Daniel Ben Simon's "Neshikhah tzarfatit
The kiss that turned into a bite
By Yehuda Lancry
Sometimes the title of a book contains the crux of its narrative. Such is the case with Daniel Ben Simon's "Neshikhah tzarfatit" ("French Bite"), whose name is a pun based on the similarity of the Hebrew words neshikhah (bite) and neshikah (kiss). Undermining the meaning of that famous concept, the French kiss, hallmark of French lovers everywhere, and yoking it to its radical opposite, the bite, is enough to pull the reader into the very heart of Ben Simon's book.
The sense of growing insecurity among French Jewry in light of the wave of anti-Semitism, which has intensified since the second intifada, is the backdrop to Ben Simon's fascinating collection of research pieces, which together comprise a coherent and meaningful book. In his travels through France, Ben Simon, a writer for this paper, functioned like a surveyor, carefully studying the shifting topography, recording its folds and crevices, recreating its tremors. The result is an intensive work containing within it a dense power, which finds release in 28 short, sweeping fragments, all of which draw the reader to a single theme: the anxiety of France's Jews.
Ben Simon, who gained considerable experience as an investigative journalist within Israel's own, most conflicted social regions, brings to the task a profound perspective and a maturity that proves beneficial to his lively, friendly writing, in which he offers a precise and impressive diagnosis of the French Jews' syndrome. The findings of his study leave no room for doubt, and the entire verdict is condensed into that single change of a letter - a change that turns a kiss into a bite. The structure of the book is roomy enough to accommodate flexibility: There is no narrative linearity here, no chronological sequence or spatial uniformity. This is a collection of human dramas, of fragments, whose very lack of sequence enhances their power and suspense.
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The central issues handled in the book are what might be described as the "new anti-Semitism," the product of radical Islam; the growing estrangement between the French Jews and their country; the deepening rift within the identity of the Jews, who waver between adoration and gratitude for the Republic, and a heightened solidarity with Israel; the alienation of a Muslim minority that threatens France's secular values; and also the unhealthy symptoms of French society itself, symptoms betraying the decadent tendencies of a superpower in decline.
To make it clear that anti-Semitism in France did not come into existence with the violent wave of the early 21st century, the book contains a sharp reminder of the ancient strain of hatred that has victimized French Jews for generations, reaching its macabre peak under the Vichy government. The book's second chapter tells the story of the Weill-Raynal family, a dynasty that has endured in France for many years and which "considered itself an inseparable part of the foundation on which the Republic was erected." This chapter already casts the heavy shadow of the hatred and persecution suffered by the Jews in France, despite their assimilation to it in their culture and identity.
Opposite directions
This chapter, and two fascinating others, describe the rift that developed between identical twins Guillaume and Clement Weill-Raynal. Guillaume pulled away from Judaism and its traditions and opted for an all-encompassing Frenchness; Clement, by contrast, embraced his Jewish identity and increased his solidarity with Israel. The abyss that separates the two, who have not spoken to each other in years, sharply demonstrates the implications of the old-style anti-Semitism for the newer generations of an aristocratic Jewish family; on the one hand, a rejection of Judaism and a renunciation of Israel to the point of a paradoxical kind of cult; on the other hand, a nurturing of the connection to Judaism as a singular and irreplaceable anchor.
One of Ben Simon's many interviewees is a prominent member of France's Jewish intellectual elite, sociologist Shmuel Trigano, who ascribes a crucial importance to the ancient anti-Semitic virus that, he says, lurks within the country's soul. Trigano is convinced that "even if the Israeli-Palestinian hatred is resolved, the hatred of the Jews will not dissipate."
Even if there is some measure of truth in this unequivocal statement, few of Trigano's fellow intellectuals similarly discount the connection between the intifada and the "new anti-Semitism," as historian Pierre-Andre Taguieff has called it. Taguieff identifies Zionism and Israel as the fuel of the new hatred. A non-Jew himself, he is quoted by Ben Simon as marking the fall of 2000 - that is, the beginning of the second intifada - as the moment when the new anti-Semitism erupted. Taguieff leaves no room for doubt about the link between the Israeli-Palestinian dispute and the new anti-Semitic wave.
Ben Simon's book clearly leads to the same conclusion. The author's numerous and diverse conversations, including some with Muslims, substantiate the recognition of a strong link between the conflagration of the intifada and the anti-Semitic outburst that has cast a pall over the lives of the French Jews. True, here and there some skeptics emerge, emphatically denying this axiom: Among them, for example, is Jacques Attali, a prominent intellectual, prolific author and longtime influential advisor to late president Francois Mitterrand. Attali, who has always rejected French Jews' perhaps excessive loyalty to Israel, is convinced that the Jews have never been in better circumstances and that the source of their distress is a French malaise "that does not distinguish between Jews and non-Jews." By contrast, other prominent Jewish intellectuals, such as Bernard-Henri Levy, Alain Finkielkraut and Andre Glucksmann have argued that the eruption of the new anti-Semitism is of Arab-Muslim origins.
