry Giscard d'Estaing,
who became president in 1974, had been very cold to the
Jewish community.
"The initial hopes were also inspired by the fact that
several Jewish personalities close to Mitterrand were on the
board of the FSJU. In the Jewish community a new leadership
was emerging that, unlike the postwar generation, did not
have serving the Jewish community as its major aim. Many
new leaders used the Jewish community to promote their
own political or professional careers.
"The main problem for the Jews with Mitterrand's
presidency was that he used the Jewish community as
a political tool in his antifascist front strategy. Against
Le Pen, a danger he created artificially, he indeed needed
the Jews' support to give credibility to his maneuver. This
politicization of the Jewish community proved later to have
pernicious consequences."
Under Attack
"Parts of the Jewish community have been criticizing
the CRIF from several directions. Its silence during the 2001
anti-Semitic attacks jeopardized its status as representing
the community. Under fire, its leadership failed.
"Part of the intelligentsia and the Jewish elites dislike the
CRIF because they see it as a model for turning the Muslims
into a community. In recent years, many in these circles
have become the greatest advocates of French republican
centralism while distancing themselves from Israel.
"Nowadays, the CRIF creates illusions with little
substance behind them. Although eighteen ministers were
present at its annual dinner this year, it has been amply shown
that the CRIF has difficulty influencing the French authorities
apart perhaps from the problem of anti-Semitism. It has not
succeeded in changing the government's Middle East policy to
any extent. The CRIF might evolve into a body similar to the
Anti-Defamation League in the United States. Then it could
make a concerted effort against anti-Semitism in France.
"If French Jews want true political representation,
there is no other alternative than emigration to Israel. In
the Diaspora, at least in France, there is a sharp dichotomy
between Jewish affiliation and citizenship. Only in Israel is
it possible to be 'Jewish' and democratically represented
simultaneously.
"A strong manifestation of the CRIF's aberrations
was that after the murder of a young Jew, Ilan Halimi, by
West African Muslims in early 2006 and several attacks on
Jews in the Parisian suburbs, the organization published
a communiqué called 'France Is in Danger.' It warns the
government that if no action is taken against anti-Semitism,
parts of the Jewish community may become violent. One
wonders if this is the CRIF's role."
The Problem of State Financial Support
"In France, far more of society's activities are financed
by the state than in other countries. Many synagogues, for
example, are monuments, and as such entitled to subsidy.
The CRIF in Marseilles receives 79 percent of its financing
from the central and regional governments. Thus voluntary
organizations meant to represent Jewish interests are in fact,
through their financing, influenced by the authorities.
"Contrary to the United States, numerous French Jewish
schools are also financed by the state. They have to sign an
agreement that they will teach according to the national
curriculum. That leaves only six hours per week for teaching
Jewish matters. Some Lubavitch schools do not accept this
and thus receive no money. Many resemble the old cheder,
not teaching mathematics or the French language.
"Once again the problem is not a specifically Jewish
one. French newspapers and many other private organizations
could not survive without government subsidies."
The Future
"According to a survey by Erik Cohen of Bar-Ilan
University and Maurice Ifergan, perhaps a Jewish population
of thirty thousand will emigrate. In 2003, 2,100 French Jews
moved to Israel; in 2004, 2,415; and in 2005 the figure
reached 3,000. This year, estimates are that about 3,500
will arrive.3 The importance lies not only in the numbers.
These are very conscious Jews; many of those who want an
intense Jewish life are attracted by Israel.
"Another factor influencing the community's future is
that mixed marriages are on the increase. A new population
will not be totally Jewish and not totally non-Jewish, neither
converted out nor accepted for conversion by the Jewish
community, but retaining a vague sense of belonging to
the Jewish people. From these circles new types of Judaism,
often of a syncretic nature, will inevitably emerge and further
destabilize Jewish identity.
"Another important phenomenon is the increasing
silent ghettoization. Because of the many problems in the
public schools, more and more pupils are joining Jewish
schools. Whereas in the past this was a voluntary choice,
expressing affiliation, nowadays it is more and more an
expression of fear and insecurity.
"This ghettoization, however, is drawing people into the
community. The challenge facing French Jews, even more
than the Muslim-Arab anti-Semitism, is to cultivate a sense
of belonging to the Jewish people while totally remaining
part of the French nation. At stake, in other words, is the
legitimacy of a Jewish community."
Trigano concludes that the post-World War II model of
French Jewish identity is in crisis in France. In his view, the
organizational model that served the French community in
the past decades is no longer valid. He adds: "It is unclear
whether a new workable model will emerge to replace it."
Interview by Manfred Gerstenfeld
* * *
Notes
1. Shmuel Trigano, L'Avenir des Juifs en France (Paris: Bernard Grasset,
2006). [in French]
2. Manfred Gerstenfeld, interview with Shmuel Trigano,"France:
Memory versus Truth," in Europe's Crumbling Myths: The Post-
Holocaust Origins of Today's Anti-Semitism (Jerusalem: JCPA, Yad
Vashem, World Jewish Congress, 2003), 210.
3. Zohar Blumenkrantz and Amiram Barkat, "2,500 American, French
Immigrants to Arrive This Summer," Haaretz, 14 May 2006.
* * *
Prof. Shmuel Trigano is a fellow of the Jerusalem Center for
Public Affairs and professor of sociology at the University of Paris
X-Nanterre. He is director of the College of Jewish Studies at the
Alliance Israélite Universelle; editor of Pardes, a journal of Jewish
studies, and of Controverses, a journal of ideas; as well as author of
numerous books, especially on Jewish philosophy and Jewish political
thought. Trigano is also the founder of L'Observatoire du Monde Juif,
a research center on Jewish political life.
Manfred Gerstenfeld, Publisher • Chaya Herskovic, Editor • Howard Weisband, Associate Editor • Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (Registered Amuta), 13 Tel-Hai St., Jerusalem 92107, Israel; Tel. 972-2-5619281, Fax. 972-2-5619112, Email: jcpa@netvision.net.il • In U.S.A.: Center for Jewish Community Studies, 5800 Park Heights Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21215 USA; Tel. (410) 664-5222, Fax. (410) 664-1228 • Website: www.jcpa.org • Copyright. ISSN: 0792-7304
The opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect
those of the Board of Fellows of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
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