Anti-Semitism rising, Jews in France ponder leaving

Earlier this month, Justice Minister Dominique Perben announced that authorities had counted 180 anti-Semitic incidents so far this year, though suspects were arrested in only 35 cases. He pledged an "even firmer and more dissuasive judicial response."

Sarcelles, a collection of high-rise apartment blocks 10 miles north of Paris where a large proportion of residents are of North African origin, has suffered only one major anti-Semitic attack: one of the town's five Jewish schools was burned down two years ago. Nobody was ever charged.

Locals complain that Jews are vulnerable to repeated harassment when they leave their district.

Schoolchildren are roughed up or robbed on their way home, school buses are often stoned, and identifiably Jewish men are insulted as "dirty Jews." Few of these incidents are ever punished.

"I take my skullcap off when I go down towards the station," in an area more heavily populated by Arab immigrant families, says Rafael Hazout, a young kosher butcher. "People look at you as if you are an animal. So as not to make trouble I take it off, and I'm left alone."

Most Arabs and Jews in Sarcelles get along, insists the local rabbi, Laurent Berros. "The trouble comes from a few criminals and young hooligans. Compared with other places, Sarcelles has few problems, far fewer than there might be."

That may be because there is safety in numbers, suggests Mr. Djebali. If his community center does not have enough room, he explains, it is because Jewish families are moving to Sarcelles from neighboring towns where they are more isolated and feel less secure.

"We cannot meet the demand for housing," he says. "With the rise in anti-Semitism in places like Saint Denis," a nearby working-class suburb, "Jews feel safer in an area where they are in the majority."

This voluntary ghettoization, says Rene Smadja, manager of Erev, a kosher pizzeria, reflects "a very profound unease in the Jewish community," and a sense that French society and the French state no longer cares about its Jewish citizens. "Our foster mother is not taking care of us any more," he complains. "We can go to the police" when Jews are attacked, "but what good does that do?"

That sense is deepened, he and other Jewish residents of Sarcelles say, by the fact that most French people sympathize more with the Palestinians than with Israelis in the conflict that pits them against each other.

And when young Muslims attack Jews as surrogate Israelis, they believe, French society stands aside.

"It seems that French people see anti-Semitism as ordinary," worries Djebali. "We get the feeling that we are being told, 'If you want to complain, go and complain to [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon.' "

In that atmosphere, he suggests, more and more Sarcelles Jews will begin thinking seriously about emigrating to Israel, whatever the risks of pulling up sticks.

"The mood now is one of weariness," Djebali explains. "We are tired of being on the front line all the time. People are saying, 'Thank God Israel exists. We are even ready to put up with bad-tempered Israelis.' "

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