He is physically and psychologically devastated. His ordeal is among the more than 350 anti-Semitic incidents, from insults to savage beatings, reported for the month of January alone as compared to 460 for the whole of 2008. This has been going on, with ups and downs, since the outbreak of the "al-Aqsa intifada" in September 2000. It has reached proportions that should be unacceptable to any self-respecting person, Jewish or not. We should be aware of the growing danger, not only for Jews but for everyone.

I am American, but I have lived in Paris for more than 35 years. Thousands of Jews have left France, many thousands think that they will have to leave, but hope they won't. Sephardi Jews who fled North Africa in the 1950s and '60s are now hounded and harassed by Muslim immigrants. The energy expended by the Jewish community since 2000 to defend itself and its honour has been weakened by endless insults,
repeated setbacks and the feeling that there is no collective heart in this society that can be truly reached. An "enough is enough" ad published by Jews in Le Figaro in April is more despondent than determined.

And yet, life can be so sweet on a balmy springtime evening in the Marais. How can such grace and charm be sacrificed to hostile forces whose strength is drawn from our weakness? Two years ago this month, Nicolas Sarkozy was triumphantly elected by citizens determined to stem the tide of reckless violence and reassert secular values. What went wrong? Could it be that the surrender to obsessive anti-Zionism is
disabling French society, turning it away from its true purpose, delivering it into the hands of its enemies?