What future for the Jews of France?

“In fact, I find myself wondering about the question mark that figures in the topic. A question mark, because, the way the topic is framed, one wonders from the outset what exactly is at issue. Is it Judaism? Is it the Jewish community, or is it the Jews? And if it is Judaism, how is Judaism to be defined? There may be a certain tendency to regard Judaism as something more or less equivalent to what non-Jews call ‘the Jewish religion’ — that is, a way of being and acting in conformity with a certain number of rules generally called the Halakha. If it were this Judaism that were at issue, or that ought to be at issue, my question mark would become immense, because at bottom I did not feel capable of speaking about it, since I do not feel altogether inside a Judaism defined in that way. If it is, as I have come to understand after all the speakers who preceded me, the Jewish community — or, more precisely, the community of Jews living in France — then I feel a little more at ease, and I can perhaps bring, if not an experience, then at least a certain number of reflections. I was extremely interested by what Rabbi Gilles Bernheim said, and I think that indeed, although I am not religious, I can subscribe to what he said: ‘equal respect for Jewish culture and the Torah.’ I believe, in fact, that to be Jewish is to enter into a cultural system, and not only into a religious, ethnic, or biological one. To be a Jew simply because one was born of a Jewish mother — in my view also because one was born of a Jewish father, but that is a personal opinion — does not seem to me in itself sufficient. It seems to me that something must be added, and that something to be added is a certain degree of knowledge. We are the bearers of a history, and we are the bearers of a culture. It matters little to me that some consider this culture to be essentially religious. For my part, I grant myself — wrongly, perhaps — the right to read the Torah in complete freedom, and to find in it not only the account of a certain number of real or symbolic facts but an ethical teaching, a moral teaching, a certain number of values that seem to me fundamental, illuminating what the condition of a Jew may be and allowing me to feel not only Jewish by birth but Jewish through adherence to these values, through adherence to this History, to this journey of a people across the centuries. If I exclude knowledge, if I exclude a certain degree of knowledge, then at that moment my judaism — or my Jewishness, to use Memmi’s term, which is no doubt more apt — seems to me empty. And it seems to me that one of the problems posed in relation to the horizon of the year 2000 is precisely the content of the Jewish identity borne by a great many members of this community. I am extremely struck by the fact that all too often this identity is founded on two elements that are foreign to the person who regards them as fundamental elements of his identity. I am speaking of the Shoah and I am speaking of Israel. That we should preserve the memory of the Shoah is something that seems to me necessary, utterly necessary.

But that an individual born after the Shoah should live his judaism through this event that he did not experience, that he received full in the face afterward, and of which he has an apprehension utterly different from that of most of those who lived through that period; that his identity should be formed essentially of this memory and then of an attachment to an Israel he does not visit — that is, of something to which he adheres intellectually but does not really integrate into his identity — I find this extremely dangerous, because to my eyes it represents a false identity, a profound void. A void that some try to fill, and in this regard it must be acknowledged that in religious circles in particular, whether on the side of the Rabbinate, or on the side of the Lubavitch, or others, an effort is being made; I am not surprised — even if in certain respects I regret it — that this effort meets with success.

