According to the French blog which broke the story, the principal of the school, whose student body is 80 per cent Jewish and which of course includes the children of olim from the increasingly antisemitic land of France, sent (with the approval of the French Consulate General in Jerusalem) written instructions that there should be no minute's silence for Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Memorial Day, 27 January) nor for Yom HaZikaron (the Memorial Day for Israel's Fallen, which occurred on Sunday, 14 April).
According to the second link (below) this is the text of the principal's letter regarding the former:
Bonjour
Demain à 10h00 résonnera une sonnerie qui remémore la Shoah et qui demande une minute de silence. Vous pouvez marquer cette minute à titre personnel si vous le souhaitez et permettre aux élèves qui en manifesterai le souhait de s’y associer. Mais évitez à tout prix de solliciter les élèves ou de leur imposer et évitez les débats sur le sujet : la situation est suffisamment tendue en ce moment (mort cette semaine de deux jeunes en Cisjordanie) pour déclencher des réactions violentes (je pense aux 4ème notamment) et des polémiques qui ne peuvent que blesser les uns et les autres inutilement.
Merci de votre compréhensionReportedly, as the sirens sounded outside to mark Yom HaShoah, two non-Jewish students gave the Nazi salute.
Read the original account, in French, here and a fuller French-language account here
Hello Daphne
ReplyDeleteit is a good thing that your exposed that on your blog.
one little correction :
1-the principal of the school, whose student body is 80 per cent Arab not Jewish ( although most of the teachers are Jewish ) This school is supervised by the french consulate which very often condemns Israel on its web site.
some of them are children of french expatriate
but the vast majority comes from the arab community.
2-The French Ministry of education does not even recognize Jerusalem as an Israeli city and above all the capital of Israel. as dictated by the Pro arab Politics of France.
the offical bulletin from the national assembly below shows it clearly
http://cache.media.education.gouv.fr/file/29/68/4/liste_etablissements_francais_etranger_185684.pdf
see by yourself on page 8/14
Jerusalem is excluded from Israel
Shabat Shalom From ISRAEL
Merci beaucoup, Jean!
DeleteUnfortunately it isn't only the pro-arab french who refuse to recognize Jerusalem as an Israeli city. Even allies like the US and Canada won't acknowledge the reality of the situation.
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