POLITICIZING RELIGIONS.....

          "The flag of the State of Israel has no place on the flagpole of the "Peace Synagogue"

Georges Yoram Federmann, a psychiatrist and left-wing activist from Strasbourg, France, believes that the Strasbourg synagogue is equating Jews with the State of Israel by allowing the Israeli flag to fly. For him, religion should not be preempted by politics. 

Since the pogrom of October 7, the Israeli flag has been flying, along with the French flag, on the mast of the Great Synagogue on Avenue de la Paix-Simone Veil.

Although local Alsatian-Moselle law does not consider that displaying a foreign flag on a religious building constitutes an offence, I wonder about the message sent by the synagogue, to Jews and non-Jews.

I understand that this is a sign of solidarity with the State of Israel, painfully wounded on October 7, and a prayer for the release of the Israeli hostages still in the hands of Hamas.

But this symbol seems to me to be damaging today because it contributes to assimilating Jews and Israelis, and therefore to maintaining a confusion which contributes to the rise of anti-Semitism.

Yet in public debates, many are trying to make the distinction, particularly in this tense context, and while international criminal proceedings are being initiated against both the Prime Minister of Israel, Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu, and against three Hamas leaders (two of whom have already been executed by Israel, which has taken justice into its own hands, once again).

"I do not recognize myself in any way in the massacres committed by the Israeli army"

Georges Federmann

As a French Jew, I do not recognize myself in any way in the justification of the massacres committed by the Israeli army for eleven months in Gaza. The intervention of the Israeli army in Gaza has caused the death of several tens of thousands of Palestinians, the vast majority of them women and children. It has organized the systematic destruction of homes and infrastructure, sparing neither schools nor hospitals, it has deliberately led to starving and depriving the population of care, while prohibiting access to the territory to the press. Cholera, polio and hepatitis A have reappeared. There is no hesitation in speaking of genocide. 

The essential fight against anti-Semitism, which is on the rise in France and Europe, can only suffer from this unnecessary violence. As a Jew, I refuse to be associated with it in the slightest.

As I denounce the crude amalgamations maintained by the bodies representing Judaism in France accusing of anti-Semitism those who criticize the policy of the Israeli government, an amalgamation of which LFI pays the price every day, with the obvious objective of weakening the New Popular Front.

As a Jew living in France, I support Jewish voices in Israel who speak of peace, condemn the war in Gaza, denounce the occupation, call for recognition of the national rights of the Palestinian people and for a peaceful solution which alone will bring dignity and security to the Palestinian and Israeli peoples.

I express my solidarity in particular with B'Tselem (Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories), Breaking the Silence (bringing together former soldiers), Standing Together (campaigning for a common future between the two peoples), the young Israelis refusing to go and fight in Gaza or in the Occupied Territories and all those who oppose the criminal acts carried out by Benjamin Netanyahu and his ministers.

Israel does not provide security for Jews around the world.

Georges Federmann

Israel is failing to ensure the safety of Jews around the world: by claiming to carry out the ongoing genocide in their name, it is confiscating their voice, endangering them, and generating anti-Semitism.

Not everyone is able to distinguish between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, and Israel's violence over the past year has fuelled this morbid confusion.

Generally speaking, places of worship should not be preempted by nations, even if they partly finance them. I find this appropriation questionable from the point of view of living together and the need, beyond our different beliefs, to affirm that we are a society.

And I console myself by deciphering the succession of celebrations and spiritual and religious symbols for harmony and peace, while questioning their constant and deadly diversions.

Since this is indeed the "Synagogue of Peace", I would like to remind you that Peace is unconditional for every sister and brother in humanity who populates the earth. It cannot be achieved under the conditions of the strongest embodied by the Israeli flag, for the moment. And the motto on the pediment: "Stronger than the sword is my spirit" must not remain a dead letter.

Georges Yoram Federmann

The original text by Mr. Federmann was published in French, I translated it and copied the article for our blog, as I found it to be very expressive of a current problem facing most non Zionist Jewish of multi nationalities in different countries and continents. 

As always, my gratitude for your following.