{"id":1140066,"date":"2026-08-09T17:40:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T17:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1140066\/"},"modified":"2026-08-09T17:40:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T17:40:20","slug":"for-french-jews-october-7-is-the-latest-chapter-of-a-dramatic-rupture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1140066\/","title":{"rendered":"For French Jews, October 7 is the latest chapter of a dramatic rupture"},"content":{"rendered":"

PARIS \u2013 The first time Yossef Murciano truly understood the meaning of antisemitism<\/a> was when he was 15 years old.<\/p>\n

It was March 19, 2012, and as students gathered for morning prayers at Ozar Hatorah school in Paris, news spread that an Islamist terrorist had attacked this school in Toulouse, murdering a teacher, his two young sons, ages three and five, and an eight-year-old girl.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people came into the synagogue and said that we had to lock ourselves in a safe place because they didn\u2019t know if other schools would be attacked,\u201d recalls Murciano, today president of the Union of French Jewish Students (UEJF).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe day after, we already had the army and police protecting our school. After that, I can hardly remember a moment when there was no police or army in front of Jewish schools and religious institutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Murciano\u2019s generation, armed guards, security barriers, and military patrols were not extraordinary measures. They were part of everyday Jewish life. That reality shaped his understanding of Jewish identity.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy relationship with antisemitism is first of all that of protection,\u201d he says. \u201cAs a young, proud Jew, it was important that I engage in the protection of my family and community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Years later, when terrorists attacked the Charlie Hebdo offices<\/a> and then the Hypercacher kosher supermarket in Paris, Murciano found himself once again standing guard outside the school attended by his younger sisters.<\/p>\n

\"SUNSETSUNSET OVER Jewish cemetery in Quatzenheim near Strasbourg, 2019; graves vandalized with spray-painted Nazi symbols in blue spray-painted on the damaged graves (credit: HADRIAN\/SHUTTERSTOCK)For French Jews, October 7 is the rupture’s latest chapter<\/strong><\/p>\n

FOR MUCH of the Jewish world, October 7 represented a dramatic rupture. For French Jews, it felt more like the latest chapter in a story they had been living for decades.<\/p>\n

France is home to Europe\u2019s largest Jewish community, estimated at between 450,000 and 500,000 people. It has also, unfortunately, become the continent\u2019s most significant testing ground for modern antisemitism.<\/p>\n

Between 2003 and 2017, 12 Jews were murdered in France because they were Jewish. According to a 2025 report by the Jewish Community Protection Service (SPCJ), the Jewish community\u2019s security organization, 1,320 antisemitic incidents were recorded last year, including 126 physical assaults.<\/p>\n

Although Jews constitute less than one percent of France\u2019s population, they account for 53% of all anti-religious hate incidents in the country.<\/p>\n

The SPCJ described the phenomenon as \u201cdaily, durable, established, widespread throughout French territory, and increasingly violent.\u201d<\/p>\n

The days when Jews elsewhere spoke admiringly of being \u201chappy as the Jews in France\u201d are long gone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI lost my illusions with the beginning of the Second Intifada in 2000,\u201d says Yonathan Arfi, the president of the CRIF \u2013 the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions. \u201cIn the 1990s, we had dozens of antisemitic incidents each year. From 2000 onward, we had hundreds. Since 2023, we have had thousands.\u201d<\/p>\n

The trajectory, he says, has fundamentally altered Jewish perceptions of France. \u201cPreviously, antisemitism existed but was ashamed and hidden. Today, it is proud and embraced. That\u2019s a new condition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arfi believes France experienced this transformation earlier than much of the rest of the West.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn France, the new antisemitism struck very early and most strongly,\u201d he says. \u201cWhile in other European countries Jews see the point of rupture on October 7, for the French Jewish community, it was October 2000.\u201d<\/p>\n

He points to a succession of traumatic milestones: the kidnapping and torture of Ilan Halimi, the Toulouse school massacre, the Hypercacher attack, and the murders of Sarah Halimi and Mireille Knoll.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a long time, the emergence of this murderous antisemitism was a French specificity,\u201d Arfi says. \u201cFrance was, to a certain extent, the laboratory for the new antisemitism. I hope that France will also be a laboratory for finding responses to confront it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of the explanation, Arfi believes, lies in France\u2019s unique social landscape.<\/p>\n

France absorbed large Jewish communities fleeing persecution in North Africa and the Middle East after World War II. At the same time, it became home to one of Europe\u2019s largest Muslim populations, many arriving from former French colonies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe existence of tensions and identity complexities connected to the history of colonization, mainly in Algeria, created complicated relations between Jews, Arabs, and French society,\u201d Arfi explains. \u201cEarlier than elsewhere, the logic of victimhood competition was established.\u201d<\/p>\n

Compounding these tensions, France also experienced Islamist terrorism before most of Europe. \u201cMore terrorist attacks were executed here than elsewhere in Europe,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

