French President Emmanuel Macron attended a ceremony at Synagogue de la Victoire in Paris marking the beginning of festivities for Rosh Hashana.
This annual event has regularly been attended by prime and other ministers but this was the first time it was attended by the country’s head of state. Macron was joined at the event by the former president Nicolas Sarkozy and other dignitaries.
Macron did not address the event, citing the historical separation of Church and State of the French Republic and that political discourses are not given in a place of worship.
France’s Chief Rabbi Haïm Korsia compared Macron to the Western Wall in Jerusalem. “ We confide in him our hopes and our pains, knowing that he does not respond. However, we know that he we have someone who listens to us,” Korsia said in his address.
Joel Mergui, president of the Consistoire told the gathering :”If the Jews of France continue to massively leave France, it will only be because France will have ceased to be France.”
