At least half the Jews in France marry non-Jews and raise their children as non-Jews, two French Jews currently in this country reported today. The two are Roland Musnik, deputy director of Centre Educatif, central French Jewish educational agency, and Tito Cohen, executive director of the Ponds Social Juif Unifie.
Addressing a press conference under the auspices of the National Council of Jewish Women, they asserted that a great majority of the women of the community are ignorant of Jewish customs, and do not carry out any of the home observances which should impart Jewish tradition to their children.
Of 250,000 Jews in France, only about 15,000 adults are affiliated with Jewish community activities, they declared. This includes about 2,500 synagogue members, 7,000 contributors to Jewish philanthropy, and members of all ideological and other groups. For the main body of French Jewry, the only contact with Jewish life is, at most, synagogue attendance on Yom Kippur, they said. About 12 percent of young children, however, and five percent of adolescents have some contact with Jewish life. A systematic fight against this rapid disintegration has been started as a joint effort of all organized Jewish groups in France, the Jewish officials stated.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
