As a public transit strike grips the French capital for a second week, the city’s Jewish schools and synagogues are feeling the effects of the shutdown.
“We are functioning with about 20 percent fewer students,” said Benjamin Touati, director of the Lucien de Hirsch School, a Jewish institution. “Those who live in the suburbs just can’t come. The others hitchhike, or they come on bicycles and roller skates.”
Touati said that during the strike he is closing the school three hours earlier than usual to allow students and teachers time to make their way home.
The strike – brought on by worker discontent with the government’s budget- cutting austerity plans and welfare reforms – brought buses, the Metro and most rail lines to a standstill, leaving the capital reeling from record traffic jams.
To help people cope with the traffic nightmare, the government has hired private buses to transport up to 100,000 suburban commuters to work each day and has started up a free river-bus service on the Seine.
“I’m working with only half of my teachers,” said Rabbi David Mamou of Synagogue Bethel.
He noted that the situation for students attending evening classes was “catastrophic.”
“On Tuesday night, I had only three students when there should be 15,” said Mamou. “For Talmud Torah on Sunday, I usually have 40 kids. There were less than 30.”
In recent days, electricity, postal and telephone workers have joined the strike, which is starting to spill over into the private sector. Dock workers, truckers, teachers and employees of Air France and Air Inter were expected to stop work this week, when mass demonstrations were scheduled in major towns and cities throughout France.
Shopkeepers, kosher butchers and restaurant owners in the Marais, Paris’s famous Jewish quarter, said their businesses have been severely hurt by the stoppage.
Jacob Gomplevicz, owner of Bazaar Suzanne, a store selling menorahs and other religious articles, said his sales had slipped 50 percent during the last 10 days.
“It’s just before the holidays, so normally we should be very busy. But no one’s on the street. Everyone is staying home,” Gomplevicz said, adding that merchandise he had ordered from Israel had not arrived because of freight backups.
Paris Mayor Jean Tiberi, circumventing strict labor laws, has authorized shops to open Sunday to help generate business.
Jo Goldenberg, owner of Goldenberg’s restaurant, a popular tourist spot, said the strike has slashed the number of his customers by half.
“It reminds me of ’36, when there were strikes,” he said. “They didn’t just last 15 days, they lasted much longer, and weakened the country so badly, we lost the war.”
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