The Toulouse Tragedy

Plaque on a Paris elementary school

On the outer walls of many elementary schools in Paris are plaques commemorating the deaths of Jewish children by Vichy France in collaboration with the Nazis.  The most notorious mass arrest of Jews in Paris took place on July 16 and 17, 1942, by French police who rounded up 13,152 French Jews (of whom 4,051 were children) and kept them in a stadium called the Vélodrome d’Hiver, from which they were transported to the Drancy internment camp outside Paris, and then to Auschwitz to be killed.  This raid is known as the Rafle du Vel’ d’Hiv.  French schoolchildren didn’t start learning about their country’s cooperation with the Nazis until 1962, and only in 1995 did French President Jacques Chirac apologize for France’s role in the Holocaust.  Although this history has been a difficult one for France to come to terms with, the France of 2012 is a far cry from the anti-Semitic country of 70 years ago.  Unfortunately, outbreaks of anti-Semitism still occur, but nowadays the perpetrators are more often young marginalized Muslim youth who live in the banlieus, the slums of the suburbs.  The tragedy that occurred last week in Toulouse brought up France’s past for many, especially Jews living outside France, who figured a far-right neo-Nazi was the killer.  Instead, he was a newly-crafted Islamist.  I can’t go into depth in this blog post about French society and the Jewish and Muslim minorities.  Instead, I am going to respond to some of the comments I’ve heard about and read since last week regarding anti-Semitism in France.

A week ago, Wednesday, March 21, the four people murdered outside a Jewish school in Toulouse were buried in Israel.  The murderer, a self-proclaimed jihadist born in France to Algerian immigrant parents, had assassinated 3 French soldiers (who were from the North African Muslim communities) the week before to protest France’s involvement in Afghanistan.  He executed the 4 Jews to protest deaths of Palestinian children.  Mohamed Merah, the murderer, was killed by the French police within hours of the victims’ burial in Israel.

The horrors of last Monday outraged the French public.  The government ordered police protection for both Jewish and Muslim schools and houses of worship, because the first assumption had been that an ultra-nationalist right-winger was the killer.  President Sarkozy decreed that schools should observe a moment of silence at 11 AM the following day.  And at an impromptu silent rally in Paris that Monday evening (March 19), Parisians of all backgrounds marched in homage of the 30-year-old teacher, Jonathan Sandler, his 2 sons, Arieh, 6, and Gabriel, 3, and Myriam Monsonego, 8.  Jews and non-Jews stood together flaunting French flags (some held Israeli ones as well) in a show of nationalism and mutual support in the face of that morning’s catastrophe.  The message was clear: no to Islamist terrorism, and yes to the Frenchness of the Jews of France. 

That Monday, some American Jews and Israelis reacted to the homicides at the Toulouse Jewish school with accusations that anti-Semitism is an integral part of French culture, as if France has not evolved from the Dreyfus affair of the 1890s, or the Vichy regime of World War II.  On a California Facebook string I had participated in, one man wrote, “J’accuse la France” as if the country itself were responsible for the 4 deaths (and for others who blame France, would you condemn the United States as a country to be responsible for the deaths of Jews at Seattle’s JCRC in 1999, or at the Holocaust Museum?).

Two Israeli members of Knesset responded with the usual call for French Jews to immigrate to Israel.  Danny Danon, chair of the Knesset Absorption and Diaspora Committee, said, “The terror attack at a Jewish school in France is a red light for the entire Jewish people.  The nations of the world must unite against these acts of violence against the Jewish people, and work to eliminate anti-Semitism around the world.  We will not allow the pogroms of the early twentieth century to return to Europe.”  By referring to these murders as a pogrom, Mr. Danon desecrated the memory of our ancestors who suffered through real pogroms in 19^th century Russia, which were led by masses who pillaged villages and murdered their Jewish inhabitants.  Another Member of the Knesset, Ya’akov Katz, said, “There is no Jewish future in France,” and that Jews should not trust “Sarkozy, Obama or other world leaders.” 

