The 20th-century scourge of dog doo on the sidewalks of Paris has given way to the nuisance of tossed cigarette butts. While smokers continue to deploy their arms on the terrace of cafés and restaurants, the fight against butts on the ground is now underfoot.

Toxic, harmful to the environment and expensive to clean up – though good press for meticulous crows – throwing a cigarette butt on the ground in Paris can lead (since 2016) to a fine of 68 euros. But it’s a highly unlikely penalty.

Now, however, where there’s smoke in the park, there could be a fine. Corinne LaBalme sent in the news having seen a no-smoking sign at the entrance to Square des Batignolles (17th), her local green space. Since July that’s one of six parks and gardens that have been declared non-smoking zones as part of a trial policy by the City of Paris. Warning signs have been posted in Square Anne Frank (3rd), Square Yilmaz Guney (10th), Square Trousseau (12th), Jardin Henri Cadiou (13th) and Parc Georges Brassens (15th) as well. If adopted citywide later this fall, she writes, that nicotine hit in the park will cost 38 euros. Smokeless park-strolling is already enforced in Strasbourg.

Sparkling water is in

While Corinne was enjoying the smoke-free greenery in her neighborhood, I visited a new garden in the 11th, the city’s most densely populated arrondissement and one of its least green.

Open since July and officially inaugurated this month, Jardin Truillot is a 1.4-acre swath of path and greenery between Boulevards Richard Lenoir and Voltaire.

While one exit of Jardin Truillot faces Saint Ambroise Church (1860s), the opposite exit faces the sidewalk where Ahmed Merabet, a policeman on duty near the offices of Charlie Hebdo, was killed during the Islamist terrorist attack of January 7, 2015.

Considered the capital’s 500th green space, Truillot continues Paris’s contemporary vision of the role of green spaces in the city in reminding Parisians of the importance of agriculture, biodiversity and wine,

providing space for children to play – or at least place their toys,

promoting the drinking of city water, including sparkling city water,

and offering damp grass to sit or lie on.

Truillot is an uninspired choice of a name by the City of Paris; he’s a fellow who once owned the land. Nevertheless, to judge by the crowds on a sunny weekend, neighborhood residents are clearly pleased to see it open to the public after years of talk and planning. But since you can’t please all the people all the time, some neighbors are unhappy that Truillot remains open round the clock. So while garden-goers may take to nap on the grass during the day, several neighbors who overlook the garden claim that this strip of greenery is infringing upon their right to sleep (droit au sommeil) at night.

It may be little consolation on a sleepless night, but there must be quite a few smokers in Paris who would love have a balcony where they can step outside at 3am on a warm summer night and puff away with a view of a garden and a church, before flicking the butt out to the path below.

© 2018, Gary Lee Kraut, with assistance from Corinne LaBalme.

The post Green Paris: Smoking Is Out, Sparkling Water Is In appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

It was the synagogue’s cleaning woman, a Muslim of Moroccan origin, who called the rabbi in a panic to tell him that eight soldiers, heavily armed and carrying duffel bags, had arrived with orders to protect the synagogue. And they were hungry, having been shipped out from their base southwest France without provisions.

The previous day, in response to the terror attacks of January 7 and 9, Prime Minister Manuel Valls had made a stirring speech to the National Assembly in which he reaffirmed an earlier declaration that “without the Jews of France, France would no longer be France.”

Kehilat Gesher, a small bilingual (French-English) synagogue of 160 families, was now one of the sites where a total of more than 10,000 soldiers would be affected to “ensure the permanent protection of sensitive points and of public spaces, with priority given to Jewish schools, synagogues and mosques,” as the prime minister declared the night before.

Cohen, the founding rabbi of Kehilat Gesher, quickly left his home in the Marais to meet the men.

Meanwhile, Rabbi Pauline Bebe, Cohen’s wife, who is French, discovered that a squad had also been sent to protect the Centre Mayaan, the community center and synagogue of the Communauté Juive Libérale d’Ile de France located in the 11th arrondissement.

Rabbis Cohen and Bebe form a unique couple in Judaism in France and worldwide. They are both ordained in the Jewish movement called “Libérale” in French which corresponds to the Reform movement in the UK and the US, though for some Americans its approach might appear to be midway between Reform and Conservative. The Reform movement upholds the equality of men and women in religious practice and leadership. Reform Jews represent about 5% of the France’s Jewish population, which is estimated at 500-600,000. Most Jews in France are not affiliated with any synagogue, while the majority of those who are belong to Orthodox synagogues. The third major current of Judaism in France is the Conservative or Massorti movement.

The synagogue and the soldiers

For three months after they first arrived, squads of eight lived at Kehilat Gescher 24/7, in rotation, as at other sensitive sites. “Everyone, even a little hole in the wall synagogue like ours, had eight,” said Cohen.

After a time their presence became the new normal, but the initial weeks provided a learning experience for the rabbi, the members of the synagogue and the soldiers. The first three weeks Kahilat Gesher hosted and was guarded by a platoon from the Montauban-Toulouse area. That’s the area from which three soldiers were killed in the terrorist attacks of March 2012 that also included the murder of a teacher and three children at a Jewish school in Toulouse.

“This group knew that the first people that Muslim extremists were killing [in France] were soldiers,” said Cohen, “so they knew they were in the line of fire. And they were trying to figure out ‘What’s the connection between Jews and soldiers?’”

What is the connection?

“The soldiers and the government represent the authority… and the Jews… are the easiest way to get a lot of bang for your buck. That’s the short answer, while there are a lot of ands, ifs and buts that I could add to that.”

(The initial interview with Rabbi Cohen for this article was conducted one week prior to the attacks of November 13, 2015 that killed 130 people in Paris.)

Though Cohen wasn’t aware of any soldiers assigned to Kehilat Gesher being of Jewish faith, the soldiers sometimes did take special part in the Saturday morning service.

“I did things during that time that I, as a foreigner, could get away with but that other rabbis, including my wife, would not even think of or do because they grew up in this culture… Every Saturday morning we have at the end of the Torah reading of our service a prayer for France, as synagogues everywhere around the world have a prayer for the government. So Saturday mornings I would ask the soldiers [who were off duty inside] if one of them wouldn’t mind reading the prayer for France. Having a guy come here in full metal jacket reading [this prayer], for the community, especially at that time period when everyone was shaken, was very moving, and extremely moving for the soldiers as well.… They would sometimes tremble when reading it.”

