Socialist representatives to the City Council of Paris
recently complained: "The chareidi Jews are gaining control
of the 19th Quarter in east Paris."
"As a result of the high concentration of Jews in that area
and their demands for kosher food in the schools and Sabbath
observance, tension is already evident. There is no room in
the Jewish quarter for others," said Mark Trigo, the
Socialist representative to the Municipality, in an article
in the newspaper, Liberacion, dealing with the
development of the chareidi communities in Paris' 19th
Quarter. Trigo says: "Something must be done about it,
because today the taboo no longer exits. People are no longer
afraid to be called antisemites, and this frightens the
Jewish community."
Jeanne Camus, an anti-racist activist, adds: "They are taking
the old antisemitic phantasies out of their drawers. Members
of the City Council are trying to thwart budget allocations
to Jewish schools. The socialist representatives accuse the
Right of encouraging Jewish occupancy of the neighborhood,
and of the establishing of a Jewish ghetto in the 19th
Quarter through the allocation of housing to the Jews in
order to change the makeup of the quarter's population and to
oust the French commoners."
The 19th Quarter in the east of Paris has become a chareidi
neighborhood mainly because apartments there are inexpensive.
Liberacion describes it as "Meah Shearim." It writes:
"Men in black suits and hats [can be seen everywhere]. There
are 39 synagogues and houses of study. Various orthodox
communities have opened schools there and have changed the
workers' landscape of yesteryear."
Actually, the French don't want to live there, and whoever
does live there, flees, due to the influx of Arab immigrants
from North Africa. There are a number of botei midrash
in the Quarter, and synagogues and kosher stores everywhere,
something which attracts young religious couples to live
there.
According to Liberacion, City Hall says that there are
about 40,000 Jews in the 19th and 20th quarters. The
socialist mayor of the quarter, Mark Roget, fears that the
Jews will vote against him, and justifies his struggle not to
sell apartments to Jews on trumped up social claims, such as:
"It's not healthy for only Jewish families to live in one
building. It causes social strife."
One of the Jewish residents said: "If people think that there
are too may of us here, let them move here."
Secular Jewish organizations such as the CRIF, which presumes
to represent the Jews of France and issues announcements to
newspapers on every topic under the sun, did not find it
necessary to condemn the campaign of the elected socialist
officials against "the control the chareidi communities are
wielding." The secular organizations are unable to bring even
a few score people to their rallies.
The Left recruited the various branches of the Reform
movement, which increased their propaganda locally. The
luxurious ballrooms they rented for their Yom Kippur services
remained nearly empty, despite the large write-up devoted to
them by La Monde, which praised them as "the
representatives of modern Jewry." But their insidious
incitement against religious and chareidi Jews adversely
influences the attitudes of the government to the chareidi
communities, making it hard for them to secure budgets for
religious schools.
Michelle Chevelson, an American expert on France, says that
the French press, in its attacks on the chareidim, expresses
deep-rooted French antisemitism, which changes its external
form each time.
