France Riots | Imamother

Ruchel

Sun, May 07 2006, 8:11 pm

batya_d wrote:

Ruchel wrote:

The *French* either don’t care or find Judaism “interesting”. Although ultra leftists dislike Israel, too close to America to their taste, they don’t dislike *Jews*

Thanks so much for your fascinating post, Ruchel. I used to live in Germany, and the #1 question I get is "Did you find the Germans anti-semitic?" and I would say almost EXACTLY what you have posted above!! I also felt much more threatened by the large arab population that I ever did by the Germans (not that I liked the Germans in general or the German mentality, but this has nothing to do with anti-semitism)

You're welcome!
Now that you talk about Germans, I think I have to share a few things about how French people react to Holocaust stuff. Here is what I have noticed.

- don't try a Holocaust joke, it won't have success. If you're unlucky, you might even be yelled at or called dirty names. The first time I heard such jokes was in a Jewish youth organization, and when I was silly enough to repeat the jokes at (public) school I was denounced to the director by other pupils and called antisemitic.
- if there's a Shoah movie on tv, be ready for acquaintances telling you, sometimes with teary eyes, "I had to turn off the tv, I can't stand to see what they did to your people, it makes me want to throw up".
- If the school cursus requires you to study a book by Celine, be sure there will be people to yell and protest and say they don't want to read a book by such an antisemitic guy "even if this book is not about Jews".

I can't say being Jewish has given me problems during my school years. If I needed to write something original, let's talk about something Jewish. If I needed a serious topic, let's tackle WW2. Jewish stuff is always interesting and exotic, and last but not least... it is very tricky for a teacher to give a bad grade to such a work, because the fear of being called antisemitic is very big in France. They also always respected the fact that I had to miss school sometimes for some weird holiday, and never ever had a problem with this. On the contrary I often had much less problems explaining myself with the teachers than other pupils who had been sick! O_o
I recently missed a whole month because I got married in israel and then was lazy... I calmed the teacher by promising him to show him my ketuba! loool of course he won't understand anything
I'm currently studying for an English master, and I often manage to slightly change the topic of required works to write something Jewish oriented, which makes it easier for me. LOL

Now, I have to say I understand Jews who live in bad areas and complain about Arabs. I'm sure some places are totally awful for tgem, just as they are for non jews.

Younger Me

Thu, May 11 2006, 3:01 pm

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- Yes, Ilan Halimi’s story is terrible. But why not report the fact that the same thing exactly happened to a [gentile] a few weeks after? And that a policeman was lynched? And that a dad was killed with bricks in front of his children because he told the Arabs to stop stealing their son’s bicycle?

Ruchel, do NOT live in denial! what happened to Ilan Halimi was a horrible hate crime against a jew. They confessed that he was chosen as a target because he was jewish and as they said "and jews have money". killed because a stupid stereotype! Il ne faut pas non plus banaliser ce qui lui est arrive en comparant cet horrrible meurtre avec des faits divers!!!

Yes, the media does blow things up, but the threat and the antisemitism are there and they are REAL.

Ruchel

Thu, May 11 2006, 7:17 pm

Killy22 wrote:

Quote:

Why is torturing and killing a [gentile] more of a fait divers than torturing and killing a Jew?
Oh, and I suppose I should have been more precise, the policeman was killed by people shouting "yay! Let's kill the white guy!"

Younger Me

Mon, May 15 2006, 1:32 pm

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I wasn't referring to this particular example you gave, but the other ones. The man who was tortured to death, was not killed because he was catholic, the whole motivation was money, he also was kidnapped for ransom.
it's a very different case than the one of Ilan. it wasn't racially motivated. In Ilan's case, they picked him, because he was a jew, they recited verses from the Koran as they were torturing him while being on the phone with his parents! you just can't compare!

Ruchel

Sun, Dec 10 2006, 3:11 pm

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Ruchel that should be fun elections!!!!

ditto. According to polls, the real "battle" will be between Nicolas Sarkozy (rather "hardcore" right wing, very pro Jews, 3 Jewish grandparents himself) & Segolene Royal (left wing for social aids, salaries... classical right wing for the rest -> very decided to put some order in the bad areas, which should be good for everyone including Jews who live there!). Some say President Chirac will be candidate again, who knows. If he's re elected at least the country will stay in the hands of the right wing.

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Does anti semitism rise when there are elections in France with the far left trying to gain votes?

I would say no, because the Arabs are behaving more than usual (afraid the far right will have tons of votes like last time)

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You mentioned that that there are riots in stadiums I do not know if there are any Jewish football players in France but is there a lot of anti semitism directed at them like other European countries?

I don't think there are, but honestly I'm not that interested in football... I haven't seen any Jewish name.

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How about the Jewish supports do they have a lot of anti semitism dirrected at them?

I don't think the Arabs can see who is Jewish or not, but foreigners in general are ill treated.