Some, he adds, would also sit in on one of the various classes given in French at Kehilat Gesher, discussions about the Torah, the Talmud or questions of Jewish life and ethics.

That, he said, is “at least one thing that can be pulled out of the dark days of January. Generally those who join the army tend to be more patriotic, nationalistic than most other citizens. Therefore politically the more nationalistic parties reach out to them and they’re more attracted to those parties. So to have almost 10% of the French army living in close quarters, mainly with the Jewish community, for three months… I hope that somewhere along the line those seeds will bear fruit… Everyone, in all of the communities, treated them like their own kids…”

Every Saturday afternoon 20 sushi meals were anonymously ordered for the soldiers at Kahilat Gesher. Congregants were ordering pizzas for them. A woman from the neighborhood who wasn’t a member of the synagogue knocked on the door one day and offered them a large pot of couscous, saying it was kosher.

After three month the rhythm changed and the army stood guard only whenever activities taking place. Cohen assumed that that, too, would slow down or stop as the year went on, but the rhythm continued.

“The government is in for the long-haul,” he said, “which is a good thing, I guess… That’s one thing I always point out to [those] who say ‘This is 1933 [in France], the brown shirts and Kristalnacht are around the corner.’ There are two major differences: one of them is that there is [the existence of] Israel, the other is that it’s the government that’s been taking the lead to try to protect us.”

Making Aliyah: Moving to Israel

The Jewish Agency for Israel, an Israeli organization operating internationally to assist those interested in moving to Israel and “to rescue Jews from countries where they are at risk,” reported for 2014 “a dramatic increase in Aliyah [the Hebrew term for immigration to Israel] from France. That year saw the arrival in Israel of 7,000 new immigrants from France, more than double the 3,400 who arrived in 2013 and triple the 1,900 who came in 2012.” That made 2014 the first year in which more immigrants came from France than from any other country. France has the largest Jewish population in Europe and the third-largest in the world after Israel and the United States.

Within days of the January attacks Natan Sharansky, head of the Jewish Agency, estimated that 15,000 French Jews could immigrate to Israel in 2015. In fact, about 7800 French Jews made Aliyah that year, according to the Jewish Agency. [Post-note: In Jan. 2017 the Jewish Agency announced that under 5000 French Jews immigrated to Israel in 2016.]

In early 2015, in the wake of anti-Semitic acts in Paris and then in Copenhagen, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Natanyahu’s call on Jews to leave France and Europe overall was widely condemned in Europe as unhelpful, even insulting. Asked a year later (May 2016) to describe Israel’s policy toward immigration from France, Israeli Ambassador Aliza Bin-Noun said that the official Israeli position was that immigration to Israel was a personal matter and that Israel would do all that it could to help those who want to establish themselves in Israel to do so. The ambassador qualified that by quoting her father: “When he heard that there was an anti-Semitic event anywhere in the world he always told me, ‘I think they deserve it because now we have a Jewish country… so if something happens to Jews in the world it’s their responsibility… Now we have a Jewish country, a country that can protect all of the Jews in the world.’”

Said Cohen: “Somebody who wants to move to Israel because they have a project and for a fuller Jewish life, I think, especially as a rabbi, that’s great, I want to help you out. Someone who’s running away because 10% of the population of France is Muslim and you’re scared is something else… It [fear] is one those things that doesn’t become the primary reason but it’s an additional reason for someone to leave.”

[Estimates of the number of people of Muslim faith or heritage in France vary from about 6 to 10% of an overall population of 66 million.]

Cohen cautions that what the numbers of those moving to Israel do not indicate is the return rate, particularly for those who leave over the age of 40, when “integration is much more difficult than when you go right after your studies.”

Furthermore, he said, “It’s very hard to discern how many people are actually leaving because of their fear of anti-Semitism [and] how many of them—especially if you’re younger and you have a degree and you haven’t been able to get a job for a long time in France…—are leaving for economic reasons. Those who have some connection to go to the United States—that’s the golden ring. But for French who do not have the American connection, if you’re Jewish, Israel is the easy place to go. Otherwise the other ambitious entrepreneurs of that age who are not Jewish and are not going to think of going to Israel tend to go to London, which is now the seventh largest ‘French’ city.”

“Economic Aliyah [from France] is very important, much more important, I think, than the anti-Semitic Aliyah,” he said. “And on top of it there’s the third element which is financial Aliyah. In the past several years… there is a huge financial drain going on in France. The highly wealthy [have moved to] London, Brussels, Luxembourg. They take the train in to work here, but they’ve established tax residencies in other countries. You have a large group of Jews doing that as well. [There are] many [Jewish] French businessmen who moved their families to Israel but come to France to work during the week. They’ve established their tax residence there but they live out their financial life here.”

In his own synagogue, he said, “I have a handful leave each year and they tend to be all in their mid to late 20s. The families that I’m aware of leaving had left over the past year or two [before the January attacks] for financial reasons.” He said that he hasn’t had any Anglo-Saxon families leave France to return home out of fear, but rather because the time of their mission in Paris was up.

Could it be that Reform Jews feel less threatened than Orthodox Jews, among which the men wear skullcaps and the children may attend Jewish schools?

“You can’t deny that there’s anti-Semitism that’s within certain aspects of society here.”

Have you seen any change in that in the more than 20 years that you’ve been in Paris?

“What has changed for me is that starting around 2000, 2001, for the first time the people in polite society who would not have said something [anti-Semitic], though they may have always thought it, they no longer felt the societal pressure to be quiet. So there’s then a loosening of tongues which then creates an atmosphere that permits things. They’ve given themselves permission to say things that they wouldn’t have said beforehand. But I don’t think the actual number of anti-Semites has necessarily changed, certainly within what are called the French ‘de souche’ [old stock French]… In a way you can say that the French are far less anti-Semitic than they’ve ever been. But within a subgroup, specifically with an Islamic subgroup of radical Islam, it’s off the charts.”

