By Alex Gordon in Haifa, Israel
My numerous visits to research institutes in Western Europe began in the same manner: A local scholar told me about the backward, unreasonable, even crumbling country he lived in. The countries were different, but the descriptions of their backwardness were similar. Local scholars did not spare their countries in their scathing criticism. In these apocalyptic descriptions, France took the lead. But I have always been drawn to France because I come from a Francophile family. When I first arrived in France, everything there was familiar to me from its great literature, its unique music, its beautiful language.
The crisis in France was not a fabrication of scholars, those eternally dissatisfied skeptics. The crisis was real and significant and was linked to the gigantic French debts, reaching trillions of euros and exceeding its gross domestic product. No state in the European Union has such a large debt in absolute terms. But the French are unwilling to cut spending and implement pension reform. The birth rate in France has fallen to its lowest level since World War I. France is giving birth to Muslims in much greater numbers than Catholics. Its productivity is declining, and it increasingly seeks to take breaks from work.
Many years ago, my wife and six-year-old daughter came to visit me in the French city where I was working. They arrived in this city in August. It was scorching hot. Many city residents were on vacation. Many institutions were closed. In the middle of the day, many establishments were closed for a long break. When the city is closed for so long, it’s clear how the country’s debt accumulates. The city was taking a siesta. When I observed the idle city, I recalled my colleagues’ stories about the deep crisis in France. We stayed at a guesthouse for the local university. One day, our daughter complained of pain in her ureters. Probably, it was inflammation. She needed a doctor, but we quickly found out that the institute’s doctor was on vacation. The medical service was also not working. How to treat a girl without a doctor in a foreign city?
We went outside, not knowing where to find help. Suddenly, our daughter reported that she saw an inscription in Hebrew. We realized that we had ended up near a Jewish, kosher, meat shop. I thought that maybe this was a way out of our difficult situation: Jews will help Jews. Naturally, the store was run by Jews. Jews worked even when all the stores in the city were closed.
I told the butcher that I was Israeli and looking for medical help for my daughter. He found the address of a Jewish pharmacy and directed me there. At the pharmacy, I introduced myself, which caused excitement among the Jewish pharmacists. They were thrilled: we are Jews, we are from Israel, and my grandfather was a pharmacist. Miraculously, a prescription for antibiotics for our daughter appeared. Jewish solidarity worked even when the city was idle.
For more than 20 years, I haven’t been to France, even though I come from a Francophile family. The thing is, in this country, Jews are becoming increasingly rare, and Jewish solidarity is even rarer.
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Alex Gordon is a professor emeritus of physics at the University of Haifa and at Oranim, the Academic College of Education, and the author of 12 books