opinion
BY GERARD LEVAL
F rance is the frequent object of accusations of
antisemitism. The various attacks on Jews and
Jewish institutions in recent years seem to fully
warrant the fears regarding the presence and growth
of antisemitism in France.

There is simply no denying the reality of this sit-
uation but, fortunately, this is not the whole story.

One need merely note the identity of the current
French prime minister and of the newly desig-
nated president of France’s National Assembly to
know that there is another side to the story.

The French nation remains today, as it has been
since the French Revolution of 1789, a schizo-
phrenic nation. Enlightenment philosophy battles
a kind of obscurantism. Hospitality clashes with
xenophobia. Tolerance is in a continuing struggle
with intolerance. And France’s treatment of its
Jewish population epitomizes this schizophrenia.

Observers of life in France have noted the
recent terrible violence perpetrated against some
Jews, such as the vile killing of three children
and an adult at a Jewish school in Toulouse a
few years ago. Or, when a young Jewish man
was tortured and killed by a gang of sub-Saharan
immigrants who had kidnapped him because they
thought that since he was Jewish he must be rich.

Just fi ve years ago, a young Muslim defenestrated
his Jewish neighbor while shouting antisemitic
slogans. The following year, two young Muslims
tortured and killed their elderly Jewish neighbor.

In recent months, additional violent incidents,
strongly suggesting that they were motivated
because the victims were Jewish, have occurred.

For years, attending a synagogue in Paris has
meant passing through a gauntlet of guards who
interrogate every visitor out of fear that one of
them could wreak havoc or worse. This has led to
the notion that France is a place where Jews must,
at all times, look over their shoulders.

This may be so. But there is another side to the
story. France has been witness to some of the
most important successes for the Jewish commu-
nity in Europe. It was the fi rst nation in the Western
World, even before the United States, to grant its
Jewish citizens equal rights. The economic, aca-
demic, cultural and even political achievements
of members of the French Jewish community
have been remarkable and they have been fully
recognized by the French nation. You need only
14 JULY 7, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
her Jewish origins. She was named the nation’s
second female prime minister by President
Emmanuel Macron just a couple of months ago
without much fanfare or opposition. Any opposi-
tion has had to do with the political weakness of
Macron and not with her Jewish origins.

Just a few days ago, for the fi rst time in the
nearly 230 years of its existence, the presidency
of the French National Assembly was turned over
to a woman. The new president is named Yaël
Braun-Pivet. She is descended on both sides of
her family from Eastern European Jewish immi-
grants. Her Hebrew fi rst name makes it diffi cult to
dissimulate her Jewish roots.

So, as of this week, two of the most important
political positions in France are held by women
with Jewish origins. While this cannot in any
manner reduce the pain and horror of the various
antisemitic attacks to which Jews in France have
been subjected in recent years, it does suggest
that it may be too facile simply to write off France
as an antisemitic nation.

France is a very complex nation. Its history can
probably best be described as a rollercoaster ride.

Reminiscent of the statement made about the little
French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne
girl with the curl, it can appropriately be asserted
that when France is good, it is very, very good and
when it is bad, it is horrid.

Over past decades, the accession of Jews to
some of the highest positions of power in France
has been taken in stride. The uneventful appoint-
ment of two women descended from Jewish
immigrants to the very pinnacle of the French
governing structure is yet another manifestation
of the best side of the French national character.

None of this erases the terrible chapters of French
antisemitism, but it does suggest that there may
yet be hope for the future for the French Jewish
community. Whether the good side of France’s national
character can prevail over the bad one, remains
an open question. Perhaps, the Jewish women
look at the façade of the Paris Opera and note who have recently achieved such important polit-
that of the seven statues of composers there two ical success can help France take some of the
are of Jews.

steps necessary to ensure that there is a bright
And we do not have to look at the past. Little future for its Jewish citizens. JE
noted in the United States is the fact that the
current prime minister is the daughter of a Polish Gerard Leval is a partner in the Washington, D.C.

Jewish immigrant, who survived deportation to offi ce of a national law fi rm. He is the author of
Auschwitz. Although she was brought up by her “Lobbying For Equality, Jacques Godard and the
Catholic mother, Elisabeth Borne, whose family Struggle for Jewish Civil Rights during the French
name is actually Bornstein, has never tried to hide Revolution,” published this year by HUC Press.

For the fi rst time in the
nearly 230 years of its
existence, the presidency
of the French National
Assembly was turned
over to a woman.