According to the American Jewish Committee, a global Jewish advocacy group that occasionally reports on public opinion surveys with regards to anti-Semitism, “Three distinct groups in France are noticeably more anti-Jewish than the overall population… The groups are supporters of the National Front party (extreme right), to a lesser extent supporters of the Left Front coalition (extreme left), and members of the Muslim community.” Surveys conducted by the New York-based Anti-Defamation League regarding anti-Semitism in Europe found “a dramatic decrease” in anti-Semitic attitudes in France between the fall of 2014 and the spring of 2015, with 77 of those polled agreeing that “violence against Jews in this country affects everyone and is an attack on our way of life.” It concluded that “concern about violence against Jews increased by 20 percent in France, 31 percent in Belgium, and 33 percent in Germany.” While the ADL’s “anti-Semitism” index revealed scores that were “extremely high for Muslims,” the lowest level was recorded in France, at 49% compared to 17% percent in the population overall. The United Kingdom, for example, Muslims scored at 54% on the index compared to 17% in the overall British population.

The first few Sabbaths after the attacks of January an imam friend of the Rabbi Cohen came to every service to show his support. “He asked me if he could come and I said ‘Of course.’ I do a lot of interfaith dialogue. However, one of the things that I as well as other leaders who are involved in any sort of outreach, we’re very wary of creating problems for our interlocutor” due to a backlash in their own religious communities. In order to support the more moderate voices among Muslim leaders, he said, the Catholic Church has been helpful because “it’s less of a sin to have a dialogue with Catholics.” Catholics can then initiate interfaith dialogues with imams and “once that starts happening you can bring in the back door and start bringing in some rabbis.”

Paris’s bilingual synagogue

Tom Cohen and Pauline Bebe met when they were students in Israel in the late 1980s. Originally from Oak Grove, Oregon, near Portland, Cohen attended the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, the West Coast affiliate of the Jewish Theological Seminary (Conservative) in New York. He then completed his seminary studies in New York while Bebe complete hers at Leo Baeck College in London. In 1990 Bebe became the first woman from continental Europe to be ordained as a rabbi since Regina Jonas was ordained in Germany in 1938. (Jonas was later assassinated at Auschwitz.) Women were ordained in the United Kingdom as early as 1975 at Leo Baeck College. Today she is the doyenne of the three female rabbis of France.

For several years Cohen and Bebe racked up high cross-Atlantic telephone bills, the both moved to Paris, to marry and to work.

In the fall of 1992 Rabbi Cohen was appointed at the synagogue on Rue Copernic (Union Libérale Israélite de France, 16th arrondissement of Paris), Paris’s oldest Reform synagogue, to second Rabbi Michael Williams, a Brit. (That synagogue was already officiated by Williams in 1980 when it was the site of a terrorist attack, the first such attack against Jews in France since WWII.)

In 1993 Cohen was approached by “four or five” bilingual (English-French) Jewish families in the western suburbs of Paris to assist them in teaching and understanding Jewish life. He described the families as comprised of Jewish women from New York married Frenchmen—“half Sephardic Jewish guys who threw the tefillin off of the boat as they entered Marseille to be more French than the French and the other half fallen Catholics.” In particular the women wanted to know how and what to transmit to their children in terms of a Jewish education. “They came up with the idea of starting a light Friday-night service in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and their friends then heard about it in Paris and also wanted to join.”

As the number of participants grew Cohen developed the structure of a formal synagogue by founding Kehilat Gesher. For a while services were held alternately in Saint-Germain-en-Laye and Paris, but Rabbi Cohen soon realized that all of the growth was in Paris.

Kehilat Gesher holds services in French and English along with Hebrew prayer. Cohen himself is bilingual, as are many of the congregants. For Torah study, parents can have their children educated in either English or French.

Warm, voluble and good-humored, Cohen has developed Kehilat Gesher into a religious center that is a reflection of his own personality and of the diverse backgrounds of its members. Sixty percent of the families at Kehilat Gesher are French, while 40% are mixed French-English-speaking natives or fully English-speaking native families. The congregation brings together Ashkenazic and Sephardic cultures. Most of the native English-speakers are American, while “a handful” are British and there are also other foreign nations (Dutch, Swedish, etc.). Of the English-speakers, “the Brits tend to be the more involved,” said Rabbi Cohen. “All of them have them have taken on some kind of responsibility to make the community function, not just in a user mode but also in a provider mode.” The synagogue currently has 160 member families, a “family” meaning an individual, a couple or a family with children for membership purposes.

For the past decade Kehilat Gesher has been renting space in the 17th arrondissement, near the Courcelles metro station, and has recently been looking to expand to a more permanent setting. “We’re looking to have a place of about 500m2 [5400 sq. ft] and we want to stay in the 17th because this is our historic home.”

They now have 125m2 [1350 sq. ft.] for a variety of activities, including a 40m2 multipurpose rooms where religious services are held. To accommodate services for a “lifecyle event” such as a bar- or bat-mitzvah, Kehilat Gesher must to rent an alternate space.

“We’ve reached saturation point,” said Cohen. “A lot of the French families who come to see the place love the community but can’t join because it seems like a fly-by-night operation in a storefront. I was never a brick person, I was person oriented, but I realize that bricks have their place.”

Rabbi Cohen is hoping to find a place soon and then to begin fundraising. The synagogue survives by membership and donations. Kehilat Gesher USA is a U.S.-based non-profit organization through which Americans can give to the synagogue. Kehilat Gesher also participates with Rabbi Bebe’s synagogue in the Fondation Maayan, which enables tax deductions for donations.

Centre Maayan

While Rabbi Cohen was developing Kehilat Gesher in the mid-90s, Rabbi Bebe was created her own synagogue, the Communauté juive libérale (CJL) Ile de France, which she founded in 1995. Formerly housed in a space near Place de Cliché similar to Kehilat Gesher’s today, the CJL now occupies a large space in the 11th arrondissement that Bebe dubbed the Centre Maayan (Maayan means source of water in Hebrew). With the move membership quickly grew from 170 families to 400 families, an evolution that Cohen hopes to emulate when Kehilat Gesher moves to a large space. Bebe is fluent is English, as Cohen is in French, and while some native English-speakers and bilingual families do attend CJL—and visitors are welcome—the services and instruction are in French, with French and Hebrew prayer.

