Anti-Semitism seen rising among Arab and African Muslims in France

Colin Nickerson:

In the bleak housing project where a young Jew named Ilan Halimi was held captive and tortured before being dumped in a vacant lot to die, there's scant sympathy for the victim.

"It's too bad this happened, because we immigrants are always blamed," said Ibrahim Ag Ahmalou, a lanky man of West African heritage who shares his girlfriend's apartment in the project. "But Jews have all the money and power. Everyone knows this and resents them. That's why they have these problems."

Last week there were three more attacks on Jews by Arab and African immigrants in suburban Paris, according to police. None of the latest victims was seriously injured, but the attacks heightened the nervousness of French Jews. There is alarm that the antipathy of French Muslims toward Jews, long based on opposition to Israel, is reverting to the even more sinister prejudices that once pervaded Europe, making Jews the scapegoats for all social ills.

"Anti-Semitism is rising in our country," said legislator Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

Halimi, 23, son of Moroccan-born Jews of modest means, sold cellphones at a shop in Paris. He disappeared on Jan. 20, allegedly abducted by a predominantly Muslim youth gang dedicated to crime, street fighting, rap music, and virulent anti-Semitism. The thuggish crew sought a cash ransom of more than $500,000 because they assumed all Jews were rich, according to French authorities. And when Halimi's hard-strapped family could not produce money, they killed their captive because he was a Jew.

In taunting calls to Halimi's family, the abductors addressed his parents with anti-Semitic slurs and told them to get cash "from your synagogue." They also contacted a French rabbi, boasting, "We have a Jew." Even more shocking, investigators believe that many inhabitants of the project were aware that the youth gang was holding a Jewish captive, but none called police or urged the abductors to show mercy.

The atrocity has stunned a country that is trying to cope with what Jewish leaders perceive as intensifying anti-Semitism in France, mainly among Muslims of Arab or African heritage, but also growing among Caribbean islanders from former colonies and, to a lesser extent, poor white immigrants from other parts of Europe who also inhabit the dreary suburbs -- known as "banlieues" -- that surround all major French cities

Although tens of thousands of French turned out last month to march against anti-Semitism, few analysts believe the show of solidarity will change the attitudes of an embittered underclass of restive Arabs, Africans, and other dark-skinned newcomers who increasingly, if illogically, blame Jews for the poverty and prejudice that often beset their lives. France is home to Europe's largest population of Muslims -- about 6 million -- as well as the continent's largest community of Jews, about 600,000.

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