FRENCH HISTORIAN Georges Bensoussan was born 74 years ago in Morocco and, as a child, moved with his family to France. He lives in a Parisian neighborhood that saw its Jewish population replaced by a Muslim one. He rejects the notion that today\u2019s antisemitism is fundamentally different from what came before.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is wrong to say that there is a new antisemitism,\u201d Bensoussan says. \u201cAntisemitism, with all its facets, has a common structure. It puts on different faces, but the root is the same: the detestation of the Jew.\u201d<\/p>\n

What has changed, he argues, is the disappearance of shame.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is striking since October 7 is the liberation of antisemitic speech,\u201d Bensoussan continues. \u201cFive years ago, it was still shameful to use such a discourse. Today it is OK. It is not even under the cover of anti-Zionism. It is pure antisemitism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Continuity, rather than innovation, is what he calls this phenomenon.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the past, Jews were accused of deicide. Today, they are accused of genocide. It is the same old antisemitic matrix and pattern.\u201d<\/p>\n

The charge itself, he notes, predates Israel\u2019s current war. \u201cThe accusation of genocide didn\u2019t start with October 7; it started in 1948,\u201d Bensoussan continues. \u201cHowever, October 7 completely liberated the antisemitic speech.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe current surge caused the fall of moral censorship,\u201d he says. \u201cHistory shows that every time we had a surge of antisemitism, it created a chain reaction.\u201d<\/p>\n

The language of anti-Israel activism has increasingly become a social marker: \u201cThis language today consists of the detestation of Israel, but once you scratch it a bit, you discover the detestation of the Jew.\u201d<\/p>\n

Witnessing the shift in French society<\/strong><\/p>\n

JUDITH COHEN-SOLAL, a psychoanalyst, writer, and the co-author of ARTE\u2019s acclaimed documentary series Antisemitism: 2000 Years of History, witnessed the shift unfold in French public life.<\/p>\n

Returning to Paris during the early 2000s, she observed growing hostility even within progressive spaces.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe atmosphere was so antisemitic and anti-Zionist that Jews who wanted to demonstrate against the war felt they couldn\u2019t go there,\u201d she recalls. \u201cSomething happened then.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Cohen-Solal, the distinction between Jews and Zionists has steadily collapsed.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday the word Zionist has become a curse,\u201d said Cohen-Solal. \u201cBefore, people made some distinction between the terms \u2018Jewish\u2019 and \u2018Zionist.\u2019 Today, most of them don\u2019t. Obviously, nowadays people say \u2018Zionist\u2019 to avoid saying \u2018Jew.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Imported narratives, she argues, have found fertile ground. \u201cThose who use it repeat a propagandist language in which Zionists and Jews are the same and represent evil. \u2018It is because of the Jews that there are wars.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time, she offers a more nuanced view of France itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government is present and very clear on what it says against antisemitism,\u201d she says. \u201cThe situation is complicated, but I would still say that life here for a Jew can be calm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then she pauses.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut where can we go? That\u2019s the question that all French Jews ask themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

ONE OF those who chose to confront the problem politically is Caroline Yadan, a member of the French National Assembly representing French citizens living abroad, including approximately 150,000 of them who reside in Israel.<\/p>\n

Following the explosion of antisemitism after October 7, Yadan introduced legislation targeting contemporary manifestations of antisemitism, including glorifying terrorism, legitimizing terrorist acts, denying the Holocaust, and calling for the destruction of recognized states.<\/p>\n

The proposal ultimately failed.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince I became an MP, because of my very clear positions on antisemitism and Israel, I was a target of pure antisemitic insults, threats, harassment, and attacks,\u201d Yadan says. \u201cMy bill made it 100 times worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Yadan, October 7 transformed the boundaries of acceptable discourse.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlready before that, we had 12 murders of French Jews because they were Jews,\u201d she says. Then came October 7, which was like a pressure cooker exploding. \u201cAll the antisemitic rot that grew under the surface used this tragedy as a pretext to become audible and banalized.\u201d<\/p>\n

