O pinion
A Tombstone in a Paris Cemetery
BY GERARD LEVAL
DURING A VISIT to Paris
not long ago, I walked over to
Place du Trocadéro, the large
plaza so familiar to tourists
seeking the best views of the
Eiffel Tower. However, rather
than view the Eiffel Tower, I
walked a few steps to the south
and ventured into the large
Passy Cemetery to see the elab-
orate graves, including those of
many noted figures in French
history and culture.

I walked past the tombs
of Claude Debussy, the great
impressionist composer, and the
painter Edouard Manet and his
sister-in-law, Berthe Morisot. I
noted the tombs of a former pres-
ident of the French republic and
of prominent authors, indus-
trialists and military heroes of
the last century.

But my attention was drawn
to a simple reddish granite
tomb. At the top of the stone
there was a brief inscription
in French, “To the memory of
Isaac, Anna, Aline,” followed
by a very Jewish surname. Just
below the names were the words
“who disappeared in 1942.” The
words did not leave any doubt
as to the circumstances of the
deaths of the three individu-
als. They had been deported
during the German occupation
of France and murdered.

Such inscriptions are sadly
not uncommon in Paris cem-
eteries, a silent tribute to the
thousands of Jewish victims of
the Nazis and their collabora-
tors. But it was what appeared
just below the inscription that
caught my eye: It was a Star
of David with a large cross
engraved on top of it. To the left
of this symbol was the name of
another deceased individual,
also bearing the very Jewish
surname of the Holocaust vic-
tims, an individual who had
died relatively recently in 2003.

Familiar as I am with the
history of the post-World War
II French community, I readily
understood the tragedy repre-
sented by this grave. Following
the war and the deportation
of members of this family, one
of the survivors had elected to
convert to Catholicism. In spite
of this choice, the survivor felt
an obligation to remember his
relatives, but to do those from
his new religious vantage point.

I do not purport to judge the
actions of the survivor in his
decision to leave his Jewish tradi-
tion and adopt the Catholic faith
of the majority of French people.

Perhaps it was the product of a
religious revelation. Maybe it was
the desire to leave the burdens of
being Jewish behind and inte-
grate into the fabric of France.

Possibly it was the hope of ensur-
ing the safety of future genera-
tions — to inoculate them against
the hatred that had deprived his
relatives of life. Since I did not
live through the persecution of
the Holocaust, I am unwilling to
judge those who did.

Nonetheless, the pain that
I felt while standing over this
grave arose from a sense that
the ambiguous symbol was
a desecration of the martyr-
dom that the three victims had
assuredly experienced in 1942.

They had been killed because
they were Jews. It seemed so
tragic that their memorial
should try to dissimulate the
true cause of their suffering
or suggest that their suffering
could be redeemed through
adherence to another faith.

The sight of that grave served
to reinforce the reverberating
effects of the Holocaust, as its
consequences continue to echo
through the years, and of some
of the subtler ways in which
there are still efforts to under-
mine and distort its lessons.

My encounter with this
tombstone also served to
reinforce one of my longtime
concerns regarding Holocaust
memory and respect for the
Jewish dead: the steadily dis-
appearing tombs in Jewish
sections of Paris’ municipal
cemeteries. Over the years,
I have noted with increas-
ing distress the removal of
graves of Jews resulting from
the apparent failure of fam-
ilies and their descendants
to pay the require mainte-
nance fees. Under applicable
French law, even a “perpetual
concession” in a municipal
cemetery is only an assurance
apology as anything more than
a public-relations move.

When criticism manifests
as hatred, it blinds us from
the complexities of the Arab-
Israeli conflict. Omar’s tweet
is, ironically, exactly why we
need AIPAC.

It is disturbing that someone
with such clear animosity toward
a persecuted minority has such
an influential position as a
member of the Foreign Affairs
committee. As a Democrat, I
hope my party’s leadership takes
a stand and removes Omar from
that committee. l
of a right to the grave as long
as officially recognized direct
descendants continue to pay
the very considerable annual
maintenance fees.

And the authorities do not
make it easy to establish ances-
try and to make maintenance
fee payments — as I can attest
from my own lengthy and frus-
trating efforts to protect the
grave of my grandparents.

With a diminishing Jewish
population and families dis-
tanced from prior generations,
many Jewish graves are being
removed. A significant number
of the disappearing graves con-
tain inscriptions to the mem-
ory of victims of the Holocaust,
placed there by grieving sur-
vivors. The removal of those
graves, erasing forever the mem-
ory of the victims whose names
appeared on the gravestones,
effectively commits a second
destruction of the individuals
who were so horribly deprived
of life just two generations ago.

My efforts to alert Jewish
religious authorities in France
to take action to prevent these
terrible acts of desecration
have not resulted in any con-
crete results. Those authorities
simply invoke French law and
assert that nothing can be done.

