It has not been a good few weeks for European Jews. Truthfully, it has not been a good few years. It's a movie we all know well at this point: a flare up of tensions in the Middle East that reverberates globally, occasioning greater scrutiny on Israel and, concomitantly, its supporters, namely Jews. At best, it's indecorous; in its more malign manifestations, it better resembles what we saw in North London on 23 March. Frankly, whether it spills over violently or not, Jews are acutely aware of the vast iceberg that sits beneath such incidents – representing the inexorable decline of Jewish communities across the continent, as the political situation sours and institutions prove risibly ineffectual at standing up for Europe's oldest victim, despite much virtue signalling to the contrary. It's a trajectory that recent demographic changes have probably made our base case. Certainly, this has informed my decision to explore MBA programmes in the US, which as my dad convincingly argues, may well be the only meaningful centre of Jewish life other than Israel by the end of this century.
This is not a blog about the state of European Jewry – a topic I could expatiate upon for ages – but a travel blog, and I only mention all of this to set the scene for my weekend away in Paris. I don't know whether this will resonate with any other Jews, but at times like this I feel a strong impulse to explore and engage with our culture – ideally abroad or somewhere less familiar, so that I can be a little more blissfully ignorant of what has been lost. For although Israel has religiously and, more recently politically, been the great Jewish homeland, historically it has really been Europe. For any fans of Douglass Murray out there – I recall an old interview of his in which he remarked that when he experiences losses of faith in the fate of European civilisation, he comforts himself with travels and an exploration of art and culture. In essence, he focuses on "the good times". In the case of European Jewish history, "good times" are a little trickier to ferret out, but history – to me at least, good or bad – serves as a means through which to connect a people to a land.
With that in mind, I spent most of my weekend around Le Marais. The area boasts a remarkably old charm for what is, by European standards, quite a modern city. If not a hidden gem, it's certainly an outlier in a capital famed for its wide avenues and imposing buildings. This area was spared Napoleon's great renovation project essentially because it was densely populated by the urban poor and, consequently, not deemed worth the investment – the irony being that it's now one of the most fashionable areas of Paris because of its pre-Revolution charm, thronged with cobblestone streets and (largely) tasteful boutiques. For those of more delicate sensitivities, there were quite a few adult shops here. And while I can think of a few quipping that this was reason for my visit – very funny Dad – it was, as the introduction has laboriously made clear, to engage with Jewish culture.
In this, it didn't disappoint. Le Marais is home to the old Jewish quarter, which had a wonderfully historical ambience to it that reminded me a little of my time living in Jerusalem. Visiting on Pesach was a mixed blessing: many of the shops were closed, but those that remained open had a nice festive feel and some surprisingly good gluten-free biscuits. Though these of course couldn't be leavened, they had provided some much-needed levity following my visit to the Holocaust memorial, referred to as "La Shoah" in France. It claimed approximately one quarter of the country's Jewish population. Yet what I hadn't appreciated before my visit was just how cosmopolitan the Jewish community of France was at this time – attracting an influx of Jewish immigrants in prior decades because the country was seen as a relatively more tolerant place, compared with other parts of the continent.
The diversity of French Jewry at this time is beautifully showcased at the Museum of Jewish Art and History (the French is acronymised to "MAHJ"). You enter through a stunning courtyard which, for me, was serenely quiet; I smugly awarded myself a proverbial pat on the back for being one of the first to visit that morning, before realising it was Shabbat and that most of the city's Jews were probably at synagogue praying, rather than ennobling an excuse to walk off their slightly gluttonous breakfast. The permanent exhibition offered a lovely array of artefacts and artwork, accompanied by informative placards, some of which were in English. There were some beautifully ornate torahs and accoutrements from across Europe and North Africa – definitely the most impressive display I've seen outside of Israel.
This was the closest I got to the "good times" – caveating the placards covering medieval persecution, the Spanish Inquisition and the Dreyfus Affair, to name just a few. However, it was certainly more upbeat than my subsequent visit to the Shoah memorial. There were some conflicting emotions percolating as I went through the museum. On the one hand, the institutional support for Holocaust memorialisation in France seems firm and widespread. There were probably close to fifty police officers touring the museum at the same time as me; a lady working there later explained to me that visiting the memorial is a compulsory part of their training. This can be traced back to former President Jacques Chirac, who in 1995 presided over the inauguration of the renovated Memorial. It was on this occasion that he officially recognised, for the first time, France's culpability in the deportation of French Jews to extermination camps during its collaboration with the Nazis.
