Dozens of city leaders from around the world gathered Wednesday for the three-day Paris Mayors Summit Against Antisemitism, where Mayor Anne Hidalgo said that supporting the Jewish community was part of “the soul” of the French metropolis.
“We will continue to support our Jewish community. It is part of the soul of Paris. We must protect it and help build a Europe where all Jewish families can live safely and grow in equality and fairness,” Hidalgo said at the conference, which the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) co-organized alongside the European Jewish Congress and CRIF, the umbrella organization of French Jews, and others.
In his speech, CAM CEO Sacha Roytman Dratwa recalled feeling “shame” at having to tell his late grandfather, a Holocaust survivor who died recently, that European socities and others “didn’t keep our promise of ‘Never Again’, because it looks like it has started happening again,” Dratwa said.
French Minister Delegate for Europe Benjamin Haddad said in his speech that in France, forces “from the far left have instrumentalized the violence being caused, the suffering of the Israeli people, to mislead the French population, to give a kind of foreign legitimacy to antisemitism, and to bring this conflict into our society for political gain.”
European Jewish Congress President Moshe Kantor unveiled a plan aimed at addressing antisemitism on social media forums targeting disaffected youth.
“Social media has made it possible for hatred to spread instantly, often escalating into physical violence and even pogroms against Jews,” he said. “This must be combated by offering alternative and positive counter-narratives to disenfranchised youth,” as well as financial assistance to needy residents.
Will Nemesh, mayor of Waverley Council in in the eastern suburbs of Sydney in Australia, and Abdul Salam Khan, the deputy mayor of Coventry in England, were among the mayors attending. Others included Daniele Silvetti, mayor of Ancona in Italy, and Javier Rodríguez Núñez, commissioner of the Barcelona City Council in Spain.
CAM held the first Mayors Summit Against Antisemitism in 2021, in Frankfurt.
