According to the Interior Ministry, the number of anti-Semitic acts has tripled since the massacres perpetrated on October 7 by Hamas and Israel’s bloody response. Several Jewish people testify to the way in which this context affects their daily lives, between loneliness, need for protection and withdrawal of identity.
“I have always suffered from anti-Semitism. It was insults, like ‘dirty Jew’, in the schoolyard, or negationist remarks from a friend’s parents, prejudices about ‘ Jewish lobby, says Arel*, a 36-year-old psychologist based in the south of France. Since the attacks perpetrated by Hamas in Israel on October 7, this left-wing activist, familiar with queer, feminist and anti-racist circles, is distressed to see those around him reporting anti-Semitic prejudices. “I am systematically equated with Israel and its policies”he notes, denouncing a “amalgam” between the bloody response led by the Israeli government in Gaza and his identity as a Jewish Frenchman.
Arel is not the only one to have noticed a release of anti-Semitic speech in recent months. Some “366 anti-Semitic facts” were recorded in France by the Ministry of the Interior in the first quarter of 2024, i.e. “an increase of 300% compared to the first three months of 2023”, announced Prime Minister Gabriel Attal in early May. This figure hides a wide variety of facts: banners during demonstrations, offensive remarks, insults on social networks, threats, thefts, even physical attacks… But this count, also on the rise for anti-Muslim acts, is far from being exhaustive. A quarter of French Jews claim to have been the victim of an anti-Semitic act since October 7, according to an Ifop survey.
Beyond the exact number of victims, these figures reflect the recent reactivation of an anti-Semitism which has never disappeared, although it has become less common. “Since the Second World War, there has been widespread condemnation of anti-Semitism. In opinion surveys, we see that prejudice against Jews is declining in France – as, moreover, all prejudice against others”underlines Nonna Mayer, researcher in political science at the Center for European Studies at Sciences Po and emeritus research director at the CNRS. “Despite this decline, there is a persistence of certain prejudices, particularly regarding the relationship of Jews to power and money“she adds.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict only marginally influences anti-Semitic opinions. On the other hand, “the international situation in the Middle East acts as a detonator on actions” clerk in France, explains Nonna Mayer. Even if they are only the work of a minority, their increase and their media coverage nevertheless have consequences for the Jews of France. Including those who are not direct victims. To document them, franceinfo wanted to give a voice to those most interested. Without it always being easy. Many people only agreed to speak on condition of remaining anonymous, fearing that their testimony could jeopardize their safety.
The increased fear of suffering an anti-Semitic attack since October 7 is indeed very present among the testimonies collected by franceinfo. Result: a multiplication of strategies to hide one’s Jewish identity in public space. Léa, 35, who defines herself as a practicing Jew, confides that she stopped going to a kosher store for a while and removed the mezuzah – a small receptacle containing biblical passages meant to protect the home – from the front door of her Parisian home. . Due to the “climate of fear” established by “the little everyday attacks”, she also changed her surname on delivery applications like Deliveroo, for fear that it would betray her Jewishness. In public, the thirty-year-old no longer talks about her family in Israel or claims that she lives “in Portugal”. The desire to protect her children from possible anti-Semitic acts even led her to change the first name of her unborn baby, abandoning the one that she and her husband had first chosen.
“Can you imagine if I had shouted ‘Jacob’ at the park? Everyone would have known he was Jewish. I was afraid for his safety.”
Léa, Parisian Jewat franceinfo
Before taking the metro, Clem*, “ahskenazi atheist” living in the Paris suburbs, buried her pendants under her sweater – a hand of Fatma, commonly worn by Jews and Muslims, and a hai, a Hebrew symbol. She, who has been going through real estate ads for several months, is now looking to rent an apartment with a cellar or attic. “I want to be able to take refuge” in case “threat from the State against the Jews or civil war”she justifies. “I know I sound crazy when I say that, it sounds like science fiction…”adds the quadra, evoking her “ashamed to have such ideas”. But nothing helps, the fear no longer lets her go. She also began psychotherapy to control her anxieties.
In addition to the memory of the Shoah, which haunts many Jewish families, the people interviewed by franceinfo evoke the weight of the attacks which have devastated the Jewish community in France since the 2000s: the murder of Ilan Halimi in 2006, that of Mireille Knoll in 2018, the attack against the Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse in 2012, or against Hyper Kosher in 2015… “The concealment strategies implemented by Jewish people are often described as ‘paranos'”says essayist Illana Weizman, author of White people like the others? Jews, blind spot of anti-racism. “But even if these preventive measures may seem exaggerated to others, saying ‘I am in danger’ is part of the experience of anti-Semitism.”
Others refuse to “hide” and continue to wear the religious symbols that they usually display (kippah, Star of David, etc.), by “pride” or by certainty that their faith will protect them. On the other handseveral respondents chose to socialize more between Jewish people in recent months. “It’s more complicated to discuss with my Muslim friends now, even if they are not all anti-Semitic”justifies David, a 45-year-old Franco-Israeli, who supports the Israeli offensive in Gaza.
“I recently broke up with my partner, who is not Jewish, and with whom I had been with for over two yearsalso relates Arel, the thirty-year-old psychologist cited previously. He did not understand my state of shock on the evening of October 7. Immediately, when people had been massacred because they were Jewish, he joined those who said ‘Yes, but…’: ‘Yes, but Israeli policy…’, ‘Yes, but you are not the most to be pitied’.” Like him, others say they are torn between their empathy with the Palestinian people, and their need to demonstrate a “fairly misunderstood form of racism”.
This “Jewish loneliness” pushed Raphaël, a 23-year-old student, to join Golem, a collective born in November and bringing together left-wing Jews to fight against anti-Semitism. “Community togetherness provides a ‘safe place’ [un endroit sûr] where Jewish people can find comfort and celebrate their identity”confirms essayist Illana Weizman. Because anti-Semitism also questions the intimate, including the relationship to one’s Jewish identity. Simon*, a thirty-year-old Parisian journalist, feels his Jewishness more strongly “since October 7”although he is neither a believer nor familiar with the cultural traditions of his Jewish ancestors settled in Greece, then in France. “When there are strong manifestations of anti-Semitism, I feel particularly touched”he explains.
“Two of my great-grandparents died in deportation during the Shoah. So I grew up with the idea that being Jewish is not trivial, because you can die from it. This feeling strongly resurfaced in me after the October 7.”
Simon*, Parisian journalistat franceinfo
For his part, Raphaël claims to have “read the Torah three times”the sacred text of the Jewish religion, in recent months. The anti-Semitism he claims to have been the subject of during a stormy meeting between students at the University of Lille, narrated by Releasethere “strengthened even more in [son] identity and in [sa] faith”.
Bruised by the prejudices to which they are subjected, worried about a new attack which could target them, or wishing to practice their religion more openly, some Jews in France are considering more than ever to make their alyah – that is, to emigrate to Israel. And this, even if the Hamas attacks revealed the fragility of the Jewish state. Since October 7, the number of French families having submitted a file on this subject has increased by 430% compared to the same period last year, according to the Israeli Ministry of Immigration, cited by The Express. But of the 1,200 people concerned, it is impossible to say how many completed the procedure. “It’s crazy to think that we will be safer in Israel than in France, when they took missiles to their heads”, recognizes David, who lived 10 years in the Hebrew state before returning to France. “After October 7, I wanted to fleealso advances Raphaël. But flee where? It is the history of the Jews to be in perpetual exile, to have no place to fall. So I want to live here, and fight.”
* The first name has been changed at the request of the person interviewed.