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(A7) Rabbi Moshe Sebbag, the rabbi of the Grand Synagogue of Paris, spoke with Arutz Sheva-Israel National News ahead of the second round of elections for the National Assembly.
Rabbi Sebbag spoke about the current situation where both hard-right and left-wing parties have garnered strength. According to him, the question is which parties would allow the Jews to live their lives in the best way possible. Due to fear of the extremists on both sides, the Jewish organizations have called on community members to vote for President Emmanual Macron’s centrist Renaissance.
“No extremist is good for the Jews. Jean-Luc Mélenchon (of the left-wing La France Insoumise) favors antisemitism, he sees Israel as a war criminal and incites against Israel. He calls it anti-Zionism which is actually antisemitism,” Rabbi Sebbag explains.
According to him, “On the right you have Marine Le Pen, with her party which has a history of antisemitism. Her father was a blatant antisemite, she tries to detach herself from his opinions and show her support for the Jews and Israel. She is attentive to the Jews’ concerns from certain parts of the Muslim community, and she helps the Jews feel, think, and imagine that when she’s in charge things will be better. But history has proven that extremism was never good.”
Rabbi Sebbag mentions the growing antisemitism around the world especially in his country. “The events of October 7th increased the antisemitic incidents from hundreds to thousands. There is a lot of antisemitic vilification, children are encountering very violent people and are being assaulted. To my great dismay, just two weeks ago a 12-year-old girl was raped by three teens who said that they did what they did because she’s a Jew. These are things that were seen before World War Two.”
All this said he has not lost optimism. “This community has a magnificent history that produced many Torah giants over the years. Along with the antisemitism, there was rich Jewish life. There is hope for French Jewry despite the dream of every Jew to move to Israel.”