What these Israeli politicians do not understand is that even though there are occasional anti-Semitic incidents in France, as there are in most countries of the world, the majority of French Jews consider themselves French, even if they have been distressed by the violence of last week, such as the French Jewish philosopher and journalist, Bernard-Henry Levy, who wrote, “There can be no worse blow to French culture, to the soul of our country, its history and when all is said and done, to its grandeur than racism and, today, anti-Semitism.”  Levy, who considers himself both French and Jewish, would undoubtedly disagree with Rachael Levy (I assume no relation) who wrote a scathing attack on French society as being inherently anti-Semitic in an article this past week in Slate, entitled “Why You Can’t Be Both French and Jewish” (again, dredging up the Dreyfus affair, France’s complicity in World War II and historical Catholic anti-Semitism).

All last week the news covered the reaction of French citizens to the murders, as well as the marches against racism and anti-Semitism that had occurred in Toulouse and Paris (and other cities) on Sunday, March 25.  Six thousand people marched in Toulouse, including the imam and France’s chief rabbi, walking arm in arm, both telling journalists that this was the act of someone who does not represent Islam, and that Jews and Muslims are French citizens.  In Paris thousands more marched, and TV footage showed French people of all colors, women in hijab, men in kippot, Africans in colorful turbans and caftans, and the majority in variations of western dress.  All were marching against racism and anti-Semitism, with the understanding that yes, you can be both French and Jewish.

As an American Jew living in France, I have had experiences with my Christian friends that are different from those of Rachael Levy. I have non-Jewish friends who marched in the demonstrations in Paris, others in Ferney-Voltaire who wished they could have gone, and another in Versailles, who is going this evening to an event sponsored by the Bishop of Versailles at the Saint Joan of Arc Church in support of the Jewish community of Versailles and its president, Samuel Sandler, father of the murdered Jonathan Sandler. “Our presence this evening will testify our friendship for our brothers of the Jewish community,” the email to parishioners stated. 

The tragedy in Toulouse hit all of France, from the politicians running for president to the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim citizens of the country.  The crime is horrible.  But people not living in France should not make assumptions that the country is anti-Semitic, that all the Muslims here hate Jews, or that the Jews are afraid to remain in France.  Jews have lived here for almost 2000 years, and they will remain here in the future.  I only wish there were a Jewish community in Ferney-Voltaire.

Yahrtzeit in Ferney-Voltaire

Today is the second yahrtzeit of my father, William Aaron Pliskin, who passed away March 10, 2010, several months before his 90^th birthday, an event he was excited about celebrating.  Yahrtzeit is a Yiddish word, meaning the anniversary of someone’s death according to the Jewish calendar (my father died on the 24^th of the month Adar in the year 5770), and it is observed by close relatives going to the synagogue and saying kaddish, known as the “mourner’s prayer.”  It is, in fact, a prayer for the living that is said several times during the service to acknowledge the greatness of God and to appeal for peace.  Kaddish is also said at home when lighting the yahrtzeit candle in memory of the loved one.

I wanted to go to services yesterday to say kaddish, but the closest synagogue, Beth Yaakov, is in downtown Geneva.  The location was not a problem for me, although circling the city looking for parking might have been.  The problem, however, is that Beth Yaakov is an Orthodox synagogue in which women do not say kaddish.  Geneva’s liberal synagogue, GIL, has services on Friday nights starting at 6:30, smack in the middle of rush hour, and because the synagogue is on the other side of Geneva and parking is difficult, I would have had to have left Ferney-Voltaire at 5 PM at the latest to get there on time.  Needless to say, that does not seem to be a restful way of spending Shabbat evening.  So I didn’t go to services to say kaddish and considering I am a member of the egalitarian Netivot Shalom in Berkeley, California, not being in a community to say kaddish with other mourners is a lonesome experience.

But last night after sundown I lit the yahrtzeit candle at home and said kaddish with thoughts of my father.  He, too, was an experimental physicist, but his world of science was far removed from CERN’s physics.  He received awards from IBM for his patents of thin glass films which prevented printed circuits from oxidizing, and which saved the company millions, and probably by now, billions of dollars (too bad that savings didn’t trickle down to his salary…). My father loved his family and physics, had a wonderful sense of humor, was a lifelong liberal Democrat (his parents were members of the Workmen’s Circle, a Jewish socialist organization), and was as proud of being an agnostic as he was of being a Jew.  He had a handlebar moustache, sparkling eyes, and a charming smile.  I miss him. 