EU2017EE Estonian Presidency / Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license
Two Women with Jewish
Backgrounds Ascend to
Prominence in France



opinion
Don’t Use Judaism as a Weapon
in the Abortion Debate
BY JONATHAN S. TOBIN
PEDRE / E+
T he Supreme Court’s decision
to overturn the Roe v. Wade
abortion ruling has set off a political
firestorm. Pro-choice forces are
enraged at what they believe is
the taking away of a right and what
some even claim is the enslavement
of women. The pro-life movement
is thankful after a half-century of
activism on behalf of what sometimes
seemed to be a lost cause, but no
less determined to defend restrictions
or bans on abortions whenever they
can prevail in state capitals.

Amid the deluge of hyperbole,
furious predictions of political fallout and public
protests, what is generally lost amid the noise is
that polls have always shown that most Americans
have demonstrated a fair amount of moral ambiv-
alence about the issue.

Clear majorities have always been found to
oppose complete bans on abortion as well as the
overturning of Roe, which many have assumed
would lead to that outcome. But it is equally true
that there has always been broad support for lim-
its on legal abortion. As with many other issues of
public debate, how you ask the question largely
determines the way the polls turn out.

The fact that many Americans remain in the
middle on the abortion debate has been obscured
if not altogether lost. It is in that context that the
way that some in the Jewish community have
sought to frame the issue as one in which Jews are
obligated to support abortion under virtually all cir-
cumstances is both misleading as well as an unfor-
tunate contribution to an already divisive debate.

There is no disputing that traditional Judaism
approaches the issue of abortion very diff erently
from the Catholic Church, or the various evangel-
ical and conservative Christian denominations,
that are unalterably opposed to it almost without
exception. In Jewish religious law, the life of the
mother must always take priority over that of the
unborn child. That provides a religious justifi cation
for procedures that deal with medical anomalies
and life-threatening conditions. Some also inter-
pret the notion that the well-being of the mother
must be protected so as to justify a more liberal
attitude towards terminating pregnancies.

It is also true that sources in the Talmud do not
consider a fetus a full person deserving of legal
protections but as a part of its mother until birth.

In the fi rst 40 days of gestation, it has an even
lesser status.

That is interpreted by liberal Jewish denomina-
tions (not to mention non-religious organizations
and secular Jews who would otherwise scoff at
the idea of looking to the rabbis of the talmudic
period for guidance on any issue, let alone for
insights on biology) as proof that Judaism regards
the disposition of a fetus as purely a matter of per-
sonal autonomy and thus inherently “pro-choice”
in the context of the contemporary abortion
debate. Yet at the same time, fetuscide is not explicitly
permitted by the same Jewish sources. On the
contrary, the idea that individuals have an unfet-
tered right to do as they like with their bodies is
alien to Judaism, since the body is considered a
vessel that is the property of God. Some Jewish
sources regard abortion as impermissible outside
of some limited circumstances because of the
prohibition of “shedding the blood of man within
man.” Since Judaism forbids tattoos, self-harm
and suicide, the notion that it supports the “our
bodies, ourselves” approach is, at best, debat-
able. That is why Orthodox organizations have
opposed laws legalizing abortion virtually up until
birth with no restrictions, as is the case with laws
passed in New York and other deep blue states,
while still also opposing any law that bans all late-
term abortions without providing an exception for
saving the mother’s life.

The idea that Jews are obligated
by their faith to support laws that
permit it without any restrictions
— the position many liberal Jewish
groups are now taking in conformity
with that of the Democratic Party —
is simply untrue.

Still, most Jews, even those who
do not regard abortion as simply
a matter of choice, do not favor
banning it in the earliest stages
of pregnancy, let alone in cases
of rape, incest or genuine medical
emergencies. The 1992 Supreme Court decision
in Planned Parenthood v. Casey,
which essentially upheld Roe and
was also overturned by Dobbs, itself instituted a
fetal viability test that allowed states to implement
restrictions based on the viability of the fetus,
thereby implying that aborting a viable fetus was
a form of infanticide.

With that in mind — and talmudic precepts
and modern declarations of personal autonomy
notwithstanding — the arguments about abor-
tion must necessarily be infl uenced by scientifi c
advances. In 1973, when Roe was decided, there were
no sonograms showing fetal life and movement.

Modern medical care now means that fetal via-
bility outside of the womb is possible as early as
21 to 23 weeks into the pregnancy with the real
possibility that this fi gure will continue to shrink.

That doesn’t change the fact that in the last
half-century, many Americans have come to
believe that terminating a pregnancy is an abso-
lute right under virtually any circumstances. They
regard arguments about the constitutionality of
the original Roe decision as irrelevant and dismiss
any and all talk of fetuses being unborn children
regardless of what science (a term that is liberally
invoked as determinative when it comes to vac-
cine mandates or climate change when it is more
to their liking) has taught us about the subject.

Yet wherever one comes down on the issue, it
is unacceptable for anyone to be treating this as
some kind of religious culture war in which Jews
are required to be fully engaged as combatants
because of their faith. JE
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS.

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