Bebe’s synagogue is a luminous space with light beige wood seating in a semi-circle around the bema, as the raised podium on which the rabbi stands is called. A tree bearing colorful leaves decorates the ark, the ornamental closet where the torahs are kept. A playful chandelier of dancing metal and colored glass lightens the area around it. Bebe stands at a podium on which a fabric is embroidered with curving stems in flower.

On the Friday after the November 13, 2015 terrorist attacks that killed 130 people and wounded many others, about an equal number of congregants were in attendance, filling about half the room. About one quarter of the women and girls wear skullcaps; nearly all of the men do.

A piano by the podium, played by an elderly congregant, accompanies the chanting during the service. There is warmth to the service but not exuberance. The banter between the congregants appears to be more restrained than that at Rabbi Cohen’s synagogue across the city, the reflection of both cultural differences and the approaches of each rabbi.

The Centre Maayan is located near the offices of Charlie Hebdo that were attacked on January 7 and near the Bataclan concert hall attacked on Nov. 13. During the Charlie Hebdo attack a Muslim policeman named Ahmed Merabet was murdered on the sidewalk at the corner near the synagogue. In her sermon after the November attack, Bebe recalled Merabet’s smile, familiar to her since would pass him frequently on her way to and from the synagogue. She reminded the congregation that one can no longer say that the targets are others. In their hatred of those who don’t resemble them, the assassins see numbers, not people, she said. She called these acts attacks on humanity and concludes that in the simple act of having coffee on the café terrace, the cup itself could now be seen as a sign of humanity that the terrorists would deny.

Together, Cohen and Bebe, parents of four children ages 12 to 20, created a Jewish summer camp in 2014. In 2015 they very quickly attained their limit of 70 children, ages 8 to 16. In 2016 they expanded to allow in 102 children with a staff of about 30. Several dozen children had to be refused for lack of space.

While that increase undoubtedly reflects the quality of the offer, Cohen said that it is also shows that terrorism in France and anti-Semitic attacks in general have not dampened the desire for French Jews to live as Jews in France.

Given the immediate success of the summer camp, why didn’t they bring their two fledgling communities together 20 years ago as they were both getting started?

There is some joining of forces between of the couples’ synagogues with special events, concerts, teaching, but Cohen cites three reasons for never wanting to create a common synagogue: First, they didn’t want the community to get in the way of their couple. Second, it’s important that anyone who joins his wife’s community has to know that their rabbi is a woman; otherwise, he said, there’s the risk that some would see the male rabbi as a kind of superior by virtue of being male. Third, “my wife wouldn’t like my services and I wouldn’t like her services. We have different styles, but that’s okay, we joke about it.”

Madame Le Rabbin and Monsieur La Rabbine

In French un rabbin is rabbi and une rabbine is a rabbi’s wife. So while Pauline Bebe is une rabbine by virtue of being Rabbi Cohen’s wife, she also un rabbin in her own right. As France’s first female rabbi she felt it her prerogative to decide how she should be addressed as a rabbi. Wishing to be addressed by the title rather than the person, she therefore elected to be called Madame le Rabbin.

Meanwhile, Tom Cohen, as the first husband of a female rabbi in France, felt it his prerogative (“me, who bastardizes the French language all the time”) to decide what the term in French for that would be. “I decided on the same logic, so while in my synagogue I’m Monsieur le Rabbin, when I’m in her synagogue just as her husband I’m Monsieur la Rabbine. It’s my little contribution to France.”

Not so sure the Académie Française would agree.

* * *

Both Kehilat Gescher and Centre Maayan welcome visitors wishing to attend services. For security reasons, it’s advisable to call or write first to let them know that you’d like to attend on a given day.

Kehilat Gesher
Rabbi Tom Cohen
7 Rue Léon Cogniet, 75017 Paris
Telephone: 09 53 18 90 86

Communauté juive libérale Ile de France at the Centre Maayan
Rabbi Pauline Bebe
10 Rue Moufle, 75011 Paris
Telephone: 01 55 28 83 84

© 2016, Gary Lee Kraut

An earlier, shorter version of this article appeared in The Connexion in January 2016.

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The post A Couple of Rabbis in Paris appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Immediately after the attack of January 7, 2015 Paris was “Charlie” in solidarity with the individuals and values under fire at Charlie Hebdo, though some refused the refrain. After the further attack of January 9 at Hyper Casher and the manhunt for the perpetrators of the terror, some would also add a oneness with Jews and police to their slogan, but “Je suis Charlie” became the three overarching words.

“Fluctuat nec mergitur,” the motto of Paris for centuries, meaning that (it is) tossed about (by the waves but) not sunk/submerged, immediately began appearing as a slogan in the wake of the killing spree of Nov. 13.

The words first appeared at the attack sites-cum-memorials on the morning of November 14. Here is one of its initial expressions as it was written on a flag placed on the ground in front of the bar Le Carillon, one of the first sites be hit in Paris during the wave of attacks. Along with fluctuat nec mergitur, the individual had also written Paris: ville lumière (city of light).

Two and half days later, hundreds of candles, flowers and other slogans have be placed on the sidewalk along with the flag, which can barely be seen peeking out from beside the wall.

By then the motto/slogan was appearing here and there throughout the city, though certainly not as extensively, affirmatively and meaningfully as “Je suis Charlie.” Three Latin words can only go so far in a slogan- and logo-hungry world. Nevertheless, they began to crop up, white letters against a black background, and nowhere more visible than on Place de la République.

A team went to work to paint those words on the side of a building by Canal Saint Martin in the 10th arrondissement.

The coat of arms or heraldry of the City of Paris has evolved over time, but more than the motto itself, one element that has remained constant is the use of a ship to represent the administration of Paris.

As the Gallo-Roman city of Lutetia, home to the Celtic tribe of the Parisii, developed along the Seine River 2000 years ago, the boatmen naturally gained in stature. These boatmen or nautes were organized under the title Nautae Parisiaci (not to be confused with naughty Parisians). The Nautae Parisiaci donated a stone pillar or monument to the temple of Jupiter, on the site where a Christian basilica would later be built and eventually by Notre-Dame Cathedral. In the Cluny Museum of the Middle Ages, built partly on the site of Roman baths on the Left Bank, visitors can see that pillar, which was excavated from beneath Notre-Dame. The pillar of the nautes honors Roman and Celtic gods.

