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And what about the Jews?

9 comments on And what about the Jews?

And what about the Jews?
: How come Jacques Chirac’s (numbnutty) ban on wearing overt religious symbols is being portrayed in most media as a Muslim “headscarf ban,” as Reuters puts it? It also forbids Jewish children from wearing skull caps — Jewish children who have been attacked because they wear skull caps. Why are the headlines and leads all about Muslim scarves instead?

UPDATE: Pedram says “the French have officially lost it” and all this is…

…secularism gone mad. Just as wrong as it is for the Iranian government to force women to wear that scarf, it is equally wrong for the French to force them to shed it in public schools.

Where’s the idea of personal freedoms in all this? and where does it stop? Will they also control what the student eat in case it’s Kosher, or read to make sure there’s no references to Allah? Even a member of Iranian Parliament gets it, but apparently Chirac does not. Iranian parliamentarian Ali Shakourirad said “The ban on headscarves is a measure to limit personal freedom. For a country like France, which has democracy, it is a major failure.” He’s right!

9 responses to “And what about the Jews?”

  1. Steven I. Weiss Avatar
    Steven I. Weiss

    Jeff – I’ve been researching this of late (really too late, unfortunately) for a story in Jewsweek. The reason the yarmulke ban doesn’t matter is because, as one commenter at Protocols put it, “No Jew in their right mind would wear a yarmulke in public anymore.” You might recall the chief rabbi’s statement that Jewish children should wear baseball caps instead — according to those I’ve spoken with already, this was basically putting the religious stamp of approval on what the entire community was doing out of necessity already.
    The Jewish community is, to some degree, in de facto support of the ban. Their position seems to be that since they’ve got nothing to lose — since yarmulkes are, owing to violence and French chauvinism, as much as banned already — they’re not going to object to these state laws that will keep the French Muslims attacking them from being forced to secularize.
    So the lead of the story really is the headscarf, because a yarmulke ban really doesn’t change the present religious landscape at all.
    It’s worth noting in light of this that the cross ban is only for crosses of a significant size, and to other things the principal might find objectionable. Tyler Cowen had a post really digging into the French at Volokh yesterday.
    It’s worth noting that while the ban doesn’t cover small pendants, like not-too-large crosses (whatever that means), the cross is pretty much the only Christian apparel to indicate adherence to the faith; not only is this not the case for the Star of David or “Islamic pendants” (just what those are, no one seems to know, but the yarmulke and headscarf actually function as part of religious doctrinal practice.
    This law is a tragedy.

  2. ....a moment with Easycure Avatar
    ….a moment with Easycure

    The ban is stupid. It shows that France is not free.

  3. Gabriel Gonzalez Avatar
    Gabriel Gonzalez

    This law is almost certainly a mistake and I think it will only increase resentment. The reason it’s being described as a “headscarf ban” is that the hijab is the real target. Opposition to the headscarf has grown, little by little, over the past decade. The notion of banning yarmulkes and showy crosses, etc. has only really been in the public debate in the last couple of months. And the inclusion of Jewish and Christian symbols is really only to provide a pretense of evenhandedness. It is more than suspect that after so many centuries the French suddenly discover that the principle of secular education is inconsistent with large crosses and yarmulkes.
    It would have been preferable to rely on the principle of ‘compelling state interest’, eg in the promotion of education, rather than secularism as such, to institute a ban on any type of dress (clown outfits, paratrooper clothing, halloween witches, as well as chadors and overdone hijab) reasonably deemed to interfere with the reasonable requirements of education protected by the State. Such a principle, which U.S. courts rely on to impose limits on freedom of expression, would have been more pragmatic and ideologically neutral. It would also have been better to simply issue general guidelines regarding proper school dress and decentralize the process by giving headmasters authority to apply a less sweeping ban.
    This law is simply more evidence that France is institutionally incapable of dealing with its social problems. Can you imagine the U.S. Congress banning headscarves and hijab?

  4. hugh macleod Avatar
    hugh macleod

    The French want it both ways. They want to be “modern and inclusive” whilst also retaining a very clear idea of what it means to be “francais”.
    Asserting one’s national identity is inherently racist. The nation-state is finished.

  5. Richard Aubrey Avatar
    Richard Aubrey

    I might, possibly, offer Chirac a break on this.
    It is said that, upon taking power in Turkey, Ataturk forbade even voluntary wearing of traditional headgear.
    The reason was that “voluntary” doesn’t mean much when you have to go home to the ‘hood and the usual suspects are waiting to beat you for your “voluntary” act.

  6. Jack Tanner Avatar
    Jack Tanner

    Steven Weiss –
    Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t believe that there is any religious signifigance to the wearing of headscarves in Islam as much as a social more to the idea of modesty. I certainly remember from college that Islam forbids iconography but I don’t recall any sort of religious symbology surrounding headscarves as say there would be around the wearing a cross. Isn’t it really a just symbol of cultural oppression of women?

  7. button Avatar
    button

    Scripture for both Jewish and Moslem women just advocates that they should ‘dress modestly.’
    A scarf itself is not a problem. The problems develop with hoods and masks. And what makes it worse, is the practice of systematic fraud to describe a mask or hood as a ‘scarf.’
    Masks and hoods are worn for criminal purposes.

  8. Maciej Ceglowski Avatar
    Maciej Ceglowski

    Hugh, it’s not an assertion of national identity, it’s an attempt to keep schools secular.

  9. Roger L. Simon Avatar
    Roger L. Simon

    Having just returned from France… as the blogging world now seems to know… I can say that it is incoorect that no one is wearing a yarmulke on the streets of Paris. I saw several people wearing them. That said, when I visited the banlieu (especially the ones to the Norht of the city) I was quite nervous just because I look (and am) Jewish. What I think is going on here is that Chirac… besides being a complete asshole… doesn’t have a clue what to do in a desperate situation. Bad as it is for the Jews in France, it may ultimately be worse for the French.