Antisemitism in French schools

By Jean Patrick Grumberg - on October 25, 2017

THE JEWISH GIRL WHO WAS REPEATEDLY BEATEN IN HER SCHOOL ON SEPTEMBER 21 IN PARIS BECAUSE SHE WAS JEWISH, AND WHO WAS SO INJURED THAT SHE HAD TO BE TRANSPORTED TO A LOCAL HOSPITAL, IS AN EXTREMELY RARE CASE.

You may think that it’s a good news. Right? Wrong. Quite the opposite.

NO JEWS, NO ANTISEMITIC ATTACKS

First of all, although the public school system is free and private schools are expensive, French Jews don’t send their children to public school any more. It is way too dangerous. So dangerous that when a Jewish family want to register their kids, school principals discourage them to do so.

Bernard Ravet, a public school principal in Marseille and Emmanuel Davidenkoff, a journalist for the left leaning newspaper Le Monde wrote in a book published last July College Principal or Imam of the Republic? (Principal de collège ou imam de la République ?): “I always told the Jews not to study here in my high school. I know their kids would be beaten when the other would realize that they are jewish.”

In 2004, Jean-Pierre Aubin published a report for the General Inspectorate of Education, on “The signs and manifestations of religious affiliation in schools”. The report was so damning, it was not publicly released (it was eventually published on media.education.gouv.fr after it was leaked to the press).

Twelve years later, Jean-Pierre Obin explains: “Today, in some urban ghettos, no more Jewish children attend public schools”.

When asked by teachers how they interpret this situation, some answer that Jewish pupils were no longer numerous enough to defend themselves. “Even when management takes the problem in hand, imposes severe sanctions, including exclusions, it doesn’t stop the violence, which continues on the street next to the school”laments Jean-Pierre Obin.

BREAK THE THERMOMETER: LOOK, NO FEVER!

Catherine Pederzoli-Ventura was a history Teacher. Well, until 2010 at least.

In 2010, the 58-year-old teacher, who used to organize school trips to Eastern Europe to educate the pupils about the Shoah, was kicked out of school after a report from the General Inspectorate considered that she did not display “neutrality and secularism”, that she was “instrumentalizing the pupils” and “brainwashing” them. History Teacher at Lycée Henri-Loritz, a public institution in Nancy, East of France, Ventura learned two days before the start of the school year that she could not resume classes, at least not before four months.

When I contacted her, she told me: “Dear Jean Patrick Grumberg, Jewish children are no longer in schools, colleges, and public high schools, they are in the private sector. They return [to public schools] only for preparatory classes [to university]; the others try to be INVISIBLE especially when they are alone in a class.”

“And when a problem arises, school principals, high school principals, persuade parents to say nothing so as not to intensify the problem and stain the reputation of the school. Don’t rock the boat!”

“The Jewish girl in Paris is like my story, concluded the history teacher: there were 35 cases like mine, but no one wanted to speak up: they rightfully feared that they would face the same fate from the National Education institution as mine. Since they did not speak up, nothing serious happened to them. Some were depressed, some are still on sick leave, others were transferred to other high schools, as was the case of an assistant deputy I know.”

“So Education nationale sweept the problems under the rug.”

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