Focus on Issues Revamping Zionist Efforts in France

The recognition of a slow but steady “awakening” within French Jewry, and the desire to foster and encourage it, has prompted the World Zionist Organization to appoint a senior Israeli diplomat, Avi Primor, to the newly-created position of “Delegate General of the WZO and Jewish Agency in France.”

Primor, 44, served for six years as Minister-Counsellor (the number two spot) at the Israel Embassy in Paris, leaving in 1976. He is thoroughly familiar with French Jewry — now the second-largest community in the diaspora — and deeply believes in the need, and in his ability, to engender greater identity and Israel-awareness among much broader sectors of it.

Primor flew to Paris last weekend for an initial six-week orientation stay. He will return to Jerusalem in the summer to coordinate his future activities with the various WZO and Jewish Agency departments here, and will take up residence in Paris, with his wife and two children, after the vacations.

In an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Primor said he had been asked to undertake the assignment by leaders of the French Jewish community, among them Zionist Federation head Albert Najman (a leading leukemia expert) and leading fund-raiser Michel Topiol.

ENORMOUSLY SIGNIFICANT DEVELOPMENTS

He had only agreed, however, after WZO chairman-Leon Dulzin suggested he conduct an in-depth study-visit, during which he discovered “enormously significant developments that have affected French Jewry since I left three years ago.”

Firstly, said Primor, there is a marked new willingness among young people to be Jewishly active and involved. Primor called together an informal evening meeting of some 200 young people mostly in their thirties, to discuss the challenge that Dulzin had faced him with.

“I said to them: ‘If I call on you to help me, on an ongoing basis, in volunteer work, will you respond?'” He was assured not only that they readily would, but that they could and would bring hundreds of others who would be equally ready to give of their time and energy. Primor noted, too, the warm welcome he received from the old-established leaderships of the various communal organizations: the Zionist Federation, the Fonds Social Juif Unifie, and the Consistorie.

His intention is to create Jewish centers-wherever there are Jewish community of any size. Most of the Jews are concentrated in the greater Paris area and on the Mediterranean coast. The Consistorie has already pledged to put its synagogues at his disposal, and he has also been promised the use of the community centers run by the Fonds Social.

Nominally, Primor will be developing Zionist centers. But in fact, he said, the aim will not be restricted in any way by this label. The purpose is to infuse as many Jews as possible with Jewish and Israel-oriented content to their lives.

INCREASING ZIONIST, ALIYA CONSCIOUSNESS

Paradoxically, Primor noted, the weakness of organized communal life in France, compared to other Jewish communities, is an advantage: he will not be fettered by jurisdictional disputes or other extraneous considerations and will thus be able, he hopes, to focus wholly on the job in hand. The second pleasant surprise of his study-visit, he said, was the high quality and competence of many of the Jewish Agency personnel.

The immediate aim, Primor concluded, into ensure that as many Jews as possible have permanent, ongoing contact with a Jewish organization (the local Zionist center and through it the Zionist Federation). In the long run, success will mean more pride and assertiveness on the part of the 750,000 strong French community, and also more Israel-awareness which is the sine qua non for any aliya-consciousness, he stated.

Obviously it is not an overnight process. But Primor believes that objective conditions are ripe for an energetic effort by the Zionist movement, as the representative of Israel and of world Jewry, to catalyze what is perceived as a promising, if belated, bestirring within French Jewry.