Lost horizon
Ben Simon's conversations with ordinary, concerned Jews, who are not necessarily public-opinion shapers, community leaders or members of the intellectual elite, clearly demarcate the depth of the distress, the loss of a French horizon and the tense search for a new one. In most cases, Israel represents a genuine refuge; others point to the United States or Canada. This drifting toward a "safe harbor" is palpable in the book, whose author himself has trouble assessing the dimensions of the shock that France's Jews have experienced in recent years.
Nor is much help to be found in his efforts to remind readers that the republic has taken steps, both practical and rhetorical (such as outgoing president Jacques Chirac's declaration that to harm a Jew was to harm France itself), to protect the Jews of France. These steps, as it turns out, were meaningless compared to the murder of Ilan Halimi, which shocked the country's Jews in 2006. The republic's efforts to fight anti-Semitism through legislation and a more severe punitive policy are not enough to dispel the unease felt by Joseph Onona and his daughter Jessica, or the frustration of Frank Lahiani. These Jews - members of the liberal professions or business owners, whom France embraced and raised to the peaks of success through its advanced education system - find the rupture of the dream all but unbearable.
Another fracture explored in the book is the widening rift between France and some of its Muslim population, as well as the challenge that the inhabitants of the poor neighborhoods and suburbs present to the values of the Republic. Instead of multiple kinds of Frenchness, there is now explicit separatism and the nurturing of an Islamist discourse and existence. This dangerous concoction brings together economic and cultural distress with a sharp shift in the identity of the second- and third-generation immigrants, the sons and grandsons of those disenfranchised by French colonialism, who are now championing their ancestors' dignity and integrity.
At the center of the mutiny are the descendants of the submissive workers who came from the Maghreb countries and black Africa, fleeing poverty in their countries to seek refuge in the heart of the former empire.
The subordination of the fathers is now being wielded by the sons as a torch with which to set fire to the kingdom, which they have come to perceive as a prison full of alienation and oppression. The calamities of autumn 2005, which had no anti-Semitic aspects, demonstrated the intensity of the crisis, which will without a doubt be a primary challenge for the new president of the republic, Nicolas Sarkozy.
Dr. Yehuda Lancry was Israel's ambassador to France and to the United Nations.
By Yehuda Lancry
Sometimes the title of a book contains the crux of its narrative. Such is the case with Daniel Ben Simon's "Neshikhah tzarfatit" ("French Bite"), whose name is a pun based on the similarity of the Hebrew words neshikhah (bite) and neshikah (kiss). Undermining the meaning of that famous concept, the French kiss, hallmark of French lovers everywhere, and yoking it to its radical opposite, the bite, is enough to pull the reader into the very heart of Ben Simon's book.
The sense of growing insecurity among French Jewry in light of the wave of anti-Semitism, which has intensified since the second intifada, is the backdrop to Ben Simon's fascinating collection of research pieces, which together comprise a coherent and meaningful book. In his travels through France, Ben Simon, a writer for this paper, functioned like a surveyor, carefully studying the shifting topography, recording its folds and crevices, recreating its tremors. The result is an intensive work containing within it a dense power, which finds release in 28 short, sweeping fragments, all of which draw the reader to a single theme: the anxiety of France's Jews.
Ben Simon, who gained considerable experience as an investigative journalist within Israel's own, most conflicted social regions, brings to the task a profound perspective and a maturity that proves beneficial to his lively, friendly writing, in which he offers a precise and impressive diagnosis of the French Jews' syndrome. The findings of his study leave no room for doubt, and the entire verdict is condensed into that single change of a letter - a change that turns a kiss into a bite. The structure of the book is roomy enough to accommodate flexibility: There is no narrative linearity here, no chronological sequence or spatial uniformity. This is a collection of human dramas, of fragments, whose very lack of sequence enhances their power and suspense.
Advertisement
The central issues handled in the book are what might be described as the "new anti-Semitism," the product of radical Islam; the growing estrangement between the French Jews and their country; the deepening rift within the identity of the Jews, who waver between adoration and gratitude for the Republic, and a heightened solidarity with Israel; the alienation of a Muslim minority that threatens France's secular values; and also the unhealthy symptoms of French society itself, symptoms betraying the decadent tendencies of a superpower in decline.
To make it clear that anti-Semitism in France did not come into existence with the violent wave of the early 21st century, the book contains a sharp reminder of the ancient strain of hatred that has victimized French Jews for generations, reaching its macabre peak under the Vichy government. The book's second chapter tells the story of the Weill-Raynal family, a dynasty that has endured in France for many years and which "considered itself an inseparable part of the foundation on which the Republic was erected." This chapter already casts the heavy shadow of the hatred and persecution suffered by the Jews in France, despite their assimilation to it in their culture and identity.
