After Paris: Anti-semitism, Jewish-Muslim Relations in France, and the Future of French Jewry

The last decade has seen a dramatic rise in the number of violent attacks on Jews in France, sparking widespread discussion about the nature of European antisemitism and the future of France’s second-largest ethno-religious minority. Is contemporary antisemitism in France part of a longer history of European hostility toward Jews, or is it a phenomenon emanating primarily from the legacy of French colonialism in North Africa? Are the attacks on Jews an outgrowth of the current wave of Islamist terrorism or the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, or are they rooted in domestic tensions between French Jews and Muslims? Do these trends threaten to uproot Europe’s largest Jewish community? Debate over such questions has reached a fever pitch in both Europe and America in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shootings of January 2015, the Paris attacks of November 2015, and the unprecedented rise in Jewish emigration from France. As British journalist Natasha Lehrer has recently suggested, “it is almost as if the fate of French Jewry is seen as a cipher for widespread, even existential, fears about the future of Europe itself.” Professors Maud Mandel and Samuel Ghiles-Meilhac will bring their knowledge of French Jewish history, Jewish-Muslim relations, and contemporary French life to bear in analyzing this complex and consequential story.