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THE FEARS of the JEWS in ALSACE a Tradition Set in the Stone

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THE FEARS of the JEWS in ALSACE a Tradition Set in the Stone CHAPTER SIXTEEN THE FEARS OF THE JEWS IN ALSACE A tradition set in the stone of ‘local law’, that is, the Concordat, tends to emphasize the importance of belonging to a community and there- fore in many respects conditions the political life of the region. That being the case, the presence of Islam, a religion which has now become important and nevertheless is still far from being fully incorporated in the public sphere, destabilises a political order which is based on the representation of a model—doubtless idealised—of the institutional coexistence of the major religions. Present-day anti-Semitism in Alsace could also be the outcome of a con ict between an ‘established’ Jewish community and a ‘Muslim community’ endeavouring to nd its niche. This spontaneous interpretation is so frequent, particularly amongst the Jews in Strasbourg, that it is the obvious starting point for our research. A Destiny? The Jewish community in Strasbourg is one of the largest and most structured in France. Although it is scattered throughout the urban community, it does have a religious visibility in what is considered to be the Jewish area of the town (approximately de ned by the triangle constituted by the Boulevard Clemenceau, the Avenue des Vosges and the Avenue de la Paix, in the north of the historical centre of Stras- bourg) and which includes the Synagogue de la Paix—a place of worship and a community centre—the Bas-Rhin Israelite Consistory and the denominational schools. Religious Judaism, which is at the core of the institutional concept of ‘community’, has various tendencies. They exist alongside less distinctly religious Jewish forms of identity, some of which are openly secular or atheist: the ‘Jewish community’ is a product of a shared historical and social experience and not only of a religious dogma. Besides the move from the rural areas to the town (a gradual move- ment which had been ongoing since the end of the 19th century and the fears of the jews in alsace 245 was brought to an abrupt halt by World War II), various waves of immigration have profoundly transformed the face of Alsatian Juda- ism: the Jews from Eastern Europe from the beginning of the 20th century until the 1930s, then from North Africa at the beginning of the 1960s. Jewish identity in Strasbourg is pluralist, crisscrossed with lines of divide some of which are those of French society, the right-left split for example, and others which are more sophisticated. This does not mean to say that the identity is fragmented and its members tend to insist on its ability to absorb or manage differences, particularly in times of peril. Now since the turn of the millennium, this community has been taken over by a palpable fear. This fear is felt to varying degrees but nobody escapes it. “On the whole,” remarked a local observer of the life of the community, who is usually moderate in speech, “nobody feels one hundred per cent safe”. The fear linked to the reappearance of anti-Semitism affects each individual personally and the community collectively which it tends to unite. This is expressed by the person in charge of one of the big community social organisations, the Appel uni é des Juifs de France (AUJF): “When it’s a case of anti-Semitism, everyone rallies round”. However, there is a tension between the desire to present a united front in the face of the danger of anti-Semitism and the diversity of the perceptions and interpretations of the perpetrators and the issues involved. This tension is maintained by the anonymous nature of some of the anti-Semitic actions, amongst the most symbolically signi cant (stone throwing (‘caillassages’) or attempted arson of synagogues, setting \ re to the kindergarten minibus at the beginning of 2004, desecration of cemeteries, beginning with the one in Herrlisheim).1 As these acts have not been cleared up, anti-Semitism in Strasbourg presents the disturbing picture of an expression without face which is very real but of which the causes and the perpetrators are left to the imagination. Apart from these acts, which remain to some extent a mystery, the sense of a threat is not supported by facts which are said to be more numerous and serious locally than elsewhere. The very people with the most radical discourse have no hesitation in recognising that the nature of the danger is ultimately not immediate. Thus, Mme. A., 1 The same goes for graf\ ti. This practice appears to have considerable cultural con- notations and is spontaneously attributed to the young people in the ‘dif\ cult’ areas..
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