However, we Jews know that
the act of caring for our dead
is one of the most important
mitzvahs, an obligation that is
a broad and vital one. We must
make certain that the dead are
given a proper burial and that
their place of burial is main-
tained. Symbolically, we all do
this whenever we visit a Jewish
grave and place small stones
at the grave — echoing the
very real obligation to protect
graves from marauders in an
earlier era. Preventing the wan-
ton removal of Jewish graves
and the exhumation of Jewish
remains to be tossed into a col-
lective public grave is equally an
imperative. It is not appropriate
to be resigned to desecration.

Allowing Jewish martyr-
dom to become a kind of ecu-
menical statement through
the conflating of the symbols
of Judaism and Christianity
seems very disrespectful.

Allowing the destruction of
Jewish graves and the removal
of memorials to those of our
brethren who were martyred
and deprived of a proper burial
is reprehensible.

My brief walk in the Passy
Cemetery highlighted the
continuing need to prevent
the desecration of the mem-
ory of those Jews who were
destroyed in the Holocaust
and the urgency of protect-
ing the remains of Jews whose
descendants may have ceased
or become unable to care for
their last resting places. l
Gerard Leval is a partner in a
Washington, D.C., law firm. He
writes and lectures on topics of
French and Jewish interest.

Harel Continued from Page 17
caricature in November 2012,
when she tweeted that “Israel
has hypnotized the world, may
Allah awaken the people and
help them see the evil doings
of Israel.”
Hinting at tropes of “dual
loyalty” and the “schem-
ing Jew” with great vitriol,
Omar has exhibited a deeply
ingrained bias. Therefore, it is
difficult to interpret Omar’s
18 MARCH 21, 2019
Michael Harel is a senior at
Binghamton University majoring
in political science with a minor in
Middle Eastern studies. He is the
2018-’19 Binghamton CAMERA
Fellow. JEWISH EXPONENT
Join the
conversation! Tell us what you’re thinking
and interact with the community
at jewishexponent.com
Connect with us on
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



L IFESTYLES /C ULTURE
‘Click’ Explores Collision of Tech, Identity
T H EATER
JESSE BERNSTEIN | JE STAFF
JACQUELINE GOLDFINGER’S
Click, a new play about a cam-
pus rape, technology and what
can happen to people caught
in between the two, makes its
debut next week.

Th e play, a production of
the Simpatico Th eatre, will run
at Th e Louis Bluver Th eatre
at Th e Drake. It is being
staged in conjunction with the
University of the Arts as part of
Simpatico’s “Season of System
Failures,” and will run from
March 27 to April 14.

Click, which is in the sci-fi
tradition, is part feminist and
part “Sherlockian,” according
to the play’s description.

“Click is a very unique play,
which is one of the reasons I’m so
excited about it,” Goldfi nger said.

Goldfi nger, who teaches
playwriting at the University
of Pennsylvania and Temple
University, said her plays
oft en take about two years to
go from conception to stage;
Click, which is based on the
Steubenville High School rape
case of 2012, took nearly fi ve
years to complete.

Part of the reason for that,
she said, was her desire to write
a wider variety of characters
than she usually did. She wrote
characters of various races,
classes, industries and gender
identities, a task for which she
consulted numerous readers.

“I wanted to make sure that
I got all of those voices right,”
she said.

Another reason the show
took so long was her desire
to tell the story in such a way
that it was not a one-to-one
recapitulation of the details
of Steubenville. To do that,
some distance from the events
was needed. Goldfi nger knew
that most audiences were now
familiar with how such cases
were covered in the moment.

Th us, she decided to set her
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM The cast of Click
play in the years succeeding
the rape, breaking the play into
sections fi ve, 10, 15 and 20
years in the future.

Beyond fi delity to reality,
Goldfi nger said, she wanted to
deliberately counteract what
she sees as the dehumanizing
process that people involved
in such episodes are oft en sub-
ject to. People become “fl ashes
on a news screen, or tweets,”
she said, cheap imitations of
the full-fl edged humans they
actually are.

“We wanted to make sure
that, in our piece, we saw the
humanity of everyone and
honor that,” she said, “while
also asking important ques-
tions: When you can change
your identity online? What
consequences are there? Should
there be consequences? What’s
going to happen when you’re
going to be able to change your
identity in person?”
Another choice Goldfi nger
made was to keep the character
of the rapist from appearing
onstage. She’s been dismayed
Photo courtesy of Simpatico Theatre
NAME: JFCS /JEWISH FAMILY & CHILDREN’; WIDTH: 5.5 IN; DEPTH: 5.5 IN;
COLOR: BLACK PLUS ONE; AD NUMBER: 00083614
JFCS 35TH
ANNUAL BENEFIT
ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE
Join Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Greater Philadelphia for
an evening of cocktails, great food, and celebration as we remember:
through care and compassion…Anything is Possible!
WHEN: Thursday, April 4 at 6pm
WHERE: Vie by Cescaphe
COMMITTEE CHAIRS: Amy and Randy Stein, Isa and Mitchell Welsch
FOR MORE INFO: Visit jfcsphilly.org/benefit or call 267.256.2018
Special Performance by
Jon Dorenbos
Magician and Former
Philadelphia Eagle
JFCS partners with The Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia
See Click, Page 20
JEWISH EXPONENT
MARCH 21, 2019
19