All objectively good stuff. And yet I couldn't help but feel a little pissed off. To me, this is the low-hanging fruit. It's easy to lament or repent for the Holocaust; it was so naked and so odious that (nearly) everyone can see it for what it was. But in a post-October 7 world, it's hard to see how this is the primary danger facing Jews anymore. While it's great that European leaders can today acknowledge the crimes of their forefathers, frankly, it rings a little hollow when you have such a juxtaposition between the noble words intoned around Holocaust Memorial Day and the utter spinelessness displayed when it comes to dealing with the issues that currently imperil our community. I'm not even that inclined to celebrate these supposedly noble words because, to me, their weight is diluted every time a European leader self-flagellates for some peccadillo their predecessors might have been guilty of hundreds of years ago. It fails to put the Holocaust in its proper, unique and turpitudinous historical context – and instead gets blurred into a narrative of original sin that started with colonialism, for which we can never truly repent. Now, because our self-esteem is so low that we daren't criticise any other culture, we are lamentably incapable of criticising those who today harbour deeply antisemitic views and are materially threatening Europe's Jews once more.
Last month, I read an article on LinkedIn by Ashley Hirst, a British Jew my parents' age, lamenting our decline in the UK. He speaks almost wistfully of a bygone age thirty years ago, during which Jews were so comfortable in their identities that they could greet that old question of whether you're British or Jewish with incredulity. One line in particular stood out to me: "thirty good years don't abolish two thousand bad ones". The point he was making here was that his generation shouldn't have been so naïve, yet to me it brought up something different. Historically speaking, for all the suffering, Europe has been a more meaningful home to Jews than anywhere else. That history – that thousand or so years in which we have inhabited this continent – should not be lost or disavowed.
You will find no more ardent a supporter of the state of Israel than me but, for all the protection it has brought Jews, it has had the unintended consequence of killing European Jewry. Linguistically, this happened a long time ago with the supplanting of Yiddish with Hebrew; with the distance of eighty years, it's now clear that this has been the consequence demographically as well. For the first time meaningfully since the destruction of the Second Temple, Jews have known they could pack and leave, and that they would be welcomed elsewhere with open arms. People are right to highlight that the global Jewish population has yet to recover from the Holocaust, but another disquieting statistic is that the European Jewish population has actually continued falling since 1945, from 3.8 million down to 1.4 million today.
While I'm deeply grateful for the safe haven Israel has provided Jews, I also strongly feel that too many people have died, suffered and been dehumanised to simply get up and go. As someone who is quite possibly about to uproot his life and move to the US, I know this might sound hypocritical, but the truth is I'm uncertain. These questions are genuinely hard and, given the relative nascency of the Jewish state, without real precedent. It was perhaps easier the other way round, when Jews didn't have Israel; the lands of Abraham and Moses were always going to be a place for which we would pine to return. It's harder to make the case for Europe. When you see the demographic changes taking place, it's reasonable to wonder whether this amounts to wrestling with the sea. Surely, if more Jews could have left Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, they would have; that would have undoubtedly been a lesser tragedy than what ensued. Yet they didn't and they were slaughtered in their millions. Standing before the Wall of Names at the Shoah Memorial – 76,000 of them, each representing a life, a family, a thread of European Jewish history severed – it is hard not to feel the weight of what departure, willing or otherwise, truly costs. The blood of our ancestors soaks this land; their tortured memories entomb this continent. We can all move to Israel or America, but we, and Europe, will have lost something. In the absence of confrontation, memory fades into obscurity. As one of history's oldest peoples, every Jew that walks this earth is a living embodiment of our collective memory – perhaps, though I know it doesn't always feel this way, a reminder to their countrymen of past sins and, more optimistically, humanity's progress.
In the biblical tradition, Jews think of themselves as a light unto others. Not the kings, not the institutions, but a light. It need not be overpowering, it need not suffuse the continent, but it must burn a little: for those we've lost, for those who remain; for our posterity and for wider civilisation. This is not a clarion call, but it is a challenge – a challenge to engage just a little more: to walk down those cobblestone alleys, enter a synagogue, wear kippah and remind ourselves of our history and our belonging – because, if the worst truly does happen, then I hope we will pine for a return to Europe, as we did for Israel, pray for it and never forget it.