A rabbi on the French island of Corsica has reported that many Jews in France have contacted him about moving to the island as they fear for their personal safety on the French mainland as antisemitism continues to surge following the massacre of over a thousand Israeli civilians by Hamas last month.
Levi Pinson, rabbi of Corsica, told broadcaster Europe1 that he has received many requests from Jews elsewhere in France regarding the possibility of moving to the Mediterranean island, saying, “Many people contact us to find out about the living conditions here and to talk to us about a possible move.”
“They are looking for a region where they can live quietly with their children,” the rabbi said, and noted that in just the last week alone he had received around a dozen phone calls from Jews interested in the island and making serious considerations regarding moving.
Joseph is a Jewish man who has moved to Corsica and told the broadcaster, “Two years ago, I made this choice precisely for safety, not to be bothered. At the time, there was not yet this latent antisemitism.”
He stated that he chose the island “to be able to walk in the street without looking to the left [or] to the right, and to have a living environment that allows us to live our religion and our freedom in complete safety.”
Corsica, known as the island of beauty, has a long historical Jewish community and has protected Jews in the past, including during the Second World War, when members of the Vichy regime made attempts to deport the island’s Jews, many of whom had fled to the island from the mainland.
Corsican authorities told members of the Vichy regime at the time that no Jews lived on the island, hiding thousands of residents, leading to over three-quarters of the Jewish population on the island surviving the war.
While the main source of antisemitism and hostility towards Jews in the 1940s came from the Nazis and their allies, today more and more Jews in France face discrimination and violence from Muslims, both immigrants and those born in France.
As early as 2017, French media noted that traditional Jewish communities in the suburbs of Paris were undergoing an “internal exodus” and fleeing neighbourhoods due to rising levels of antisemitism.
The trend continued in 2019, according to another report, which stated that the number of Jews in Paris’ suburbs was rapidly decreasing.
Jérôme Fourquet, director of the international polling and market research company Ifop, told broadcaster BFMTV, “Over the course of fifteen years, the number of Jewish populations or families has collapsed in a whole series of communes in Seine-Saint-Denis.”
“In Aulnay-sous-Bois, the number of Jewish families has fallen from 600 to 100, in Blanc-Mesnil from 300 to 100, in Clichy-sous-Bois from 400 to 80, and in La Courneuve from 300 to 80,” he said.
While Jews are largely welcomed in Corsica, the situation is rather different for Muslims on the island, as prior years have seen locals engage in anti-Muslim vandalism and rioting, such as in 2015 when violent anti-Arab riots broke out over Christmas that year.
Demonstrators vandalised a Muslim prayer hall, set fire to copies of the Islamic Quran, and hundreds marched through the streets of the Corsican capital, Ajaccio, shouting various slogans, including “Arabs get out.”
The following summer, another riot broke out during a beach brawl between North Africans and young locals after the North Africans caught the locals taking pictures of women dressed in the Islamic swimwear known as a “burkini.”
Last year, well-known Corsican nationalist Yvan Colonna was murdered by a radical Islamic terrorist after he allegedly made “blasphemous comments” regarding Islam.
Colonna was initially left in a coma after the attack, sparking days of protests and riots in Corsica, and eventually died weeks later in a hospital in southern France where he was being treated.
