Never Again: Fear and Faith in Paris

PRAYING

The Jewish Passover festival remembers the Israelites

escaping slavery in ancient Egypt

and all the times when Jews have faced persecution since.

Most Jewish people do see things

through a particular historical lens.

They're aware that there have always been threats

and that those threats haven't necessarily gone away.

Despite the horrors of history,

hate against Jews is rising again in Europe.

In France, many Jews are leaving the country.

We are afraid.

I'm afraid of now, more than maybe ten years before.

I think there's a sense amongst the Jewish community as well

that this may well be, you know, we may be at the beginning of something much worse.

Some synagogues in London have been transformed by French arrivals.

The country where Jews are killed is France.

It's not the UK. And it's a major difference.

I think Britain's a really fantastic place to be Jewish

and, by and large, we feel very comfortable here.

But it's only ever one attack away from being really quite bad.

More than 70 years after the Holocaust,

Jews are asking again whether they can be safe in Europe.

The other day I was aware and I heard two men, big,

and saying that they are fed up with Jews

and because of the Jews, ta ta ta ta, ta ta ta.

And I wanted to stand up and say "shut up",

which I would have done ten years ago, that's right.

And I...didn't do anything.

I was like that, with my heart beating.

-Because, you know, no-one...

-Yeah, no-one would help me,

but I felt awful because I didn't stand up.

Noemie and her mum Rachel have seen how anti-Semitism

has risen in France in the last decade.

It's, like, not every day, but, erm...

the Jew has to be burned

and, erm, these kind of things.

-I mean...to spit...

-To spit.

In the past it happened from time to time.

Now it happens all the time.

-I don't have any...espoir...?

-Hope.

-..hope any more.

Honestly.

Acts of anti-Semitism in France have grown ten-fold in the past 15 years.

There's an atmosphere of anti-Semitism,

and this is translated very directly into, erm,

you know, slogans like Mort aux Juif - death to the Jews,

which has been appearing on walls and demonstrations and so on.

But the big thing I would say is that I've been coming to Paris since the 1980s

and the level of hostility that we have in Paris right now in 2016,

I've never known it to be so high.

It's not only about the number,

it's also about the level of violence, from threat to death,

because we are speaking now about death.

The Jewish community has a much longer experience

of living with hate than most Parisians.

Eight people have been killed across France in terrorist attacks

since 2012 because they were Jewish.

Two days after the attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine

shocked France in 2015, another terrorist quietly walked into

a kosher supermarket, where Noemie's mum, Rachel, was known to shop.

I was at work, and I... I heard that someone...

something happened.

And I just opened my computer and I recognised the store.

I remember it was a Friday,

-like, end of, erm...

-The morning.

-..the morning,

and I was thinking about my mum

because she was doing the shopping for Shabbat.

And I remember the fear.

I mean it was...I was petrified. Petrified, literally.

GUNSHOTS

It was, I think, one of the worst moments in my life.

By the time armed police ended the siege, four people had been killed.

Noemie's mum hadn't been in the shop on that day,

yet the fear Noemie felt is still with her.

Since what happened, honestly, something changed.

I'm always afraid to take the subway,

I'm always afraid even to walk in the street.

I'm afraid for my future kids.

I don't want to... my kids live like this.

Noemie will get married in France this year.

Bonjour.

Bonjour! Ca va?

But her future will not be in her home country.

She will move to Israel with her husband-to-be after their wedding.

I think I'm quite a... erm, brave person.

Erm...I'm not scared of a lot of things.

But I don't want to... to live in this country.

All my father's family was killed because of anti-Semitism

in the war

and I'm the child of that generation after

so my heritage is...

no hope.

But I want to have hope in...

erm, erm...

humanity

and the human race

and in my country.

I love France,

but it's getting really difficult

to keep hope.

The number of Jews leaving France for Israel

before anti-Semitism began to rise was 1,000.

In 2015, following the kosher supermarket attack,

the number leaving France for Israel was 8,000 -

the highest annual total on record.

They're leaving for a lot of reasons

but a lot of them are to do with anti-Semitism and they're to do

with real fear of real persecution and real violence.

I think there's a sense amongst the Jewish community as well

that this may well be, you know, we may be at the beginning of something much worse.

Jewish people are emigrating for work opportunities too.

PRAYING

One synagogue in London has been transformed by French arrivals.

On a Shabbat morning, on a Saturday morning,

we will probably see 100 to 120 people, plus, plus, plus.

