French imam who denounced anti-Semitism: “Honestly, it has come to a point where I feel safer when I’m abroad."

French imam who denounced anti-Semitism: “Honestly, it has come to a point where I feel safer when I’m abroad." (JTA).

PARIS (JTA) — Shadowed by two bodyguards, Hassen Chalghoumi — a target of numerous anti-Semitic attacks in recent years — mingled with friends and colleagues at the fifth national convention of France’s Jewish community umbrella group, CRIF. But Chalghoumi is not a member of the Jewish community.

Rather he is a Muslim spiritual leader, or imam, who is being targeted for his vocal condemnations of anti-Semitism and his work to commemorate the Holocaust.

“Honestly, it has come to a point where I feel safer when I’m abroad,” said Chalghoumi, who has received countless death threats. “There’s a minority within the Muslim community that is trying to agitate and to tarnish our name. It’s not only a Jewish problem. It’s a Muslim problem. It’s a French problem.”

Chalghoumi was one of several Muslims who attended the conference on Sunday, where organizers highlighted the contribution of non-Jews to the fight against anti-Semitism “to show that Jews are not isolated in French society, as some might think, and that the fight against anti-Semitism is a fight for republican values,” as CRIF President Roger Cukierman told JTA in an interview.

To Chalghoumi, “anti-Semitism and the indifference to it are part of a bigger crisis afflicting French society, also visible in the departure of hundreds to fight as jihadists in a war which has nothing to do with real Islam,” he said in reference to young men and women who left for Syria since 2011. The French daily Le Figaro put their number earlier this year at 250.

While the CRIF convention highlighted France’s “republican values” and its longstanding embrace of secularism, it also named Muslims (as well as far-right and far-left voters) as more susceptible than others to anti-Semitic views. Conference organizers revealed the results of surveys conducted in recent weeks by the IFOP polling company. 

Among the findings: 74 percent of the more than 1,500 respondents who self-identified as observant Muslims agreed that Jews have too much influence on French economics, compared to 25 percent in the general population.

Chalghoumi did not take issue with the results, saying “we need to look at what we fear, not shy away.”

Watching Chalghoumi and his bodyguard leave the CAP 15 conference center near the Eiffel Tower, Martine Levy, an active member of the Jewish community, spoke of her admiration for what she said was “Chalghoumi’s courage.” But she also wondered “what kind of message other Muslims who oppose extremism receive when they see that he has to walk around with bodyguards.” Read the full story here.