In the Middle Ages, the powerful corporation that operated commerce along the Seine in Paris was called that of “the water merchants.” Paris was a royal city by then, though the king was frequently elsewhere. Under Louis VII in the 1170s, the important role of these water merchants was affirmed with privileges, further reinforced under the long reign of his son Philippe Auguste. The title “provost of the merchants” was given to the head of the corporation, placing him in the position of leader of the municipal administration of Paris. The National Archives in Paris have a mold of the seal of the water merchants of 1210.

The main offices of the water merchants were naturally near the docks. One of the main docks was on the Right Bank, just across from Ile de la Cité, the island at the center of the city. Place de Grève was the name of that docking area. The grève refers to the sandbanks that were once there. Men would assemble by these docks when looking for work (and when dissatisfied at not having work). Standing or being on the grève came to mean one was looking for work, but that meaning changed over time and in the 19th century being on the grève came to refer, as it still does, to the voluntary stopping of work as a sign of protest or complaint, i.e. to strike.

In 1357 the water merchants purchased a building for municipal use. City Hall stands on that site today, which is only natural since the water merchants assumed the many of the roles of what we think of as the mayor’s office would. The chief city administrator continued to be referred to as “the provost of the merchants” until July 14, 1789, the day of the storming of the Bastille, when the provost was assassinated by gunshot by someone in the angry mob that saw him as a traitor to the cause of their grief against the king. His head was then paraded through the streets on a spike. Since then the leading administrator of city has been called “the mayor.”

The square beside City Hall (Hôtel de Ville) was renamed Place de l’Hôtel de Ville in 1803. Since 2013, on the 69th anniversary of the Liberation of Paris from German occupation, it has officially been called Place de l’Hôtel de Ville – Esplanade de la Libération.

The current City Hall was completed in 1882, partially echoing the style of the 16th-century building that was set aflame in 1871 in the final days of the Commune of Paris.

Tour boats are now the most common vessels seen plying the Seine River as it passes through Paris, yet the sailing merchant ship remains the central element of the symbol of the City of Paris. In particular, it is a silver ship with a silver sail that navigates against a red (gules) background.

Above the ship are golden fleurs de lys (stylized lilies, symbols of French royalty) against an azure blue background, a reminder that this was once a royal city. Paris was also surrounded by ramparts, hence the crenelated crown at the top.

Oak leaves decorate the left side (as the viewer sees it). Laurel leaves decorate the right. Both symbolize heroism.

“Hanging” from the crossed branches at the bottom, the Legion of Honor was added to the motto by decree of October 9, 1900.

To its right was added the Croix de Guerre (à l’ordre de l’Armée) on July 28, 1919. As is written in the decree signed by President Georges Clemenceau (and inscribed on the stone barrier in front of City Hall): “The City of Paris, capital magnificently worthy of France, propelled by a patriotic faith that never waned, withstood with valor equally firm and smiling numerous bombardments by planes and by long-range artillery… from 1914 to 1918 add[ing] imperishable titles to its secular glory.”

Even before the Second World War had ended, the Croix de la Liberation was added to the left of the Legion of Honor on March 24, 1945. As is written in the decree signed by Charles de Gaulle on behalf of the provisional government (and also inscribed on the stone barrier in front of City Hall): “Capital faithful to itself and to France manifested… its unshakable resolution to combat and to vanquish. By its courage in the presence of invaders and by the unconquerable energy with which she [it] withstood the most cruel triels, deerves to remain the example for the entire nation… The city… liberated by its own efforts then united with the advance guard of the French army come to its rescue on 25 August…”

The astute visitor will spot the coat of arms of Paris in whole or in part throughout the capital city.

For example, you’ll notice a ship decorating the streetlamps on Place de la Concorde.

You’ll see a mosaic representation of the city’s coat of arms by the center of the metro track on line 1 at the Hôtel de Ville station:

You’ll see symbols of the city on the elevated structures of the metro along Boulevard de la Chapelle and at La Motte Picquet-Grenelle:

Keep your eyes open and you’ll see elements of the coat of arms of the capital at countless other places around the city: train stations, bridges, schools, municipal buildings, etc.

As I write this, however, in the wake of the terrorist attacks of November 13, it’s the motto Fluctuat nec mergitur that stands out as a sign of Paris as it tries to stay the course of liberté, egalité, a seat with friends on the terrace of a café.

© 2015, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Fluctuat Nec Mergitur and the Coat of Arms of the City of Paris appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Those are all things that you, the visitor and the return traveler, look forward to when you imagine (re)visiting Paris.

So you naturally pause when thinking of coming to Paris today.

You naturally wonder: Will I feel safe? Will I be safe? Do I want to walk around in fear? Is it worth the risk?

Just five days after the attacks, it would be a lie to say that those of us who live in Paris don’t also asked ourselves the same questions. We are not defiant or brave, and you will not be if you come.

Yes, we want to feel “normal” again. Yes, we want to—we need to—go about our lives without fear. We have personal and work obligations, we have children to take care of, friends we want to see, activities we enjoy, shopping to do, errands to run. We want to feel the normalcy of our lives as we felt on it early Friday evening as the weekend arrived.

In a way, we already have it. We are out and about. Paris is open for business.

But normalcy does not mean that we are nonchalant about the death and destruction that has struck and that wishes to strike again. We continue to pause in front of memorials, to think about those who were kills, to comfort those who were wounded or more directly affected than us, to tell each other first-, second- and third-hand stories.

The question of safety is one we all ask ourselves. Yet our lives are rooted here. Whether those roots are one year or 20 years or generations old, roots of family or work or friends or of unwillingness to move, few of us will flee today, as few fled after the attacks 10 months ago.

But you, the visitor and the return traveler, don’t have those roots. You may be contemplating your first visit to Paris. Or you may profess a love for Paris; you may consider yourself a Parisian at heart; you may consider Paris your second home. Yet Paris is not your home. And for those of us who live here to say, “Yes, everything’s fine, you should come,” would be to confuse our roots with your travels, our daily lives with your vacation.