And, frankly, if you come late it's standing room only.

The first language is probably French.

The second one may be English.

Third may be Hebrew. Fourth would be Arabic.

And all of those things combine.

But this has become one of the most dynamic French communities.

There was only a handful of non-British worshippers here

a few years ago.

Now it's 90% French.

I think the English people are more open.

I feel very comfortable with...

to practice my Judaism in England.

It's the only country where the Jews were here

from 350 years.

I think, more than that.

You don't find something like this in the rest of Europe

because the Jews always need to move from a place to a place.

Most members of the synagogue came with a plan to return home.

Something has changed.

I'm now hearing my French friends talking

and that they're not going back to Paris

and that Paris doesn't look like...

the optimum place to be a Jew in Europe.

Many French Jews in London are planning to stay for good

because they know anti-Semitism has risen in France.

Like Raphael.

The country where Jews are killed is France.

It's not the UK. And it's a major difference.

It's quite troubling, isn't it?

Most of the French Jews have a mixed feeling of anger and sadness.

Sadness for what France has become...

..and anger for...

..the successive governments who decided to turn a blind eye.

Who didn't really act against these anti-Semitic acts.

POLICE SIREN

Anti-Semitism in France has come historically from the Far Right.

Now, increasingly, victims report it is coming from a different group -

a small minority of French Muslims.

It's classical prejudice.

It's coming mainly from people who are French

but who are descendant of immigrant.

Erm, yes, and it's about harassment, it's about bullying.

It's about your own environment.

It's the people you see in your daily life,

and you have conflict with them.

At an individual level, it's very difficult to bear.

The suburbs in Paris, also known as the banlieues,

are large estates beyond the ring road,

notorious for high crime and social problems.

It is religiously mixed with a substantial Muslim population.

If you look at, you know, the banlieues,

you've got a Muslim community that is separate from Paris

in terms of public transport, in terms of unemployment.

Actually, this is a very physical thing.

-TRANSLATION:

-When we talk about suburbs in France,

it means the people on the borders of society - that's what it means.

It's a population who is frail, precarious.

GUNSHOTS

Riots broke out in Clichy-Sous-Bois in 2005.

A confrontation with police igniting frustrations.

Investment has come to Clichy since,

yet the economic and social problems persist.

-TRANSLATION:

-Many apartments are dilapidated, unsanitary.

All these people, all these households,

don't have a stable situation.

It's the same thing with jobs.

40% unemployment for people under 25.

It's in these neighbourhoods where we find these very high

unemployment rates, not anywhere else on the French territory.

And it's a vicious cycle. No job means no cultural development,

no independence, no mobility.

The isolation also affects you mentally.

Because of these lack of opportunities,

religious identity takes on extra importance for some young Muslims.

Radical Islam offers you a way out.

And a lot of it is what I would call street Islam.

They don't really speak Arabic but they'll pick up bits of Arabic slang.

They don't really understand Islamic theology.

If you feel that you've got no identity, if you feel excluded

from society, and you're pushed out and you've got nowhere to go,

the only part of your identity that you might be able to hold on

is your religious identity.

Yet this religious identity is being threatened too

because in France, being a citizen must always trump faith

in the public sphere.

You've got to remember that one of the founding principles of

the French Republic as it stands right now is laicite, or secularism.

It's...it's not just a belief, it's also a law.

And the way it plays out is that it's one size fits all -

liberte, egalite, fraternite, or else!

If you're somebody who's clutching to a fragmented identity

which has been channelled into this, kind of, Islamist persona,

that feels like it's a very deep attack on who you are.

Muslim extremists recruiting in the suburbs in Paris and elsewhere,

often use derogatory passages about Jews from the Koran,

out of context most Muslims would say,

to further their own anti-Semitic ideology.

The way some interpret passages from the Koran, erm...

and where they say that the Jews are the enemy, the Jews are pigs.

It's a conflation of various things.

It's a conflation of the Israel Palestine conflict,

but it's also a perception of that old historical shibboleth,

that old historical conspiracy theory,

that the Jews are the controlling elite of France.

Obviously they're not, but they need someone to blame.

It's easier to blame the other. It's easier to blame the Jew.

-TRANSLATION:

-At some point in your life, when the only thing you've

heard is, "You suck, you suck", and somebody you meet,

someone important - a guru that tells you "No, you're beautiful.

"You're not stupid. You're able."

