Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly . NEWS FEATURE . Anti-Semitism in France . March 21, 2003

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Now, a report that may explain one of the reasons for the opposition by France to war in Iraq. It turns out that Arabs and Muslims now make up 10 percent of the French population. The French government is trying to improve their lives, and to combat growing anti-Semitism. Paul Miller reports from Paris.

PAUL MILLER: The owner of this pharmacy not far from the Arc de Triomphe in Paris is thinking about leaving France -- because she is Jewish.

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Paulette Benhaim

PAULETTE BENHAIM (through voice of translator): There is an anti-Semitism which you can feel -- we are thinking about going somewhere else unless our security can be assured.

MILLER: Paulette Benhaim's family had felt secure living in France for decades. But recently they've become alarmed by attacks against Jewish institutions and against Jewish children at school.

They are not alone. In 2002, more than 2,300 French Jews left for Israel -- twice as many as in 2001.

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Michel Friedman

MICHEL FRIEDMAN (Chairman, European Jewish Congress): Jews in France and Jews in other countries are again threatened by an anti-Semitism that is growing, by right-wing radicals, right extremists, neo-Nazis, but also by extreme Muslims and Arabs who are using the situation for their aggression against Jewishness.

MILLER: There has always been a persistent strain of anti-Semitism here, although the French say it's no worse than in other countries. An increase in violence -- synagogues and school buses burned or vandalized, a rabbi stabbed -- started last year because of events in the Middle East, specifically Israel's treatment of Palestinians in response to suicide bombings.

TV coverage of events in the Middle East, especially on Arab satellite channels watched by many Muslims here, is strongly pro-Palestinian.

Jewish leaders fear that war in Iraq will mean more attacks against the country's 700,000 Jews. American Jewish leaders who attended a recent conference in Paris between Catholics and Jews said too many French tolerate the violence.

Rabbi MARC SCHNEIER (President, North American Board of Rabbis): On the issue of anti-Semitism -- that the French are bystanders, that they are affected with moral laryngitis -- there is a deafening, deafening silence.

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Cardinal Jean Lustiger

MILLER: But some Catholic bishops at the conference said anti-Semitism is overpublicized, and the violence is the work of a small number of young people of Arab descent.

Cardinal JEAN LUSTIGER (Archbishop of Paris): I don't think it's very deep or significant. It's very aggressive in some places.