After a kippah-wearing Jew was stabbed in Marseille, the city's rabbi, Zvi Ammar, called http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=31099 on French Jews to refrain from wearing kippot on France's streets. The call elicited quite a backlash across the country (among Jews and non-Jews alike). The kippah controversy is well underway, but what is fueling it? Certainly not religious motives -- after all there is no religious obligation to wear a kippah on the street. Moreover, in the event of a life-threatening situation, Jews are religiously obligated to remove it. The motive behind the controversy, therefore, is political. France refuses to bend to the will of terrorists. If today we remove our kippot, then perhaps tomorrow they will urge us to shave our beards, and then demand that all Jews surgically correct their noses. That is why French Jewish central Consistory President Joel Mergui, the president of the umbrella group of Jewish institutions in France Roger Cukierman and Haim Korsia, the chief rabbi of France, condemned Ammar's remarks. Members of the French parliament Meyer Habib and Claude Goasguen (who is not Jewish) arrived at the National Assembly wearing kippot a week ago. The Marseille incident was not the first time that a Jew wearing a kippah was attacked. Even in Brooklyn there were two such attacks just last month. But for the Jewish community in France, still traumatized by a string of murderous anti-Semitic attacks over the last ten years (Ilan Halimi was kidnapped and tortured to death in 2006; a gunman killed a teacher and three children at a Jewish school in Toulouse in 2012; four Jews were murdered at a kosher supermarket in Paris in 2015). Perhaps the Marseille stabbing was the straw that broke the camel's back. Even though the current French government has been more than friendly toward the Jewish community, and despite its immense efforts to protect France's Jews, the Jews are still in danger, and as such, many are asking the Jews to take cover. The only place in the world where Jews can wear a kippah without fear is Israel. Over the last two years, some 15,000 Jews have emigrated from France to Israel. For every new immigrant, there are dozens of Jews looking to see how they fare in Israel before deciding to emigrate as well. Some 50,000 Jews are expected to leave France over the next three years, but not all of them will come to Israel. We know that countries like Canada and Australia have developed unique strategies to encourage immigration from Western countries. Can we honestly say that Israel is doing everything it can to ensure that French immigrants are absorbed in Israel in the best possible way? Sadly, the answer is no. It is a shame because this is a historic opportunity for Israel. French Jews are affluent, very Zionist and extremely educated people who could contribute immensely to Israel's economy. They are business owners, whose businesses, if relocated to Israel, could introduce much-needed competition into the Israeli market, improve Israeli service and bring millions of shekels into the economy. They are doctors, specialists, surgeons, pharmacists and nurses who can bolster Israel's health system, currently suffering from a dire shortage of manpower. If only the French immigrants were given work permits, the powers that be would have to just sit back and calculate how much money the state coffers are looking to see once pensioners who worked in France enjoy their pensions here, in Israel. I'll save them the trouble and calculate it for them: It will mean more than 20 million shekels ($5 million). The kippah is just a symptom. Absorbing France's Jews in Israel is our moral duty. But beyond that, this is a historic opportunity for Israel's economy and society that we must not squander. The issue is not the kippah, it is absorption. Marc Eisenberg is the president of Qualita, an umbrella organization that helps French Jews seeking to make aliyah.
It's not about the kippah
מערכת היום
מערכת "היום“ מפיקה ומעדכנת תכנים חדשותיים, מבזקים ופרשנויות לאורך כל שעות היממה. התוכן נערך בקפדנות, נבדק עובדתית ומוגש לציבור מתוך האמונה שהקוראים ראויים לעיתונות טובה יותר - אמינה, אובייקטיבית ועניינית.