There is another element that strikes me: what appears to me as a kind of false race toward religiosity. I am a listener to the Jewish radio stations, especially in the morning. I have followed the progression, which struck me as fascinating, that went from Kosher to Kosher Beth Din to Glatt Kosher to chamour product. I think there will be still further stages. I note that the number of kosher restaurants is increasing. I also note, from time to time, that this or that kosher restaurant is no longer kosher. I do not have occasion to observe that some of them have closed their doors, because I do not frequent them enough to keep watch over them; but there too, it seems to me that there is a kind of superficial phenomenon. And so, when I try to reflect on this Horizon 2000 of the Community, I have this great question mark of knowing how to nourish these young people, these rising generations, how to nourish those who will be the pivot of the community in the year 2000. And I do not have many answers. I am glad of this renewed interest in the texts through translations. I am glad to learn that there are more numerous opportunities to learn Hebrew and a fair number of people attending the classes. I observe all this; I also observe, as I have already said, the effort of religious circles, but I think that one of the things our community lacks is the possibility for young people to receive a teaching of Jewish values, of Jewish texts, in a setting that does not involve excessive religious pressure. I personally regret that today most Jewish schools are schools in which religious constraint is strong. And I take the liberty of saying so because I attended the first Jewish lycée that existed in France: it was the École Maïmonide. I attended it, as you may suspect, before the war. The director of that school, Marcus Kohn, was a religious man. He wore a legendary kippah on his head, but at no moment did he attempt to exert the least direct or indirect constraint on the pupils. We were taught the Tanakh; we were taught the Talmud; Jewish History; an attempt was even made to teach us to speak Hebrew — relatively little. The food was kosher. We observed the Jewish festivals (notably that of Purim, which was the occasion to mock our teachers and our director).

You see, I pose more questions than I bring solutions. And now I am going to speak a little about the Institutions. First of all, because when one speaks ill of the Institutions in the presence of a former President of the CRIF, there always arises the question of the degree to which he is being aimed at, or not. So I always accept the idea that the Presidents of the Institutions ought to be, as Gilles Bernheim said, intelligent.