And so he makes you feel like you have value, he's the only one

that believes in you, of course it's easier to fall down.

The UK is not immune to these trends.

We warn those governments who've entered this evil alliance

with America against the Islamic State to back off.

British Muslim extremists have travelled to Syria

to fight for so-called Islamic state.

Many more, including the British Far Right,

hold anti-Semitic beliefs.

Hate against Jews has tripled in the UK since 2000.

A schoolteacher in south London posted an image of Hitler online

that said that he understood why Hitler had killed Jews

but left some so he could see how bad they were.

A Metrolink tram in January in Manchester had to be taken out

of circulation after a swastika was daubed on its seat.

A woman on the 102 bus in Golders Green in London

reported anti-Semitic abuse

with one passenger calling others f'ing Jews and disgusting Jews.

And a 14-year-old boy, also in February, was arrested in Hackney

after a group of youths attempted to place lit fireworks

in the pockets of Jewish pedestrians.

Yet most Jews in this country believe it is safer here

than in France.

The situation in the UK isn't as bad as it is in France

or in much of mainland Europe, but it's still quite serious.

A zero tolerance attitude needs to be taken towards anti-Semitism

because that will send a clear signal to those who are potentially

on the path towards becoming extremists, to those people

who might one day try to carry out attacks on Jewish people.

Work has long been done in the UK to tackle the conditions

that can breed anti-Semitism.

For nearly 30 years, education about different religions

has been offered to all school children.

The aim is to give an unbiased picture of other faiths

to improve understanding.

-What is she holding in her hand?

-A bangle.

This could not happen in France

because of the country's secular culture.

One of the difficulties of secularism, or laicite,

is that interfaith work can't take place in schools, for example,

which is where a lot of the work should take place

in terms of dialogue, conversations and understanding the other.

But people do know they come from different religious backgrounds,

so, in a sense, you can see that how not having that space

in which to communicate with other people from other faiths,

it creates the kind of tensions and the kind of negative space

in which radicalism takes place.

One city in the UK that has suffered from feelings

of community isolation is Bradford.

The city has seen rioting in its recent history,

in 2001.

We had our resilience as a community tested on that day

and the aftermath of what happened

I think shocked Bradford and the community to its core.

Nobody realised that something could trigger...

something so small could trigger actually something quite huge.

The riots were sparked by a Far Right demonstration,

before battles broke out between the police and young men,

who identified as Muslim.

The Asian community and the Muslim community

felt that they were treated differently in any case

and felt that there was a level of discrimination.

But what it did do was light a spark, really,

and create almost...or increase that sense of isolation

that was felt by the Muslim community.

Since then, Bradford has worked hard to tackle feelings of isolation

and to promote understanding.

Its inter-faith programme

is one of the most comprehensive in the country.

When we are talking about those images,

we would say the word deity,

because that's what a Hindu person would call those images.

This is the first visit to a Hindu temple for most of this class,

which is majority Muslim.

How many times do Hindus pray each time, a day?

Were you thinking of your own religion here?

How many times do you have to pray?

-Five.

-Five times.

Now, Hindu people don't have a set times

to how many times they should pray in a day.

They are learning, actually, about diversity.

If we weren't able to do our job,

I think that will narrow people's understanding a lot more.

They will be more in isolation, having no understanding

of each other's faiths, which are very important for us today.

And if we weren't doing this job, I don't know where Bradford would be.

Having grown up in Britain,

I've always been proud of the idea of multi-culturalism,

but I'm not sure that it's been entirely successful.

I still think it's not a bad model and I do tend to think

the Muslim community in Britain is a lot more...key word - British.

I think they're more comfortable with this very fluid notion

of being British, whereas, in France,

it's a very fixed and constrained version of being French.

A foiled terrorist plot to attack Jews in 2012

is a reminder that Britain has a long way to go

to tackle hate and radicalisation.

Yet there are many examples of people

determined to embrace other faiths.

Rudi Leavor is 89

and has known the horrors of anti-Semitism for most of his life.

Erm, several of my relatives were killed in Auschwitz

and other concentration camps.

This is one of them, called Evie,

of whom I was very fond.

And this is her son...

Dan,

who was murdered in Auschwitz aged four.

Rudi came to Bradford

with his family from Nazi Germany when he was 11.

I think my earliest memories would be SA men

marching along the main road near our flat.

Erm, all marching along and singing.

I don't know what they were singing but they were pretty intimidating.

The Jewish community in Bradford was more than a thousand

when Rudi arrived.