What particularly horrified her was the celebration of Hamas\u2019s crimes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe particularity of October 7 is that, unlike the Nazis, who hid their crimes, Hamas filmed everything and broadcast it live. They presented their crimes as being just and legitimate,\u201d Yadan continues. \u201cIt was as if a Pandora\u2019s box was opened and erased all the taboos that were created after the Shoah.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those defending Jews, she says, increasingly find themselves accused rather than supported.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose defending the Jews are immediately accused of being genocidal. They are boycotted. They are harassed. A fear is installed,\u201d Yadan says. \u201cIt is as if a license to kill, a permission to commit the irreparable, has been given.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen, mainly among the radical Left, there was a discourse which consisted of an accusatory reversal, aiming at legitimizing the pogrom of October 7,\u201d Yadan adds.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey said: \u2018It\u2019s resistance, therefore it\u2019s legitimate.\u2019 This is what I call a license to kill, a license to do the worst and say the worst. There was a feeling that people were waiting for this to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThose who give a license to kill Jews are, on one hand, the Islamists and, on the other hand, the anti-Zionists, who are coming mainly from the radical Left,\u201d Arfi of the CRIF agrees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen you have the conspiracy theories, which are galvanized by the social networks. There, you see old dynamics of antisemitic prejudices finding a new force and touching a large young public,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have three parts of the society where the antisemitic prejudices are very high today: the French identifying themselves as Muslims who are targeted by Islamist ideologies, the French of the radical Left who follow an anti-Zionist program, and the youth,\u201d Arfi notes.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, the spread of antisemitic prejudices and the Palestinian question became a cultural norm among them, which is very difficult to confront.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"STUDENTSSTUDENTS OF the Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse, where a rabbi and three children were killed, stand during a silent demonstration to honor the dead, March 2012. The march was organized by a Jewish umbrella group together with Muslim leaders (credit: ZOHRA BENSEMRA\/REUTERS)<\/p>\n

MURCIANO SEES the same process unfolding on university campuses.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn recent years, antisemitism in France changed,\u201d he says. \u201cIt is much more accepted within society.\u201d<\/p>\n

Messages demanding that \u201cZionists get out of our campus\u201d have become increasingly commonplace.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore, they shouted: \u2018Jews out.\u2019 Now, they shout: \u2018Zionists out,\u2019\u201d Murciano explains. \u201cIt is the same spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Students are expected to publicly distance themselves from Israel. \u201cThe idea is that you can\u2019t be a good Jew if you don\u2019t disconnect yourself entirely from Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even Jews deeply critical of Israeli governments, he notes, increasingly feel surrounded by antisemitism.<\/p>\n

For Arfi, anti-Zionism becomes antisemitic when it denies Jews rights afforded to every other people.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the creation of the State of Israel, being anti-Zionist means refusing to recognize that the Jews have the right to self-determination,\u201d Arfi says. \u201cIt is a way of discriminating against Jews.\u201d<\/p>\n

He warns of what happens when anti-Zionism becomes institutionalized.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t imagine a serene and durable Jewish life in a country that will be radically anti-Zionist. When anti-Zionism becomes a political and social norm, the air becomes suffocating for Jews.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet, he rejects simplistic comparisons with the 1930s. \u201cIn the 1930s, you had state antisemitism. This is definitely not the case today,\u201d Arfi says. \u201cThe state tries to combat antisemitism. Not enough, not efficiently, but it tries.\u201d<\/p>\n

He still believes France\u2019s future remains undetermined.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope that in France there exists a huge majority that refuses to give the keys of power to an antisemitic radical Left.\u201d<\/p>\n

HISTORY, HOWEVER, urges caution.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe political polarization benefits both the extreme Right and the extreme Left,\u201d he says. \u201cThere is still antisemitism on the extreme Right. There is a very strong antisemitism on the radical Left, and there is Islamist antisemitism.\u201d<\/p>\n

The challenge \u2013 hatred often speaks louder than solidarity does.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe tragedy of our times is that the Jews never had so many enemies within French society since the Shoah,\u201d Arfi says. \u201cBut at the same time, maybe they never had so many friends. However, our enemies are very vocal, and our friends are often too silent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murciano shares that cautious determination.<\/p>\n

As president of an organization born from the Jewish resistance during the Holocaust, he believes French Jews are rediscovering instincts many hoped had become unnecessary.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are witnessing a return to a Jewish combative identity in this period,\u201d he says. \u201cEverywhere it is difficult to be Jewish today. We have to prepare the Jews wherever they are to return to a Jewish condition marked by the Jewish identity of combat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, he offers a glimpse into what that preparation looks like.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy four children go to public schools,\u201d he says. \u201cBut they learn Krav Maga<\/a> (an Israeli system of self-defense and combat training) so that they will be equipped for the future, for better or worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

For generations after the Holocaust, many Jews believed they had finally secured their place within Western democracies.<\/p>\n

For French Jews, that certainty has eroded.<\/p>\n

The question confronting them is no longer whether antisemitism exists. It is whether democratic societies possess the confidence and moral clarity to confront it before it becomes normalized beyond repair.<\/p>\n

Whether France becomes the place where effective answers are found remains one of the defining questions facing not only French Jewry<\/a> but the West itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PARIS \u2013 The first time Yossef Murciano truly understood the meaning of antisemitism was when he was 15…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1140067,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5309],"tags":[16191,26388,2000,299,36,310021,5805,310022],"class_list":["post-1140066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-france","tag-anti-zionism","tag-antisemitism","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-france","tag-france-jews","tag-migrants","tag-migrants-in-europe"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117066783739515784","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1140066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1140066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1140066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1140067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1140066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1140066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1140066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}