Le Parisien published a report claiming that young French Jews are increasingly hiding Jewish symbols out of fear.
By Rachel Avraham
In modern France, home to Europe’s largest Jewish population, Le Parisien published a report claiming that a silent fear is spreading. For decades, French Jews have seen themselves as part of the Republic’s promise — equal citizens of a secular state built on liberty, equality, and fraternity. Yet today, Le Parisien claims that many feel an invisible wall rising around them. The new reality is not marked by laws or decrees, but by glances, silence, and isolation. Across Paris, Lyon, Marseille, and Strasbourg, Jewish families are living behind an unspoken rule: to stay quiet, to stay unseen.
According to Le Parisien, this new sense of ostracization did not emerge overnight. It grew slowly, through years of increasing antisemitic incidents — attacks on synagogues, insults at schools, and even murders motivated by hate. Each event, magnified by social media and political polarization, pushed French Jews further into a state of alertness. In some schools, according to the report, Jewish parents no longer register their children under visibly Jewish names. In certain neighborhoods, the Star of David necklace is quietly removed before leaving home. In the Republic that once promised freedom, identity itself has become a risk.
The Gaza war and rising tensions in the Middle East have only deepened this fracture. Since October 2023, antisemitic acts in France have multiplied — graffiti on Jewish-owned shops, vandalism of cemeteries, and verbal aggression in public spaces. The French government has officially condemned this wave of hatred, but the daily life of ordinary Jewish citizens remains fraught with anxiety. Police protection around synagogues and schools may reassure, but it also reminds the community of its constant exposure.
According to Le Parisien, many French Jews now describe a “need to hide” — not out of shame, but out of survival instinct. To blend in, to stay unnoticed. For those who grew up in post-war France, this feeling carries a painful echo of history. The generation that once said “Never again” now teaches its children how to keep a low profile. In Paris’s 17th arrondissement, one mother tells her teenage son never to wear his kippah outside. “You can be proud at home,” she says softly, “but be careful outside.”
France’s political left, once a vocal ally of the Jewish community, now feels divided. Some progressive voices avoid discussing antisemitism, fearing accusations of Islamophobia or political bias. The right, meanwhile, often instrumentalizes Jewish suffering for populist rhetoric. Between denial and exploitation, the human reality of Jewish fear remains unheard. The French Republic’s silence has become its most painful sound.
From Israel, the situation is followed with a mix of sorrow and recognition. Israeli observers understand this fear intimately — the sense of being targeted not for actions, but for existence itself. The Israeli press has described the French Jewish dilemma as “the loneliness of belonging everywhere, yet fitting nowhere.” Emigration to Israel (aliyah) has slightly increased, though most French Jews still see their homeland in France. Their choice to stay is an act of faith in a country they still love, despite its betrayal.
The tragedy is not only in the violence, but in the normalization of fear. When identity requires concealment, democracy itself is wounded. The “need to hide” is not a personal weakness; it is a collective failure — of education, of political courage, and of society’s empathy. France must decide whether it can still be a home where Jews walk freely, not silently. For now, the fear lingers like an echo in the boulevards of Paris — an echo of a nation that promised equality, and of a community still waiting for that promise to be kept.
Photo from Emmanuel Dyan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_France#/media/File:Old_Jewish_Area_Troyes_of_Rachi_France.jpg