Opposite directions
This chapter, and two fascinating others, describe the rift that developed between identical twins Guillaume and Clement Weill-Raynal. Guillaume pulled away from Judaism and its traditions and opted for an all-encompassing Frenchness; Clement, by contrast, embraced his Jewish identity and increased his solidarity with Israel. The abyss that separates the two, who have not spoken to each other in years, sharply demonstrates the implications of the old-style anti-Semitism for the newer generations of an aristocratic Jewish family; on the one hand, a rejection of Judaism and a renunciation of Israel to the point of a paradoxical kind of cult; on the other hand, a nurturing of the connection to Judaism as a singular and irreplaceable anchor.
One of Ben Simon's many interviewees is a prominent member of France's Jewish intellectual elite, sociologist Shmuel Trigano, who ascribes a crucial importance to the ancient anti-Semitic virus that, he says, lurks within the country's soul. Trigano is convinced that "even if the Israeli-Palestinian hatred is resolved, the hatred of the Jews will not dissipate."
Even if there is some measure of truth in this unequivocal statement, few of Trigano's fellow intellectuals similarly discount the connection between the intifada and the "new anti-Semitism," as historian Pierre-Andre Taguieff has called it. Taguieff identifies Zionism and Israel as the fuel of the new hatred. A non-Jew himself, he is quoted by Ben Simon as marking the fall of 2000 - that is, the beginning of the second intifada - as the moment when the new anti-Semitism erupted. Taguieff leaves no room for doubt about the link between the Israeli-Palestinian dispute and the new anti-Semitic wave.
Ben Simon's book clearly leads to the same conclusion. The author's numerous and diverse conversations, including some with Muslims, substantiate the recognition of a strong link between the conflagration of the intifada and the anti-Semitic outburst that has cast a pall over the lives of the French Jews. True, here and there some skeptics emerge, emphatically denying this axiom: Among them, for example, is Jacques Attali, a prominent intellectual, prolific author and longtime influential advisor to late president Francois Mitterrand. Attali, who has always rejected French Jews' perhaps excessive loyalty to Israel, is convinced that the Jews have never been in better circumstances and that the source of their distress is a French malaise "that does not distinguish between Jews and non-Jews." By contrast, other prominent Jewish intellectuals, such as Bernard-Henri Levy, Alain Finkielkraut and Andre Glucksmann have argued that the eruption of the new anti-Semitism is of Arab-Muslim origins.
Lost horizon
Ben Simon's conversations with ordinary, concerned Jews, who are not necessarily public-opinion shapers, community leaders or members of the intellectual elite, clearly demarcate the depth of the distress, the loss of a French horizon and the tense search for a new one. In most cases, Israel represents a genuine refuge; others point to the United States or Canada. This drifting toward a "safe harbor" is palpable in the book, whose author himself has trouble assessing the dimensions of the shock that France's Jews have experienced in recent years.
Nor is much help to be found in his efforts to remind readers that the republic has taken steps, both practical and rhetorical (such as outgoing president Jacques Chirac's declaration that to harm a Jew was to harm France itself), to protect the Jews of France. These steps, as it turns out, were meaningless compared to the murder of Ilan Halimi, which shocked the country's Jews in 2006. The republic's efforts to fight anti-Semitism through legislation and a more severe punitive policy are not enough to dispel the unease felt by Joseph Onona and his daughter Jessica, or the frustration of Frank Lahiani. These Jews - members of the liberal professions or business owners, whom France embraced and raised to the peaks of success through its advanced education system - find the rupture of the dream all but unbearable.
Another fracture explored in the book is the widening rift between France and some of its Muslim population, as well as the challenge that the inhabitants of the poor neighborhoods and suburbs present to the values of the Republic. Instead of multiple kinds of Frenchness, there is now explicit separatism and the nurturing of an Islamist discourse and existence. This dangerous concoction brings together economic and cultural distress with a sharp shift in the identity of the second- and third-generation immigrants, the sons and grandsons of those disenfranchised by French colonialism, who are now championing their ancestors' dignity and integrity.
At the center of the mutiny are the descendants of the submissive workers who came from the Maghreb countries and black Africa, fleeing poverty in their countries to seek refuge in the heart of the former empire.
The subordination of the fathers is now being wielded by the sons as a torch with which to set fire to the kingdom, which they have come to perceive as a prison full of alienation and oppression. The calamities of autumn 2005, which had no anti-Semitic aspects, demonstrated the intensity of the crisis, which will without a doubt be a primary challenge for the new president of the republic, Nicolas Sarkozy.
Dr. Yehuda Lancry was Israel's ambassador to France and to the United Nations.
posted by William Labi at 8:20 AM
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