You are right to question a visit so soon after the events of Nov. 13. You are right to reconsider your plans. You are right to be concerned about the threat of more violence. Don’t let anyone lead you to believe otherwise. Go right ahead and imagine your fear.

And then remember that what you feel about Paris from afar is not what you will feel about Paris when you are here.

Because once here you will join with those of us who have roots, whether shallow or deep, in life in Paris. You may then be afraid sometimes as we are. You might then tear up sometimes as we do. You may then wonder if you would feel safer in this seat or that, in this restaurant or that, walking down this street or that. You will wonder if you should be here at all.

But here you will be. And in being here you will know the pleasure and beauty of discovering and rediscovering Paris. Beyond the landmarks, beyond the treasure-trove of museums, you will know all those things that the enemies of life in Paris abhor: the pleasure of sharing a drink or a meal with friends, of listening to music, of strolling down the street, of kissing on the sidewalk, of men and women mingling freely, of gathering comfortably with strangers, of being young in years or young at heart, of openly celebrating life. You will know pleasure and discovery and perhaps love. You will allow them, as we do, to brighten the darkness that is fear. You will wish you could stay long. You will want to return.

.
Gary Lee Kraut
Editor, France Revisited
November 18, 2015

The post To Those (Re)Considering coming to Paris appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

The terrorist attacks in Paris and Saint-Denis on November 13 killed 130 people and left hundreds more wounded. The immediate target was joie de vivre in the City of Light: the pleasure of sharing a drink or a meal with friends, of listening to music, of strolling down the street, of kissing on the sidewalk, of men and women mingling and dressing freely, of gathering comfortably with strangers, of being young in years or young at heart, of openly celebrating life.

Those are all things that you, the visitor and the return traveler, look forward to when you imagine (re)visiting Paris.

So you naturally pause when thinking of coming to Paris today.

You naturally wonder: Will I feel safe? Will I be safe? Do I want to walk around in fear? Is it worth the risk?

Just five days after the attacks, it would be a lie to say that those of us who live in Paris don’t also asked ourselves the same questions. We are not defiant or brave, and you will not be if you come.

Yes, we want to feel “normal” again. Yes, we want to—we need to—go about our lives without fear. We have personal and work obligations, we have children to take care of, friends we want to see, activities we enjoy, shopping to do, errands to run. We want to feel the normalcy of our lives as we felt on it early Friday evening as the weekend arrived.

In a way, we already have it. We are out and about. Paris is open for business.

But normalcy does not mean that we are nonchalant about the death and destruction that has struck and that wishes to strike again. We continue to pause in front of memorials, to think about those who were kills, to comfort those who were wounded or more directly affected than us, to tell each other first-, second- and third-hand stories.

The question of safety is one we all ask ourselves. Yet our lives are rooted here. Whether those roots are one year or 20 years or generations old, roots of family or work or friends or of unwillingness to move, few of us will flee today, as few fled after the attacks 10 months ago.

But you, the visitor and the return traveler, don’t have those roots. You may be contemplating your first visit to Paris. Or you may profess a love for Paris; you may consider yourself a Parisian at heart; you may consider Paris your second home. Yet Paris is not your home. And for those of us who live here to say, “Yes, everything’s fine, you should come,” would be to confuse our roots with your travels, our daily lives with your vacation.

You are right to question a visit so soon after the events of Nov. 13. You are right to reconsider your plans. You are right to be concerned about the threat of more violence. Don’t let anyone lead you to believe otherwise. Go right ahead and imagine your fear.

And then remember that what you feel about Paris from afar is not what you will feel about Paris when you are here.

Because once here you will join with those of us who have roots, whether shallow or deep, in life in Paris. You may then be afraid sometimes as we are. You might then tear up sometimes as we do. You may then wonder if you would feel safer in this seat or that, in this restaurant or that, walking down this street or that. You will wonder if you should be here at all.

But here you will be. And in being here you will know the pleasure and beauty of discovering and rediscovering Paris. Beyond the landmarks, beyond the treasure-trove of museums, you will know all those things that the enemies of life in Paris abhor: the pleasure of sharing a drink or a meal with friends, of listening to music, of strolling down the street, of kissing on the sidewalk, of men and women mingling freely, of gathering comfortably with strangers, of being young in years or young at heart, of openly celebrating life. You will know pleasure and discovery and perhaps love. You will allow them, as we do, to brighten the darkness that is fear. You will wish you could stay long. You will want to return.

.
Gary Lee Kraut
Editor, France Revisited
November 18, 2015

The post To Those (Re)Considering Coming to Paris appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

My mother had been watching CNN the past few days, and she occasionally called me (or not) following the initial attack on Charlie Hebdo. So I called her from the square to ask if she was watching just then because if so she would see me standing next to Amanpour. Instead she was making Farina. “Just a minute,” she said. She switched off the stove and turned on the TV.

“OK,” she said, “I’m on CNN. They’re showing Natanyahu in a synagogue in Paris. You don’t go to synagogue now, do you?”

In front of Amanpour and her cohort (and in front of me) were a large news camera and a cameraman while slightly to the left a small screen showed what was on CNN at that moment. It showed Israeli Prime Minister Natanyahu at the Grand Synagogue in Paris.

“No,” I said. “Wait and you’ll see them cut back to Amanpour and the square where I am.”

In a moment CNN was back on the square. I could see Amanpour and her cohort on the screen. Amanpour began speaking.

“I can see her now,” my mother said. “She’s with what’s his name.”

“Can you see me behind them?”

“I see a black fellow. I haven’t seen you for a while but you aren’t black now, are you?”

Indeed, there was a black fellow standing behind to Amanpour and it wasn’t me. Amanpour and her cohort were on a slightly raised platform so one had to be directly behind the reporters and taller than me in order to be seen on the screen. I was to the side.

I moved closer to the action and raised my hand. I said to my mother, “Can you see my hand?”

“Are you wearing a black glove?”

“Yes.”

“Then I can see you. Can you do better?”

“No, they’re too high up, with people right behind them.”

