Je suis Bibi? ‘Mais non,’ say some French Jews

Some in France’s Jewish community were no more excited than their president, François Hollande, was to see Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu show up in Paris at Sunday’s massive unity rally against extremism. That’s because the Israeli leader’s calls for France’s Jews to flee to Israel in response to last week’s attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris are viewed askance by the French authorities and even by many French Jews. (The Council of French Jewish Institutions, the leading organized body of French Jewry, had strongly denounced a similar call by then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2004.)

Israeli media reported Sunday that President Francois Holland had initially asked Netanyahu to stay away, fearing that the Israeli leader’s presence would be divisive by introducing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into the equation. Haaretz reported that French government was also concerned that Netanyahu’s own message to French Jews undermined the very purpose of the march, which was to demonstrate a common French identity and destiny.  According to the report, Paris feared “that Netanyahu would take advantage of the event for campaign purposes and make speeches, especially about the Jews of France. Such statements, the Élysée Palace feared, would hurt the demonstration of solidarity the French government was trying to promote as part of dealing with the terror attacks.”

Reportedly, Netanyahu had initially acknowledged French concerns and agreed to stay away, but he “changed his mind later Saturday after Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Economy Minister Naftali Bennett announced they would join the march,” according to The Times of Israel, citing Israel’s Channel 2. Those two ministers are considered domestic political challengers to Netanyahu ahead of the coming Israeli election. Once he’d decided to go, the Israeli leader clearly determined to make sure he was a prominent presence: “Netanyahu was initially situated in a second row of leaders, but shimmied his way into the front row,” wrote The Times of Israel.

Complaints of political grandstanding aside, though, Netanyahu’s message to French Jews is in itself a source of controversy, both with the French government and with some European Jewish leaders.

"To all the Jews of France, all the Jews of Europe, I would like to say that Israel is not just the place in whose direction you pray, the state of Israel is your home," Netanyahu said in a statement Saturday.

But the French government demurred, insisting that the home of French Jews is, in fact, France. "France, without its Jews, is not France," French Prime Minister Manuel Valls countered, in remarks at the site of the murder of Jewish hostages at a kosher supermarket on Friday.

And some European Jewish leaders seem to concur with Valls.

“The head of the largest advocate for the Jewish organizations and communities in Europe sharply criticized Israel's call for increased immigration of the Continent's Jews to Israel in the wake of the attacks in Paris,” Haaretz reported Sunday. It quoted an Israeli news site’s report of comments from Rabbi Menachem Margolin, director of the European Jewish Association, quoting him as complaining that “after every anti-Semitic attack in Europe, the Israeli government issues the same statements about the importance of aliyah [immigration to Israel], rather than employ every diplomatic and informational means at its disposal to strengthen the safety of Jewish life in Europe."

"Every such Israeli campaign severely weakens and damages the Jewish communities that have the right to live securely wherever they are," said Rabbi Margolin, adding that the "reality is that a large majority of European Jews do not plan to emigrate to Israel."

As Karina Piser explained on this site Saturday, conflicting views among Jews over the real “home” of France’s Jewish population is as old as the Zionist movement itself, and had frequently recurred in recent years. She noted that “Modern political Zionism originated as a response to European anti-Semitism — indeed, the movement’s founder, Theodor Herzl, wrote in his diary that it was in Paris, while observing the anti-Semitic protests around the treason trial of Alfred Dreyfus (a French Jewish officer falsely convicted of treason) that he ‘recognized the emptiness and futility of trying to combat anti-Semitism’ and concluded that Jews should leave Europe and create a state of their own.”

Netanyahu appeared mindful of the potential for controversy when he spoke later at Paris’s main synagogue, saying “hopefully you all will one day come to Israel,” but also that “you have a full right to live secure and peaceful lives with equal rights wherever you desire, including here in France.”

According to the Jerusalem Post, when some in the audience began shouting “Vive l’Israel,” others countered with chants of “Vive la France.” At the conclusion of his speech, the crowd spontaneously began singing the French national anthem. That was followed by a rendition, from the crowd, of the Israeli national anthem.

Israel insists it is “the national home of the Jewish people,” despite the fact that more than 60 percent of the world’s Jews live elsewhere out of choice — half a million in France.  And while Israel’s leaders would like them to emigrate, the logic of Sunday’s rally was to emphasize that, as Valls put it, “today, we are all Charlie, all police officers, all the Jews of France.”