Violette Attal-Lefi, a lawyer, is Vice-President of the AJHL (Association pour un Judaïsme Humaniste et Laïque — the Association for a Humanistic and Secular Judaism).
In this issue, PLURIELLES publishes excerpts from the debates of the General Assembly of the CRIF (Conseil Représentatif des Institutions juives de France — the umbrella body representing French Jewish institutions), in November 1993, on the occasion of the AJHL’s admission into its ranks. That is why it seems important to us to respond to the remarks of M. Jean KAHN, just as he has been appointed to the Presidency of the Central Consistory of France.
“— You also asserted, no later than yesterday on the microphone of Sans tabou on Radio Shalom, that in your view one cannot claim to be both Jewish and secular. We are curious to know what the president of the CRIF thinks of this declaration by the Central Consistory?
— I never said that one could be both Jewish and secular. It is a contradiction in terms. One cannot say that it is day and that it is night at the same time. To be Jewish is to believe in a certain number of values, values that derive from texts, which texts are of divine inspiration. Consequently, from the moment you recognize yourself as Jewish, you cannot deny the existence of these texts — that is to say, of God.”
— Does that mean that you deny certain of the associations that belong to the CRIF their Jewish character?
— Not at all. I am simply saying that they wrongly use the word secular. They have the right to exist, they have the right to belong to the CRIF, but I find that the term “secular Jew is an impossibility.”
Interview conducted and published by Tribune Juive, 9 February 1995.
In a few words, in a few days, Monsieur Jean KAHN has swept away the progress accomplished by the CRIF in recent years toward a pluralism that would reflect a little better the Jewish reality in France. Decidedly — and we never tire of saying it — when political and religious functions are mingled, one may fear the worst: it has come to pass!
Excluding the majority of Jews in France, M. KAHN asserts that “to recognize oneself as Jewish, one cannot deny the existence of the texts that are of divine inspiration, that is to say of God.” This is pure sophistry!
What of atheist or agnostic Jews? What, M. KAHN, of all those for whom the Torah is an integral part of their cultural identity, without its necessarily being regarded as divinely inspired? Of those who, while even denying the existence of God, are no less Jews in their own right? Need one cite names — and among the most illustrious of the Jewish people?
Must one also recall that during the war they all recognized themselves as Jews, observant or not, believers or not?
After the promises of openness that the CRIF wished to embody, thousands of Jews today feel betrayed and insulted by such remarks. Declarations such as “we must keep our doors wide open” then bear a strange resemblance to “wooden language” [empty officialese]. Was there any need for such stones thrown into the pond, when one claims to wish to gather and to seek out “what Jews have in common”?
Is the Consistory, today led by a former secular Jew, attempting once again to mount a takeover bid on the Jews of France and to arrogate to itself the right to define who is Jewish and who is not?
The role of the Consistory’s rabbis is to apply Jewish law within the framework of religion, and there — only there. It is not for them to decide, on behalf of the Jews, whether or not they belong to the Jewish people.
What is more, what credibility can be granted to those who claim to say who is Jewish and who is not, even as they are capable of maintaining a thing and its opposite, according to the place, according to the circumstance? M. Jean KAHN had declared himself also to be a secular Jew at a meeting. Was it out of complaisance or sympathy for the secular Jewish associations that had then invited him? Today he says that “to be Jewish and secular is impossible.” Is this the better to conform to the new assembly over which he presides?
We could well have done without sharpening the divides. I wish here to express my respect for Jews who have faith; but, however much it may displease Orthodox Jews, they are very numerous who consider that the Bible was not dictated by God. They are nonetheless authentic Jews. And the assessment of the rabbis will change nothing in this.
By virtue of what legitimacy does one grant oneself the right to exclude those who think otherwise than the Consistory? Surely not from the texts, precisely. Surely not from the values of tolerance that are advanced here. Surely not from the History of the Jews. And still less from the reality of the Jewish world.
This pluralist vision is called, quite simply, laïcité (secularism). We recall that our association defends not only the republican secularism of France, but also a Jewish laïcité whose history is almost as ancient as the Jewish people itself. Such debates on the relation between the spiritual and the temporal in Judaism have always existed since antiquity.
To maintain today that to be Jewish is necessarily to refer to a center — Religion — from which one would be more or less distant, is a mere figment of the mind! Judaism cannot be reduced to its religion, even if that religion was its cement for centuries. We believe that it bears the characteristics of a civilization in its own right. The conception of a religious centrality no doubt pleases some. But it is false, for it takes no account of the reality of Jewry (judaïcité), whose vitality feeds also on many other factors of identity besides religion.
All of this deserves a serious and serene debate, of course. I have no doubt that the most contradictory positions would be asserted. At the very least it would have the merit of bringing to awareness a complex reality.
M. KAHN’s position is entirely acceptable in a private individual. It is far less so when one represents two of the principal Jewish institutions of France and speaks in the name of all the Jews of France.
Let us say that, beyond the semantic ambiguity of the adjectives “secular” (laïc) and “secular” (laïque), it is regrettable that such remarks should have been made by a figure who had been capable of showing tolerance and a will to gather people together. Let us express the wish that M. KAHN mend his ways and be able to continue in the direction of openness, when he takes up his duties as President of the Central Consistory.
20 February 1995
Violette ATTAL-LEFI Vice-President, AJHL