Podcast

Méssaouda is an Arab-Jewish great-grandmother who has just passed on. Yossef Murciano, her great-grandson, remembers her history, her humor, her language, and, above all, the memory of a lack of understanding. In this text, the distant descendant recalls his strange familiarity with Moroccan Jewish culture, in which he has been immersed all his life, without ever really knowing it.

The famous philosopher Judith Butler, invited by a collective of decolonial and anti-Zionist associations, declared – once again – during a round table in Pantin on Sunday 3 March that the 7 October attack was “an act of resistance” and not “terrorist”, and that it should not be described as “anti-Semitic”. That day, she further suspected the reality of sexual assaults committed by Hamas. By focusing on the case of Judith Butler, Eva Illouz criticises the positions of a certain Left which, she believes, undermines the egalitarian and universalist ideals of the Left and paves the way for hatred of Jews.

How can we talk about Gaza without distracting ourselves from Israel’s just cause? Faced with the attacks of October 7, the war had to be waged, with its dual aim: the liberation of the hostages and the lasting restoration of Israel’s security, i.e. the eradication of Hamas. All this in the inextricable conditions of a combat in which the adversary wishes the martyrdom of its people, and Israel as a Jewish and democratic state must ensure that they achieve none of their aims, including this one. However, this is not what is happening, and we need to redefine the situation in the light of this fact.

At the age of thirty, Cléo Cohen is representative of a movement that is sweeping through part of the younger Sephardic generation: the desire to reconnect with their Arab history, overcoming the silence and sometimes reticence of their parents and grandparents. She lives in Tunisia, where she felt “at home”, as she puts it. Three weeks ago, Cléo Cohen was in the Ghriba synagogue when the attack took place. In this text, she talks about her anxiety during the attack, and above all about the way in which the event impacted on her journey to re-establish her roots. She evokes the latent anti-Semitism in Tunisian society, the anti-Semitism that prevents Jews from being recognised as victims, and the great silence, in Tunisia as in France, in the midst of which this anti-Semitism unfolds.

Director of the film “Me Ivan, You Abraham”, a fictional account in which Yiddish in Ukraine comes alive again, Yolande Zauberman tells us about her special relationship with the language and how she finds the characters in here documentaries, including “Classified People”, “Would You Have Sex with an Arab?” and “M”.