  

The CERN Cafeteria

One section of the CERN cafeteria

Physicists have to eat.  So do the engineers, support staff, administrators, construction workers, and artisans who contribute to making CERN the world’s premiere physics laboratory.  CERN’s cafeteria is where they go, not just to refuel, but also to socialize and talk about their work.

Working in the cafeteria mid-morning

CERN has two cafeterias.  The smaller one, in the outlying area of CERN, sits inside a fence that separates CERN from the fields and vineyards of a Swiss farmer.  The other cafeteria, located in a more central part of the campus, is the principal venue for having meals, snacks, and coffee, and for relaxing with a beer in the late afternoon.  Cafeteria One, as it’s called, has several sections or rooms with different types of tables, as well as two outdoor patios where patrons eat their lunches under umbrellas in good weather.  That’s where the smokers go, since smoking is prohibited inside CERN’s buildings.

The patio on a rainy winter afternoon

CERN’s cafeteria, though, is not just for eating.  By mid-morning and after lunch, the cafeteria provides a workspace for physicists who want a venue other than their offices for thinking about and discussing their experiments.  Moreover, the cafeteria is used every so often by journalists who conduct interviews with CERN scientists. 

The cafeteria manager (right) at the long salad bar

What also draws the CERN workforce to the cafeteria is the food.  It’s really good.  People decide what they want to eat after looking at the selections in the cafeteria’s different sections: a trattoria and a grill; two salad bars (one round table with bowls of plain vegetables and legumes, the other - a long rectangular table - with assorted pre-made salads, a variety of olives and pickles, cut meats, poached salmon, quiches and sushi); and a long dessert table with tarts, pastries, fruit salads, and puddings.

Some prepared salads

 Quiches and breads at the salad bar

Fruit salads and puddings

Pastries on the dessert table

 

Daily options for hot meals include pizza, pasta, meat, and fish, which come with a choice of rice, beans, cooked vegetables, and French fries or other potatoes, as well as a small salad.  There are sandwiches, too.  Aside from water, which most CERN employees drink, people can buy beer, wine, soft drinks or juice.

Veal sausages and vegetables

Decisions, decisions

CERN cafeteria's wine and beer bar

Physicists at lunch

 

Lining up for espresso, ristretto, cappuccino, or plain coffee at one of the coffee bars is the final ritual of lunch.  Then it’s back to work, at the office, experimental site, or…at the cafeteria.

CERN cafeteria's coffee bar

A post-lunch meeting in the CERN cafeteria

The Importance of Bonjour

Americans in Paris

The doctor’s office was on the bottom floor of a house.  When I pushed the door open, I was standing in a square foyer.  To my left was the “toilette.”  In front of me was the “salle d’attente” – the waiting room.   I opened the door and glanced at the six or so patients who were seated in the room; then I settled into a stiff chair and opened a book.  Several minutes later, a woman walked in, said “Bonjour” to everyone, and sat down.  Again the door opened, and another woman appeared, looked around, said “Bonjour” and found a seat.  It then dawned on me that I am a rude American.

The next time I entered the doctor’s waiting room, I said “Bonjour” to the seated strangers, and felt oh-so-French.  But this pride of figuring out some part of the cultural communication system was turned upside down soon after, when it was my turn to speak to a person at the information desk of a department store.

“Where can I find women’s shoes?” I asked.

“BONJOUR, madame,” she replied.

A timid and high-pitched “Bonjour” exited my mouth.

Bonjour is important.  If you travel to France, make sure you say bonjour to salespeople, waiters, clerks, hotel workers, airline personnel, hairdressers, cashiers, and anybody, actually, before you ask a question or start a conversation.  When you walk into a hotel elevator, say bonjour to the people who are already in the elevator.  If you’re staying in an apartment building, say bonjour to people who live there, even if you don’t know them, and you can also up the civility by adding a “madame” or “monsieur” to your greeting for supplementary politeness (“Bonjour, madame”). And if you decide to get your hair done in France, make sure you greet everyone in the salon at once with a pleasant bonjour (in barbershops, men also shake hands with other customers as well as the barbers, saying bonjour to each).  Bonjour is part of the French politeness code.  Master that, and you won’t be such a rude American.