[WCUSP] "Sarkozy's Jewish & Zionist Roots, (The Australian Jewish News)

Sat May 12 10:09:46 CDT 2007

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> From: <sdyck at hevanet.com>
> To: "aastudies" <aastudies at yahoogroups.com>,
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> Subject: "Sarkozy's Jewish & Zionist Roots, (The
> Australian Jewish News)
> Date: Fri, 11 May 2007 15:00:33 -0700
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> 
> From: Sam Azar <mailto:samazar at hotmail.com>
> Subject: The Ausralian Jewish News:"Sarkozy's Jewish
> roots"
> 
> Sarkozy's Jewish roots
> France's new president, Nicolas Sarkozy, lost 57
> members of his family to
> the Nazis and comes from a long line of Jewish and
> Zionist leaders and
> heroes, writes RAANAN ELIAZ [Ha-Aretz].
> 
> INTERNATIONAL (may 8, 2007)
>  <http://www.ajn.com.au/news/news.asp?pgID=3162>
> http://www.ajn.com.au/news/news.asp?pgID=3162
> <http://www.ajn.com.au/news/news.asp?pgID=3162>
> http://www.ajn.com.au/news/news.asp?pgID=3162
>
<http://www.ajn.com.au/ajn/uploads/images20060912/0705May/Sarkovsky2-page.jp
> g> »
> 
> 
> IN an interview Nicolas Sarkozy gave in 2004, he
> expressed an extraordinary
> understanding of the plight of the Jewish people for
> a home: "Should I
> remind you the visceral attachment of every Jew to
> Israel, as a second
> mother homeland? There is nothing outrageous about
> it. Every Jew carries
> within him a fear passed down through generations,
> and he knows that if one
> day he will not feel safe in his country, there will
> always be a place that
> would welcome him. And this is Israel."
> 
> Sarkozy's sympathy and understanding is most
> probably a product of his
> upbringing it is well known that Sarkozy's mother
> was born to the Mallah
> family, one of the oldest Jewish families of
> Salonika, Greece.
> 
> Additionally, many may be surprised to learn that
> his yet-to-be-revealed
> family history involves a true and fascinating story
> of leadership, heroism
> and survival.
> 
> It remains to be seen whether his personal history
> will affect his foreign
> policy and France's role in the Middle East
> conflict.
> 
> In the 15th century, the Mallah family (in Hebrew:
> messenger or angel)
> escaped the Spanish Inquisition to Provence, France
> and moved about one
> hundred years later to Salonika.
> 
> In Greece, [under the Islamic Ottoman Turkish
> Empire] several family members 
> became
> prominent Zionist leaders, active in the local and
> national political,
> economic, social and cultural life.
> 
> To this day many Mallahs are still active Zionists
> around the world.
> 
> Sarkozy's grandfather, Aron Mallah, nicknamed
> Benkio, was born in 1890.
> 
> Beniko's uncle Moshe was a well-known Rabbi and a
> devoted Zionist who, in
> 1898 published and edited "El Avenir", the leading
> paper of the Zionist
> national movement in Greece at the time.
> 
> His cousin, Asher, was a Senator in the Greek Senate
> and in 1912 he helped
> guarantee the establishment of the Technion - the
> elite technological
> university in Haifa, Israel.
> 
> In 1919 he was elected as the first President of the
> Zionist Federation of
> Greece and he headed the Zionist Council for several
> years. In the 1930's he
> helped Jews flee to Israel, to which he himself
> immigrated in 1934.
> 
> Another of Beniko's cousins, Peppo Mallah, was a
> philanthropist for Jewish
> causes who served in the Greek Parliament, and in
> 1920 he was offered, but
> declined, the position of Greece's Minister of
> Finance. After the
> establishment of the State of Israel he became the
> country's first
> diplomatic envoy to Greece.
> 
> In 1917 a great fire destroyed parts of Salonika and
> damaged the family
> estate.
> 
> Many Jewish-owned properties, including the
> Mallah's, were expropriated by
> the Greek government. Jewish population emigrated
> from Greece and much of
> the Mallah family left Salonika to France, America
> and Israel.