One by one, the mills that had been working flat out for many decades

had to close down.

Quite a number of Jewish people emigrated from Bradford to London.

Jewish numbers in Bradford are now fewer than 300.

Two years ago, the city's last remaining synagogue

was threatened with closure because of lack of funds.

The roof was leaking and other repairs had to be done.

And we seriously thought of having to sell the building,

which I didn't want to do.

Then, by coincidence, I was approached by the owner

of a curry restaurant around the corner from the synagogue.

He knew various people in Bradford, one of whom, he said,

would donate a sizeable sum of money for repairing the roof.

After receiving the gift from a Muslim donor,

the synagogue asked Jani Rashid, a prominent Bradford Muslim,

to be co-opted onto its council

to increase links between their two faiths.

It's believed to be the only example of this in Europe.

It took me aback, but, erm,

I have to say that it's very much an honour and a privilege, erm...

you know, to be asked to join this, you know, the Jewish Council,

because something like that is unheard of, isn't it,

in terms of having a non-Jew on the Jewish Council.

I don't know of any synagogue that has a Muslim on the council.

There are many examples in France too

of people determined to embrace other faiths.

Lassana came to Paris from Mali when he was 15

to live at first in this hostel for immigrants near the ring road.

-TRANSLATION:

-When I was a kid, I went to the Koranic school.

They would talk to us about Christians.

They would even talk to us about the Jewish religion.

What we were taught is to read the Koran,

to pray and respect other people. For me, that's the best thing.

Lassana found it tough to find work.

-TRANSLATION:

-I thought everything was easy.

When you come here you could easily find accommodation and work.

Two days after arriving, I regretted it.

Eventually Lassana got a break at a Jewish store.

-TRANSLATION:

-The first Jew I met, I think, was in the shop.

I saw the way they pray, the food they have to eat.

What they had to do and what they couldn't do.

Even the language, I started to speak it.

Quite a lot of people were surprised.

I stayed with them for four years. I know a lot about their religion.

The shop Lassana worked at was the kosher supermarket attacked in 2015,

when four people were killed by a terrorist because they were Jewish.

-TRANSLATION:

-The day of the attack at Hyper Cacher was a Friday,

Shabbat.

I was supposed to finish at 1pm in the shop to go to the mosque.

At 12.45pm, the terrorist arrived.

When he came, he couldn't tell who was who and he shot everybody.

I was still downstairs. I heard some gunshots.

I could see customers coming down the stairs

and they were saying the terrorist had come into the shop.

Yes, it was fear.

Absolute fear.

In my head, I knew I was going to die.

Lassana hid with Jewish shoppers in a fridge,

before getting out of the building through a goods exit.

What he told police about where the gunman and hostages were

allowed them to send in armed officers to end the siege,

which saved Jewish lives.

GUNSHOTS

SIRENS

-TRANSLATION:

-For me, the terrorists who killed for Islam

got it completely wrong.

People who kill for Islam hurt all of us

because right now all they're doing is dishonouring all Muslims.

The Jews have had a very difficult history in Europe

and many of their festivals, like Passover, remember the times

when Jewish people have been persecuted over the centuries.

Anti-Semitism is one of the world's oldest hatreds,

dating back, unfortunately, thousands of years

and, whatever the context, people have found ways to blame the Jews.

The hope is, despite the worsening climate,

that Jews will have a long future in Europe

and that terrible acts aimed at the Jewish people

can never happen again.

I think Britain's a really fantastic place to be Jewish.

The British Jewish community's been established here

for hundreds of years now

and, by and large, we feel very comfortable here.

We are both proud British citizens and also proud Jews.

But that's not to say that there aren't concerns

and in the back of our minds we are wondering,

will there be an attack on one of our schools,

on one of our synagogues, on one of our community centres?

And that's disconcerting.

Can France actually throw off the shackles of its historical identity

and re-invent itself as a 21st century country?

And that means people of different faiths meeting together, different races mixing together.

It means investment. It means engagement with realities.

And this is the really big thing,

it means re-thinking the French Constitution.

There are a lot of people my age who leave if their kids leave.

And a lot of young people leave too.

But not all of them.

There are a lot of people want to stay in France and fight this

because they love their country.

Who knows, maybe it's not too late.

I'm trying to fight my little fight to...

erm, bring more tolerance around me.

Other people do it.

Many teachers do it.

The government is trying to do something also.

But who knows if it's too late or not?