The screen cut then back to Natanyahu in the synagogue.

My mother said, “That’s nice, Gary, but I can’t go around telling people that my son’s hand was on CNN.”

* * *

Over the next few days I received e-mails from relatives saying, “I hear your hand was on CNN.”

I checked the site stats for France Revisited that week, not to see the effect of my hand coup but to see if my recent posts about the attacks and their aftermath had had an effect on the number of visitors. There had indeed been a slight increase. There was naturally a lot of clicking on France titles during that period, whether revisited or not.

I didn’t return to the stats for a while because when you operate a website such as this checking site stats is like weighing yourself: you’re tempted to do it every day but doing so is unhealthy because basically you either feel good about yourself or you don’t.

I was in the U.S. in February giving lectures, visiting family and showing my mother that I had become neither black nor religious. Upon my return to Paris in early March I wanted to see if my little lecture tour and the surrounding publicity had had an effect on the number of visitors to France Revisited. I’d hoped to find a small increase for the month but what I saw was a tsunami. On one day alone in February the site had received 3.8 million hits. I figured that could only mean cyber attack. But examining the statistics further I saw that that it had in fact been direct human activity—if you can call those who willingly click on thousands of links a day human. Those hit had come thanks to a “redditor” who suggested to reddit.com readers that they might be interested in an interview I’d conducted with the author of a book-in-progress about Quentin Roosevelt. As a collateral reward, money poured in from readers clicking on Google-operated ad banners on the site (see them?). Within two days the number of hits and ad clicks had returned to their more usual happy-go-luck levels, levels that are nothing to scoff at but which, in view of the Reddit spike, made the graphs for February look like an EKG showing one final heartbeat before death.

Neverthless, In March I got another albeit softer heartbeat from Reddit along with tremors from a few others sources, and a major communications agency was interested in purchasing a photograph I’d taken.

I used to think that every little bit helps, but was beginning to think to hell with little bits I want major recognition.

* * *

Last week, more than three months after my hand appeared on CNN, I received a message from The New York Times bearing the subject heading “NYT Travel: ‘The Europe Issue.’” It was a personally addressed message that began “Hi Gary.” Scrolling to the signature I saw that it was from The Times’s communications manager.

Recognition, I thought, it’s arrived. I was flattered. I imagined that I was being contacted as a leading American expert on travel in France to provide an insightful quote for an upcoming article. I was on a roll.

I then read the message in full and discovered that I wasn’t being asked for a quote but for something possibly even more flattering. The communications manager wasn’t contacting me because of my personal expertise, but, better yet, because I’m the editor of an award-winning online travel magazine.

Well, he didn’t exactly write “award-winning” in his message, but why else would he be writing to ask for my assistance in publicizing The Times’s then upcoming (April 19th) “Europe Issue”?

Well, he wasn’t exactly “asking” either. But he concluded his description of “The Europe Issue” by saying “If you’d like to embed the 36 Hours video in any coverage, the code is below,” and that’s nearly the same as asking me to publicize The New York Times’s coverage of my backyard, just without a question mark. It’s a bit passive-aggressive but there you have it.

It’s like the time a celebrity smiled at me at a cocktail party. I thought there might be some personal connection going on until I realized that she was smiled at me because I had a bottle of champagne in my hand and she wanted me to pour her some without having to ask, since asking would be a form of subservience with possible answers including “No” or “It’ll cost you” or “Yes, if you’ll sleep with me.”

Since the communications manager didn’t put a question mark in his message I was unable to respond with any of those possible answers.

I hesitated, unsure if embedding with the NY Times would set a bad precedent for France Revisited. I wouldn’t want us to get a reputation as an easy web magazine willing to embed with just anyone simply because they’ve created a slick video about Paris with a few attractive clichés and some come-hither quotes and images. Next thing you know the Wall Street Journal and Condé Nast Traveler will be asking to embed with our savvy readers and experienced travelers, the kind they can only dream of reaching without my assistance.

Nevertheless, aware that every little bit does help, I’ve decided to give The Times the visibility they crave. I by no means endorse what’s in this video, and I suppose I should add the disclaimer that a friend of mine appears in it.

Now that I’ve had my hand on CNN and gotten embed with The New York Times, I am reminded of what I was thinking as I filled the celebrity’s glass of champagne: a relationship’s got to start somewhere, right?

Gary Lee Kraut, April 20, 2015

The post CNN, Reddit and Getting Embed with The New York Times appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

I might have bought a copy myself, but the first batch was out by the time I left the apartment, and a friend soon sent me the complete pdf.

One couldn’t avoid seeing the cover of the issue in France, whether at the newsstand or on TV or, without any particular search, on the internet. How strange, how revealing of cultural differences it was then to be an American in Paris surrounded by images of the cover of Charlie Hebdo, and then to see that American news sources, while reporting heavily on the subject, were self-censoring or actively avoiding showing the cover, while in some countries mobs were called to violence to denounce the image.

The prominence and the significance of the news of the publication of the first survivor issue of Charlie Hebdo made January 14 feel like the winter, newspaper version of May 1, when it’s customary for French to give each other a sprig of lily of the valley as a sign of friendship, love, good luck or social justice or in the name of tradition or obligation. (On the news we saw that for those who opposed the right to publish a caricature of the prophet it was a day of rage.)

The attack at Hyper Cacher may have come after the attack on Charlie Hebdo had already brought us out onto the street, but it was part and parcel of the events of January 7-9. So within all the earnestness and giddiness surrounding the sale of Charlie Hebdo, the day’s lily of the valley, news outlets in France and abroad were also showing long lines of people buying kosher food. “After all,” a young blond woman said as her 4-year-old held up a can of kosher pastrami, “just as few people buying the post-assassination Charlie Hebdo issue bought it for the contents, one needn’t buy kosher food for the blessing.” There was a great sense that, beyond the rally of January 11, on an otherwise typical work day, millions of people would continue to affirm the values of the republic by honoring both the rights and security of those who would mock religious dogma and institutions and their perverse effects, on the one hand, and the rights and security of those who wish to eat or otherwise pray in the private sphere according to religious dogma, on the other.

Well, no, actually. I made that up. No one spoke of buying kosher food to also show their support for the freedoms that the terrorists wished to eradicate.

