Pro-Israel Island in a Sea of French Antisemitism

By Miriam Gershenson

BÉZIERS, France – During a six-week trip to France, San Diego resident Ruth Mastron, former president and current board member of the House of Israel in Balboa Park, experienced firsthand the growing hostility toward Jews in the country. In many places she visited, pro-Palestinian flags were displayed prominently, bookstores were stocked with anti-Israel materials, and visible antisemitism seemed normalized.

But in the southern city of Béziers, she found something unexpected: public and visible support for the Jewish community.

Béziers, a historic city of about 80,000 in the Occitanie region, surprised her when she visited the town hall and saw a banner that read, “We will not forget the October 7th pogrom,” adorned with an image of a menorah. Later, she happened to see the city’s mayor, Robert Ménard, and thanked him for the gesture. According to Mastron, he conveyed that showing solidarity with Jews was simply the right thing to do. He was also wearing a pin showing support for Israeli hostages, as he has done in previous public appearances, including on national television.

For Mastron, the experience in Béziers stood in sharp contrast to what she saw elsewhere in France. After weeks of traveling through towns and cities where Jewish life felt invisible or unwelcome, Béziers stood out as a place where the local government and community publicly affirmed Jewish presence and safety.

Béziers is home to a small, active Jewish community that maintains both visibility and cultural heritage despite the rise in antisemitic incidents across France in recent years. In 2023, the country recorded a dramatic spike in antisemitic acts, with the French Jewish community’s watchdog group SPCJ reporting a 284% increase compared to the previous year.

The city’s synagogue and Jewish museum, housed together in the same building, showcase the history of Jews. Exhibits highlight both Ashkenazi and Sephardic traditions. Mastron noted that the building also displayed a banner echoing the message of solidarity she had seen at the town hall, further showcasing the alignment between civic and Jewish institutions in Béziers.

During her trip, Mastron also learned about a lesser-known chapter in French Jewish history: a short-lived kibbutz in the village of Nazareth, France. Established in the early 1930s with funding from the Rothschild family, the kibbutz served as an agricultural training center for secular Jewish youth preparing to emigrate to what is known as Israel today.

She discovered that a book, Un kibboutz en Corrèze,  has been written about this unique experiment, though unfortunately it has not yet been translated into English. The young residents of the kibbutz were trained in farming and communal living, and at the time, their modern and secular ways — such as girls wearing shorts while working the fields — drew disapproval from some of the more traditional locals.

Although the kibbutz ceased operations around 1935, traces of it remain today, with plaques and some of the old buildings still standing as a quiet memorial to that remarkable endeavor.

For Mastron, Béziers was the only place in France during her trip where she felt the presence of Jews was not only acknowledged but supported. The town’s openness and visible solidarity with the Jewish community were a beacon of light to the hostility she encountered throughout her trip in Europe where she was encouraged to take off anything that identified her as a Jew.

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Miriam Gershenson is a freelance writer based in Escondido, California.