French Jews say Prime Minister Manuel Valls has their back
(JTA) — Even among those who anticipated it, the intensity of anti-Semitic violence that hit France in 2002 was shocking.
That year — the height of the second Palestinian intifada — synagogues and schools were torched, previously rare anti-Semitic beatings occurred in Paris and elsewhere, and a new generation of Jews were introduced to dangers their grandparents recognized from the 1930s.
So when teenagers started throwing stones at Jews walking to synagogue in Evry, Manuel Valls, then the mayor of the Paris suburb, did more than issue a condemnatory news release. Valls, who became prime minister last week, joined the weekly synagogue walk, signaling to the perpetrators and anyone who cared to look that the Jews had a powerful ally.
“There is a new reality for French Jews,” Valls said years later, describing the atmosphere in 2002. “And it is palpable to me.”
Valls’ promotion last week from interior minister owed less to this kind of dramatic gesture on anti-Semitism and more to his reputation as an energetic and reform-minded politician, assets that have helped him rise to become France’s second-most powerful politician in the shakeup that followed his Socialist Party’s defeat in local elections last month.
But to many French Jews, Valls is something of a hero for his unusually robust defense of Israel and the French Jewish community, and his elevation is seen as a reassuring sign amid one of French Jewry’s most troublesome periods.
Read more: http://www.jta.org/2014/04/07/news-opinion/world/french-jews-say-prime-minister-manuel-valls-has-their-back#ixzz2yEuUV78O