Was it so difficult to support both secularism and the peaceful practice or non-practice of religion? Or did one feel a need to choose sides among victims and what they represent or are thought to represent?

I would think not. As Charlie Hebdo’s own editorial of January 14 states: “No, in this massacre, there are no deaths less injust than others” (Non, dans ce massacre, il n’y a pas de morts moins injuste que d’autres).

Having read the survivor issue of Charlie Hebdo, I also wanted to buy some kosher food. I needed to go shopping anyway: a journalist friend (religious affiliation, if any, unknown) was coming for dinner.

There are no specific kosher shops in my neighborhood so I went looking at a local grocery store. I couldn’t find a kosher section there, and there was no kosher food in the store’s “World” section.

The “World” section did, however, have Sabbath candles (bottom shelf, blue box in the photo). I thought this odd given that there’s a candle section on the opposite side of the store. I then realized that it wasn’t so odd since they were next to Italian rice and pasta even though the store has large rice and pasta sections. The logic is that a customer would go to the “World” section to look not for rice or pasta but for Italian goods. The Sabbath candles, made in Israel, are therefore considered at this grocery store as national rather than religious items, as though one might want to serve Italian pasta, Spanish olives and Chinese tea light by Israeli candles.

The French have been debating whether Jews form a “nation apart” or not since at least the Revolution. In December 1789, the National Assembly inconclusively debated the issue of the rights of Jews in a post-despotic France, with two main arguments arising: one said that, given the chance, Jews can be assimilated with and citizens of the larger society, the other said that Jews are bound to be a nation apart and so cannot be citizens of the nation of France.

French Jews were given the full rights of citizenship (emancipated) in two blocks: in January 1790 by a law largely covering Sephardic Jews of southwest France and the area around Avignon, and in September 1791 by a law covering Ashkenazic Jews (mostly in Alsace and Lorraine) and others.

The debate of the place of Jews in French society nevertheless continued, mostly in attempts (at times successful) to reduce the rights of Jews. The debate can still be heard, and not just among gentiles. In fact, Israeli Prime Minister Natanyahu weighed in in favor of nationhood at his speech at the Great Synagogue of Paris on January 11, when he invited Jews to come “home” to the nation he leads. To which some congregants responded by singing their national anthem, La Marseillaise.

I bought the Sabbath candle. I was pleased with the symbolism of the Sabbath itself being a Jewish hebdo (hebdo means weekly) and with the thought that I would light the table with them that Wednesday evening.

When I mentioned to my guest that since I was unable to buy Charlie Hebdo I went looking for kosher food, he called my logic amalgame (amalgam). If there is one French word that a foreigner should retain from recent events it is amalgame. The term refers to the mixing of two distinct ideas, events or situations that are brought together in order to deliberately creating confusion, typically in order to discredit an individual or group and/or to exploit an event to demonstrate one’s point of view for political advantage or to rationalize broad condemnation or hatred. Saying C’est de l’amalgame (That’s an amalgam) is a way of crying intellectual foul against someone’s argument. It’s often heard in response to someone who says that all Muslims must respond for an assassination in the name of Islam or that the relationship between Israel and Palestinians is that of all Jews and all Arabs.

Though equating purchasing kosher food with purchasing the survivor edition of Charlie Hebdo required a shift in the reflex to want the publication (and freedom of the presss, etc.) to win the day, I thought my friend wrong to call their association an amalgam. I thought it misguided to insist that this day belonged to Charlie Hebdo alone, as though saying “Je suis Charlie” the other day meant that we had all agreed that we found Charlie Hebdo funny and pertinent and worth buying, that we had committed a republican sin by not subscribing earlier. The amalgam between the creators of satire and the consumers of kosher food, I countered, was thrust upon us by the terrorists.

But they aren’t wrong to lump together the targets of their distain. All of them—satirists, Jews, police and many others—are deserving of protection. To now remember only half of the split screen of the double assaults by security forces on January 9 would be to refuse the basic facts of what had occurred or to believe that in this massacre there were some deaths more unjust than others. Some amalgams must be made. And lucky us that we can enjoy the symbolic value of Charlie Hebdo and kosher food on the same day, even if we find them both tasteless.

My friend had had a rough week preparing his own weekly magazine for publication and neither of us was up for punditry that evening. We dropped the subject as I opened the bottle of wine that he’d brought, an easy-going Côtes du Roussillon whose meaning I didn’t question.

I realized that I didn’t have any candle holders for the Sabbath candles. Then I realized that I did: cadavers, as the French call empty bottles, from a recent craft beer tasting.

I lit several candles.

I served a salad (endives, feta, sundried tomatoes, grilled peppers), followed by fresh pasta with eggplant and ricotta, not from the “World” section but from an Italian shop. Greek yoghurt, chocolate and clementines for dessert. Calvados.

The meal was mostly Italian but with a nod to what I already had in my refrigerator, along with a domestic wine imported by my guest and brandy from a war tour in Normandy—an delicious well-accompanied amalgam of sorts, with candles and cadavers to spare.

© 2015, Gary Lee Kraut

The post The Charlie Hebdo Survivor Issue and the Sabbath Candles appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

Place de la République, Paris, January 2015.

We were Charlie.

.

.

Who are we now?

© 2015, Gary Lee Kraut

The post We Were Charlie appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

On Thursday my mother called again to say that I shouldn’t leave the apartment until they caught the terrorists. “And once they do,” she said, “you should get on the next plane home to New Jersey.”

On Friday afternoon my mother didn’t call even though there were two hostage situations, one targeting Jews.

So I called her. I said, “Mom, I hope you aren’t still worried about me.”

“I’m not worried,” she said, “I know you don’t keep kosher.”

* * *

I’ve made a cartoon to illustrate my story.

© 2015, Gary Lee Kraut

For another motherism see On Being the Press.

The post A Mother’s Worry (cartoon included) appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Etre Charlie = To be Charlie (Being Charlie)

Je suis Charlie.

Tu es Charlie.

Il/Elle est Charlie.

Nous sommes Charlie.

Vous êtes Charlie.

Ils/Elles sont Charlie.

The post To Be Charlie: A French Lesson appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.