There’s a Balance: Jews Alongside Antisemites

There’s a balance:
Jews alongside antisemites

The Jewish community of France would prefer to silence this story.

The following story involves several prominent figures in France’s Jewish community, who made fools of themselves, at best. It is the story of Jewish writers and journalists who lent their hands and pens to an antisemitic publication. The community now prefers to silence the story.

When an 84-page booklet bearing the title “The Jews” appeared at Paris’s select newsstands, it was clear that this was another “piece of work” by the fascist magazine “Le Crapouillot” (“The Trench”), which had already dealt with the Freemasons and President Mitterrand’s private life. The magazine’s people do not hide their somewhat reserved attitude toward our inferior and superfluous race, although they express this attitude with a certain degree of caution, so as not to risk lawsuits.

But this time, it seems, they found the trick that enabled them to go a little beyond their usual caution. Among the booklet’s contributors were the Jewish writer and philosopher Professor Albert Memmi—who contributed a story as well as an interview titled “Intermarriage—the final solution?”—the writer Paul Giniewski, editor of the Jewish weekly “Tribune Juive,” Rabbi Grunewald, and another journalist from that weekly, who contributed an article about the Jewish community’s attitude toward Zionism and another article that was nothing more than a list of the names of Jewish and partly Jewish artists.

And if Jews had already done half the job, the people at “Crapouillot” completed it. For example, in an article about “the penetration of Jewish activity into the machinery of government.” The president’s adviser, Jacques Attali, the article says, is a member of a secret organization called “Love of Israel,” while the excessively liberal Minister of Justice, Robert Badinter, is an active Zionist.

Since Jews are taking part in the booklet—why shouldn’t there also be room in it for committed antisemites? A writer named Geneviève Dormann claims that “the Jews annoy her.” She is not to blame for anything. In fact, she felt sorry for them when she was little. But today they are doing to others what the Nazis did to them.

The people at “Tribune Juive” claim that it is better for Jews to take part in the booklet than for it to belong entirely to the antisemites. By that logic, one could imagine a booklet half written by Goebbels and half by Isaac Bashevis Singer. Long live the sacred balance. Professor Albert Memmi, for his part, told me that he was “repentant” and had not known that “Crapouillot” was a fascist publication. He had thought they were anarchists...

What the authors value greatly in us is our sense of humor. There’s nothing like Jewish humor—the contributors are delighted. Now they have conclusive proof of it.

Jesus’s Revenge

The nuns of the small convent named after Saint Charles in the town of Puy-la-Vallée got to feel Jesus’s revenge firsthand. A harsh and just revenge for betraying his image.

In 1980, the sisters put up for sale old furniture and several dusty paintings that had been in the convent cellar for years. All the items were bought by a local antiques dealer, Madame Bourgeois, for less than seven thousand francs. The lady, who has since died, sold one of the paintings, depicting Christ carrying his cross, for four thousand francs to a local furniture dealer, Bova Halevi.

The painting of Jesus, abandoned by the nuns, aroused his curiosity. He rubbed it patiently, cleaned it thoroughly—and then the signature “Lauro Lotus, 1556” appeared at the bottom. For a full year, the industrious dealer conducted private research in libraries and archives and consulted experts; he discovered that this was a signature used by a renowned sixteenth-century Italian painter named Lorenzo Lotto.

Halevi “went big” and offered the painting to the Louvre Museum. The Louvre made him a millionaire. Three and a quarter million francs—that was the “modest” sum the inspired dealer received for “The Carrying of the Cross” by Lorenzo Lotto.

The sisters from the Saint Charles convent lost their composure and filed a lawsuit, alleging that the painting had been taken from them “by fraud.” The court ruled that the purchase had been made legally. Jesus will carry his cross in the national museum.

A Dream Too Expensive

Paris nights are beautiful, but expensive. Dreams are much more expensive. That is the lesson learned by quite a few French and foreign tourists who wanted to spend a dreamlike night here, but instead had a nightmare.

Marc Maury, an innocent 35-year-old provincial, met a knockout on the Champs-Élysées who “persuaded” him to spend an unforgettable night with her at the “Penisolia” restaurant in Pigalle.

Marc Maury ate at “Penisolia” (which turned out to be just an ordinary pizzeria) and drank rosé wine. The wine tasted strange, but by the time he noticed, it was already too late. Before long, he lost control of his actions. He paid 170 dollars for the pizza and rosé and then, he vaguely remembered, was dragged off to some club. He was happy.

In the morning, when he awoke shivering with cold in his car, he discovered that four thousand francs and a credit card had been stolen from him. A few days later the card came back by mail, and then the bills arrived. A blood test he took on the police’s recommendation revealed that he had been drugged.

These and other testimonies helped the police uncover a network in which everyone took part: several restaurant owners, nightclub owners, taxi drivers, and women who lured victims.

Many of the victims preferred to keep quiet. They were not so sure themselves what they had done that night. And sometimes, there was a wife waiting at home. The people in the “knockout-drug network” were eventually caught.