14 triday, April 8, 19J7
THE 4E4110
'111
. JE*ISH NEWS
French Jews Rising Politically,
But Jewish Identity is Declining
By EDWIN EYTAN
(Copyright 1977, JTA, Inc.)
PARIS— A recent survey
carried out on behalf of the
Council of Jewish Represen-
tative Organizations re-
vealed that over 700,000
Jews now live in France
with over half this number
in the Paris area. This fig-
ure also indicates that
France's Jews represent
nearly - 1.5 percent of the
country's overall population
and play a major role in
several important economic
and cultural sectors.
The survey, carried out
by SOFRES, one of
France's foremost pubft re-
, search institutes, reveals
that Jews staff key posts in
the banking and financial
world, operate or run impor-
tant retail businesses and
contribute professors, doc-
tors and lawyers to the pro-
fessional classes.
For many French Jewish
sociologists the Jewish com-
munity has entered into its
"Golden Era" with many
second, or often first-gener-
ation Jews, playing major
roles in the country's activi-
ties. Among the Jews born
abroad, generally in North
Africa, now occupying cen-
tral roles are economist Jac-
ques Attali who also serves
as Socialist leader Francois
Mitterrand's main advisor,
writer Jacques Memi, and
politician Nicole Chourqui.
Several hundred Jewish
candidates are running for
election in the forthcoming
nation-wide municipal
races. Three Jews are mem-
bers of the French govern-
ment: Minister of Health
Simone Veil (described by
recent public opinion polls
as the most popular politi-
cal personality in the coun-
try) ; Secretary of State for
Labor Lionel Stoleru, a
practicing .Jew who re-
spects kashrut; and the Sec-
retary of State for Overseas
Possessions, , Olivier Stirn,
who is one of French Presi-
dent Valery Giscard
d'Estaing's closest con-
fidantes and has just cre-
ated the first Giscardian po-
litical party with the Presi-
dent's support and filessing.
Stoleru and Stirn are both
in their 30s and were pro-
moted to Cabinet rank after
the government reshuffle
last summer.
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Grunfeld to Play
Maccabia Event
IIP
RAMAT GAN, Israel—
Ernie Grunfeld, member of
the U.S. Olympic basketball
team, will play on the U.S.
basketball team in the 10th
Maccabia Games in Israel
this summer.
France has a long tradi-
tion of liberalism and lack
of prejudice in its political
life. Since the end of World
War II, a Black, Gaston
Monnerville, has served as
Senate president and three
Jews, Leon Blum ; Pierre
Mendes-France and Rene
Meyer, as Prime Ministers.
In recent years this tenden-
cy has further grown.
More and more Jews fill
important political posts,
mainly, however, within the
ranks of the Socialist Party
and by a strange paradox
within the Communist
Party, too. The Communist
Party's contender for
Mayor of Paris was Henri
Fiszbin, the son of Polish
Jewish immigrants. Some
15 percent of the Commun-
ist municipal candidates in
Paris have Jewish names
and many are the offspring
of communally active Jew-
ish families.
A lack of interest in Jew-
ish communal affairs
marks not only the Jewish
Communists but seems
symptomatic of an entire
new Jewish generation in
France. French, Jewish lead-
ers, are usually in their 60s
and few Jewish organiza-
tions have managed to at-
tract younger, profes-
sionally highly successful
Jews or those coming from
the country's intellectual
community, or top univer-
sities.
This lack of attraction
was also reflected in the
serious drop in income suf-
fered by the French United
Jewish Appeal last year.
The total sums raised
dropped by some 20 per-
cent. Even more serious is
the fact that the number of
donors dropped 'by nearly
25 percent.
Mixed marriages, consid-
erably on the rise, also help
to feed this lack of interest.
To this must be added the
relatively lackluster quality
of the Jewish professionals
who help run the ,major or-
ganizations.
This dissatisfaction with
organized Jewish life is
also apparent from the cir-
culation figures of the local
Jewish press. The monthly
"L'Arche," published by
the Fonds Social Juif Unifie
(the French equivalent of
the Council of Jewish Feder-
ations and Welfare Funds)
has a paid-up circulation of
about 5,000; the main week-
ly "Tribune Juive," about
10,000 and the Daily News
Bulletin serviced by the
Jewish Telegraphic Agency,
less than 2,000. French Jew-
ish writers or journalists
rarely agree to contribute
to these publications thus in-
dicating the general French
Jewish attitude.
France's Jews are living
in a period of personal pros-
perity and success while
their communal organiza-
tions have reached their
lowest ebb.
PARIS (JTA)—Walter
Rauff, a wanted Nazi war
criminal held responsible
for sending 250,000 people
to the gas chambers, is liv-
ing in Punta Arenas, Chile,
according to Simon Wiesen-
thal, head of the Nazi war
crimes documentation cen-
ter in Vienna.
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