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The One Righteous Man

For 15 years, Europe has denied, obfuscated, and ignored the rise of virulent antisemitism on the continent. As its Jews struggled against hatred, violence, and murder, governments and authorities looked the other way.

That era is now over. One man has smashed European denial into a thousand pieces.

Manuel Valls, the prime minister of France, in an address to the French National Assembly (February 3, 2015), has issued a ferocious and unprecedented call to arms against antisemitism.


Manuel Valls at the French National Assembly
"The first question that has to be clearly dealt with is the struggle against antisemitism," he told the Assembly, "History has taught us that the awakening of antisemitism is the symptom of a crisis for democracy and of a crisis for the Republic. That is why we must respond with force. Since Ilan Halimi in 2006, after the crimes of Toulouse, antisemitic acts in France have grown to an intolerable degree. The words, the insults, the gestures, the shameful attacks ... did not not produce the national outrage that our Jewish compatriots expected".

Valls connected the problem to the entirety of modern French and European history, including the Holocaust, asking, "How can we accept that in France, where the Jews were emancipated two centuries ago, but which was also where they were martyred 70 years ago, how can we accept that cries of 'death to the Jews' can be heard on the streets? ... This is not acceptable and I say to the people in general who perhaps have not reacted sufficiently up to now, and to our Jewish compatriots, that this time it cannot be accepted, that we must stand up and say what’s really going on".

Even more astounding was the fact that Valls refused to shy away from the fact that antisemitism under the guise of anti-Israel activism is still antisemitism, something European authorities have refused to acknowledge for decades.

"There is a historical antisemitism that goes back centuries," he said, "but there is also a new antsemitism that is born in our neighborhoods, coming through the internet, satellite dishes, against the backdrop of the loathing of the State of Israel, and which advocates hatred of the Jews and all the Jews. It has to be spelled out, the right words must be used to fight this unacceptable antisemitism."

He also did not shy away from the source of much of this antisemitism - the Muslim community - asking, "How can we accept that in certain schools and colleges the Holocaust can’t be taught? How can we accept that when a child is asked, 'Who is your enemy' the response is 'the Jew?'".

To allow the Jews to be exiled from France because of antisemitic violence, said Valls, would destroy France itself; and he broke the final taboo by blasting his fellow countrymen - and himself - for failing to act effectively against such an outcome.

"Without its Jews," he asserted, "France would not be France, this is the message we have to communicate loud and clear. We haven’t done so. We haven’t shown enough outrage. When the Jews of France are attacked France is attacked, the conscience of humanity is attacked. Let us never forget it".

Valls' speech is simply unprecedented in its clarity, intensity, and - yes - courage.
The question now is whether France and all of Europe will heed his words.

From The World Jewish Daily