The Jewish community of France shaken by an unprecedented fracture

While in Gaza the hungry Palestinian population endures the redoubled blows of Israel in his war against Hamas, Delphine Horvilleur, the most media in French rabbis, triggered an earthquake in Jewish circles, which has remained discreet since October 7. In “Gaza / Israel: to love (really) her neighbor, no longer be silent”, a forum published on May 7, the famous writer highlights her “love of Israel”, to better say her “pain to see him get lost in a political rout and a moral bankruptcy”, before “the tragedy endured by the Gazaouis, and the trauma of an entire region”.

Other Jewish personalities have followed suit: “The form of the actions carried out by the Israeli army at the request of the Netanyahu government is indefensible,” adds journalist Anne Sinclair. “It is contrary to human morality and Jewish ethics to be silent in the face of forced populations and ethnic cleaning,” adds Joann Sfar. The author of the famous comic book Rabbi cat replied to the Minister of Israeli Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, announcing, on May 6, the next “total destruction of the Gaza Strip” and the displacement of its population.

If these protests relieve certain consciences, they have, on others, the effect of salt on an injury. Delphine Horvilleur reports “threats, misogynist insults (…) prayers formulated so that he (him) arrives woe”. “We have been accused of” dividing Israel “, of” court Jews “anxious to please”, deplores the historian Marc Knobel, mounted in the niche, too, to defend “the duty not to give in to the ease of silence”.

Sharp words

By her criticism, Delphine Horvilleur would give weight “to those who compare today Gaza in Auschwitz”, estimates Richard Prasquier, ex-president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF). The great Rabbi Haïm Korsia refuses, for his part, to express himself on the subject, while recalling his position: “Since on October 6, Israel did not bomb Gaza, all the dead in Gaza are to be attributed to Hamas. »»

Even more explicit, the psychoanalyst Daniel Sibony argues that we cannot “feed the civilians of Gaza without nourishing Hamas, which prolongs the war”. Stilling words like the sword, to be located in long time.

On October 7, 2023, the massacre committed by Hamas from the Gaza Strip touched the very basis of the Jewish State project, instilling deep anxiety even in the diaspora. The birth of Israel in 1948, by the force of arms but nourished by democratic ideal, had aroused immense hope among the Jews, whose memory is saturated with pogroms, persecution and death camps. Living in safety became possible.

In the context of a rise in anti-Semitic acts in France, any criticism of the far-right government is amalgamated for a questioning of the Zionist state itself.

The war waged by the Israeli government thus highlights two conceptions of Judaism. On the one hand, that of the “Judaism of the promise”, to use the expression of the philosopher Alain Finkielkraut, embodied by the Netanyahu government which is based on nationalist rabbis affirming an eternal right of the Jewish people on the earth that God gave him. This would extend “from the sea (Mediterranean) to the Jordan”, according to the slogan, encompassing “Judea Samaria”-a biblical appellation denying the names in use, West Bank and Palestinian territories.

On the other hand, that of “Judaism of justice”. “We cannot, we, Jews of the diaspora, stay outside this confrontation,” said Alain Finkielkraut on January 29, returning from a stay in Israel, before the friends of the Crif. “Since the start of the Zionist movement, a kind of messianic impatience (…) has awakened a very strong passion,” observed the philosopher. Today it takes frightening proportions, and therefore Israel is more divided than ever. (…) Within the Judaism of observance, there is a real dread before the violence and the brutality of this messianism. »»

Political cleavage

Divergences that are politically reflected: last March, the Netanyahu government invited Jordan Bardella and Marion Maréchal to attend a conference on anti -Semitism. In 2021, already, Eric Zemmour’s candidacy in the presidential election had strongly cleaned the French community. “Israel is at the crossroads, judge Marc Knobel *, he can switch to authoritarianism or remain faithful to the democratic ideal of its founders. Sooner or later he will have to fulfill a revolution: to make peace with the Palestinians, because one cannot indefinitely dominate another people without leading his own country towards the abyss. »»

* In the magazine L’Express dated May 7, 2025