Every French jew that I know has been dealing with direct antisemitism in France, sometimes violent. Your comment seems to downplay that.
Of course, that's not all Kushner said; he also apparently cast support for Palestinian statehood as antisemitic, which is obviously inflammatory. The more grounded in fact concerns about European antisemitism are, the more unfortunate Kushner's statement is.
Regardless, antisemitism exists in France and elsewhere. It's just not the case that France doesn't do anything about it. These crimes are punished. Maybe not as severely as one would hope, but by French standards, it's pretty serious.
But as parent comment mentioned, the current situation has little to do with that.
As an identity, yes they still receive a lot of hate.
As individuals unless they wear distincrive signs like a kipa they will probably receive less hate and discrimination than say...people with red/ginger hair which is still super common. If they are transexuals and gay black redhead jews with rumanian nationality and and live with an asian partner, they are fucked.
And then there are going to be the ones festooned with Stars of David, and pushing for every conflict they can possibly get into so they can claim antisemitism. Those? Those I'd believe having problems, but they're not having problems because they're Jewish - they're having problems because they're assholes.
Is there antisemitism in France? I'm positive there is. Is there anti-Muslim sentiment as well? I'm positive there is. (side note, aren't middle-eastern Muslims generally considered Semites as in descendants of Shem?)
Arabs and Jews are both Semitic (in the sense of speaking Semitic languages and having Levantine origins), but the word “antisemitism” refers specifically to Jew hatred. This is mostly a historical quirk of 19th century Germans trying to come up with a more scientific sounding phrase than Judenhass.
(Also, to be pedantic: there are non-Semitic middle-eastern Muslims, as well as semitic middle-eastern non-Muslims/Jews. It turns out that “semitic” itself isn’t a super useful category, which is why “antisemitism” should really be read as a single lexeme rather than “hatred of all semites”.)
This has the same energy as “technically Elon Musk is African-American”.
Sometimes words have come to mean something specific that doesn’t precisely correspond to their literal components or etymology, and pretending not to understand this just impedes communication.
But I'll stick by my position that for a lot of people feeling put-upon it's because they're generally unpleasant not because of their ethnic, religious or other background but because of their personalities.
Personally, I'd call the current Israeli government one of the "sovereign citizens" of the world - and while there's a certain "duh" element to that because indeed nations are sovereign, the connotation I'm trying to get at here is that they have the same "doesn't play well with others" energy of the US 'sovcits'
It was such a mess that they were protected by three rows of riot police. You'd have to be very naive to believe that such false and hateful people could be allies to anyone.
We sometimes make fun of Americans, but we also have some great bingo cards too.
The letter is a clear attempt to bully an ally into US style speech suppression by using someone that has both official position and a personal Presidential imprimatur.
It's insane that anyone listens to what he has to say. He should just be slapped in the face and sent home.
I see modern day French antisemitism as a bizarre union of right wing echt French, le pen-type and modern era Islamic migration from Francophone former French colonies. Former enemies united in a common hatred.
France's problems are a function both of history, and push politics. Some of it is endogenous, some of it is externally driven. I have no doubt the same is true in Germany, Netherlands, the UK. Sure, an underlying mass migration pressure is feeding this, but many of the migrants in france pass through, seeking better times in the UK. The ones who stay, are in the main francophone, and appear to bring with them weaker guard lines against radicalism. Thats a huge bummer.
He isn't signalling this because of conviction, he's signalling this because his government wants him to, to continue to back the Netenyahu government. I wouldn't cease trade or relations with France or any EU country on these grounds, its a political dispute about recognition of Palestine, not a statement for or against antisemitism.
You know, and I know, after this evil war ends, Netenyahu is in big domestic trouble. There will probably be another weak, rightist dominated government but the court system will catch up with Bibi. Now .. what does that parallel in the USA?