France’s shame
There is a principle in Judaism called pikuach nefesh, which holds that saving or preserving a human life overrides nearly all other religious commandments. While rabbis of various sects within Judaism will quibble over the exact nature and scope of pikuach nefesh, the basic tenet is that, for example, a man should be permitted to drive a car on Shabbat (when it is normally not allowed) if his pregnant wife goes into labour, or be excused from fasting on Yom Kippur if he’s required to take a daily medication that must be ingested with food. According to some theological scholars, pikuach nefesh is less a discharge from duty than it is a duty in and of itself: one must act to save a life, even when doing so would be to contravene one or several other Jewish laws.
As with most things in religion, these instructions are rarely unambiguous when lent to practical application. Days ago, t he head of Marseille’s Israelite Consistory, Zvi Ammar, invoked pikuach nefesh — if perhaps not by name — in instructing Marseille’s Jews not to wear their kippot ( religious skullcaps) in public in the wake of a series of violent anti- Semitic attacks in t he city. His remarks came a day after a Kurdish teen attacked a 35- year- old teacher (who was wearing a kippah) with a machete, which was the third major anti- Semitic i ncident in Marseille recent months. A day earlier, in Creteil, a suburb of Paris, a Jewish municipal councillor was found murdered in his apartment, his body reportedly riddled with stab wounds and showing signs of asphyxiation. Creteil was also the site of a December 2014 rape and robbery of a Jewish couple, whose assailants told them they were targeted because they were Jews.
It was to that backdrop of violence that Zvi Ammar suggested that Marseille Jews begin refraining from wearing kippot in public. “As soon as we are identified as Jewish we can be assaulted and even risk death,” he said in an interview with Agence France-Presse. “But faced with an exceptional situation, we have to take exceptional measures. It causes me such pain to come to this conclusion but I do not want anyone to die in Marseille because they had a kippah on their head.”
His instruction was predictably controversial, and invoked responses other Jewish leaders, including France’s chief rabbi, Haim Korsia, who said that asking Jews to remove their kippot is “tantamount to admitting that wearing a kippah is a provocation.” Rather t han conceding to anti- Semitism, Korsia said, Jews in France must present a “united front.”
It is predominantly within orthodox sects of Judaism that men and boys publicly wear their kippot, which is supposed to serve as a reminder of God’s presence above. There i s ongoing debate about whether the wearing of kippot is a law or simply a Jewish custom, though it’s fair to assume that men in Marseille who choose to continue to publicly wear their kippot are doing so at l east as much, if not more, as a statement against intimidation as they are for religious observance. In other words, it is not so much about valuing human life over religious custom — pikuach nefesh — as it is valuing the principles of freedom over fear.
It ’s an easy notion to champion from the relatively sequestered comforts of Canada. But Canada did not see one of its Kosher supermarkets targeted by terrorists last January, when gunmen held 15 people hostage and killed four Jewish shoppers. Nor did Canada see more than twice the number of emigrants to Israel to last year — 7,086 in 2014, compared to 3,289 in 2013 — or 51 per cent of its racist attacks targeted at Jews, according to the French Interior Ministry. Canada also doesn’t grapple with the same fraught history of entrenched, centuries- old anti- Semitism as does Europe, nor does it struggle with vivid reminders of the Holocaust ( late last year, for instance, newly published archived materials reminded the French how en- thusiastically many of their countrymen participated in the Final Solution).
Jews had to hide their identities 75 years ago in Europe if they hoped to survive; it is profoundly sad, and hideously shameful, that they have to consider doing so again. There’s no question that the onus absolutely should be on French authorities to tackle its countries the scourge of anti- Semitism, and not on the targets of the assaults to modify t heir behaviour. That’s lesson Cologne Mayor Henriette Reker learned after she foolishly suggested women adopt a “code of conduct” in the wake of the mass sexual assault in a public square, reported on New Year’s Eve.
But while the vulnerable in these cities wait for authorities to take action, they still have to go to the grocery store, and to work, and to school and back home again. I certainly wish the women of Cologne didn’t have to start walking in pairs, or the men in Marseille didn’t have to remove their kippot, but I won’t fault either for doing so. It’s about preserving human life above religious custom, moral statements and sadly, personal freedom. It is France’s shame, not that of Marseille’s Jews.
75 YEARS AGO, JEWS HAD TO HIDE THEIR IDENTITY TO BE SAFE. AND HERE WE ARE AGAIN.