I have often asked myself whether I was intelligent enough or not. But I would above all like to underscore the fact that the men who lead the Institutions did not seize these posts by force. The Institutions are in the image of their activists. Now, the activists represent only a very small portion of the Jewish community. The Institutions are the reflection of those who belong to them, and the leaders of these Institutions are also, to a certain extent, the reflection of their activists. And when they are not — which has often been my case — there is great rejoicing when they leave, and they are replaced by someone who better matches the idea the activists have of who ought to lead them. Gilles Bernheim said, and he is right, that one cannot be Jewish without a community. We need this Community. And so if we have a community, we necessarily have communal Institutions, and we cannot, we have no right to criticize these Institutions, if we have not made the effort to enter them, if we have not tried to draw people in, tried precisely to ensure that these Institutions be as representative as possible and that they do honor to the Community. Let us nonetheless speak of a few of these Institutions: There is a crisis at the Consistoire. This crisis exists essentially at the level of the Consistoire of Paris. It is, moreover, somewhat the result of the democratic will of the Consistoire, which has always been one of the rare organizations whose members were called upon to elect its leaders. I am myself the son and grandson of members of the Consistoire, and I remember, in my youth, attending an electoral meeting in the course of which my father was called upon to present his ideas as a candidate for the Consistoire. Only, in those days the candidates matched the number of seats to be filled. There was generally no opposition candidate; and so things proceeded very calmly, and the voters represented a small portion of the potential electorate. After the war of 1939/1945 there were one or two attempts to form an opposition. They failed. Then there was, now two years ago, an attempt that succeeded. And today the Consistoire of Paris is the object of very deep disputes. For there is a group that plainly does not represent the majority of the members of the Consistoire but that did at a given moment represent the majority of the voters. It occupies the field, and it occupies it in a way that shocks many people. But apart from this organization, which is not without importance, I believe that as concerns the other structures, they still represent very largely a space in which everyone can express himself. I do not believe one can claim that the Fonds Social Juif Unifié is not open to all tendencies. Among the leaders of this organization there are Jews of every possible tendency in the community — perhaps not yet a representative of the Lubavitch. As for the CRIF, I would say there too that, statutorily, just about all the organizations representative at the national level are present, and I am not aware that any organization has been refused entry into the CRIF for a reason of ideological tendency. Some organizations may have been refused because they were not representative at the national level, but certainly not for ideological reasons. So I would like, from this point of view, perhaps to reassure you and tell you that there are today within the Community Institutions that do their work as best they can, that bring together men of good will who devote a great deal of time, a great deal of their leisure — even beyond their leisure — to trying to keep a certain number of communal activities running. That all this is not perfect, I readily grant; but once again, in order to criticize, one must come and take part. From this point of view I will recall something that struck me a great deal: on several occasions I tried to persuade Jewish intellectuals, not to enter the CRIF, because statutorily that was not possible, but to try to band together; and I said to them, “the day you have banded together, the day you organize a debate, I will come, as a representative of the CRIF, to debate with you, and if that debate can be carried further, I will try to bring about a debate between the intellectuals and the leaders of the CRIF.” Well, perhaps I did not address myself to the best intellectuals; in any case I addressed myself to those who seemed to me both eager to act within the community and to represent a value. And I was never able to get them to meet, because there were among them so many differences, if not jealousies, that the idea of one of them being able to convene the others simply could not work. They did not much want to meet in order to work together; at a pinch to debate, but to work together, no. So I would tend to say that there is also, when it comes to the intelligence of the Community, a certain deficiency among the Intellectuals of this community who are the bearers of that intelligence. One more word: I listened to the speaker who preceded me, Serge Brodowicz. I understood very well what he said concerning the fact that the Halakha, once it has defined the Jew, does not quantify and does not say whether he is good or bad, 10%, 50%, and so on. But there, allow me to tell you that you have struck wide of the problem. The real problem posed to the Jewish community, and which was evoked by Albert Memmi, lies at the margin of the community. I took part in a debate within the framework of JUDEOSCOPE: the problem of mixed marriages, when it is the father who is Jewish and not the mother; and yet, the statistics indicate it, children more often want to remain Jewish when it is the father who is Jewish than when it is the mother. This is a problem we have no right to pass over. We have no right to pass over it because it is also the future of the Jewish Community that is at stake. The fact that one refuses to debate it poses a problem. And the problem, to my eyes, is the following: at bottom, the Rabbis are the bearers, the interpreters of the Halakha; in any case, they claim this role and consider that within the communities it is for them to play it. The Rabbis refuse to examine this problem, and to examine it also in historical perspective (since it does not appear that this rule of the Jewish mother was born with the first Jews). It seems that there were other traditions. Perhaps the Rabbis even had very deep reasons, at a certain period, for introducing rules of this kind. But if the effort of reflection is not made, if the effort of examination is not made, there will arise Jews who will be wholly outside the Halakha, with the risk that the Community may break apart, between the “Jew-Jews” — an expression that has already been used — and Jews whom some will not consider Jewish, but who will consider themselves Jewish. This is an extremely important problem, for in a community there are observant and non-observant people, but the moment one fraction of the community excludes another fraction of the community — and this is what Albert Memmi was alluding to, I suppose at least — at that moment the breaking apart of the Community exists in potential. At any moment an extraordinarily dangerous schism may occur, of which the religious Jews will say that it is not serious, because they will carry on the tradition and will consider that they are the Jewish Community; but there will be forces lost, men lost.

Men who will probably long bear the wound of having been driven out, of having been excluded. Once again, I believe it is in this sense that Albert Memmi spoke of exclusion. And I would like, in closing, to say that I am very glad that there are today efforts being made among those who call themselves secular to band together, to organize, and to try, through their activities, to reconnect, themselves too, with the knowledge of Judaism. I read fairly attentively the brochures I receive, and I note that among them too there is a kind of return to Jewish values. Which proves well, to my mind, that there are indeed many ways of being Jewish, and that what is important for the future of the Community is that it consider itself open to all these ways of being Jewish.

I would like, finally, to add one more word (following on from a discussion among the previous speakers)¹: the word “tolerance” exists in modern Hebrew; it is said sovlanout, and the root of sovlanout is lisbol, which means “to suffer,” “to endure.” One must know how to endure others, even at the risk of suffering for it, in order for there to be tolerance and, therefore, democracy.”