> 
> Sarkozy's grandfather, Beniko, immigrated to France
> with his mother. When in
> France Beniko converted to Catholicism and changed
> his name to Benedict in
> order to marry a French Christian girl named Adèle
> Bouvier.
> 
> Adèle and Benedict had two daughters, Susanne and
> Andrée. Although Benedict
> integrated fully into French society, he remained
> close to his Jewish
> family, origin and culture.
> 
> Knowing he was still considered Jewish by blood,
> during World War II he and
> his family hid in Marcillac la Croisille in the
> Corrèze region, western
> France.
> 
> During the Holocaust, many of the Mallahs who stayed
> in Salonika or moved to
> France were deported to concentration and
> extermination camps.
> 
> In total, fifty-seven family members were murdered
> by the Nazis. Testimonies
> reveal that several revolted against the Nazis and
> one, Buena Mallah, was
> the subject of Nazis medical experiments in the
> Birkenau concentration camp.
> 
> In 1950 Benedict's daughter, Andrée Mallah, married
> Pal Nagy Bosca y
> Sarkozy, a descendent of a Hungarian aristocratic
> family. The couple had
> three sons - Guillaume, Nicolas and François.
> 
> The marriage failed and they divorced in 1960, so
> Andrée raised her three
> boys close to their grandfather, Benedict.
> 
> Nicolas was especially close to Benedict, who was
> like a father to him. In
> his biography Sarkozy tells he admired his
> grandfather, and through hours
> spent of listening to his stories of the Nazi
> occupation, the "Maquis"
> (French resistance), De Gaulle and the D-day,
> Benedict bequeathed to Nicolas
> his political convictions.
> 
> Sarkozy's family lived in Paris until Benedict's
> death in 1972, at which
> point they moved to Neuilly-sur-Seine to be closer
> to the boys' father, Pal
> (who changed his name to Paul) Sarkozy. Various
> memoirs accounted Paul as a
> father who did not spend much time with the kids or
> help the family
> monetarily.
> 
> Nicolas had to sell flowers and ice cream in order
> to pay for his studies.
> However, his fascination with politics led him to
> become the city's youngest
> mayor and to rise to the top of French and world
> politics. The rest is
> history.
> 
> It may be a far leap to consider that Sarkozy's
> Jewish ancestry may have any
> bearing on his policies vis-à-vis Israel.
> 
> However, many expect Sarkozy's presidency to bring a
> dramatic change not
> only in France's domestic affairs, but also in the
> country's foreign policy
> in the Middle-East.
> 
> One cannot overestimate the magnitude of the
> election of the first French
> President born after World War II, whose politics
> seem to represent a new
> dynamic after decades of old-guard Chirac and
> Mitterrand.
> 
> There is even a reason to believe that Sarkozy,
> often mocked as "the
> American friend" and blamed for 'ultra-liberal'
> worldviews, will lean
> towards a more Atlanticist policy.
> 
> Nevertheless, there are several reasons that any
> expectations for a drastic
> change in the country's Middle East policy, or
> foreign policy in general,
> should be downplayed.
> 
> First, one must bear in mind that France's new
> president will spend the
> lion's share of his time dealing with domestic
> issues such as the country's
> stagnated economy, its social cohesiveness and the
> rising
> integration-related crime rate. When he finds time
> to deal with foreign
> affairs, Sarkozy will have to devote most of his
> energy to protecting
> France's standing in an ever-involved European
> Union.
> 
> In his dealings with the US, Sarkozy will most
> likely prefer to engage on
> less explosive agenda-items than the Middle-East.
> 
> Second, France's foreign policy stems from the
> nation's interests, rooted in
> reality and influenced by a range of historic,
> political, strategic and
> economic considerations.
> 
> Since Sarkozy's landing at the Elysée on May 16 will
> not change those,
> France's foreign policy ship will not tilt so
> quickly under a new captain.
> 
> Third reason why expectations for a drastic change
> in France's position in
> the Middle-East may be naïve is the significant
> weight the French Ministry
> of Foreign Affairs exerts over the country's
> policies and agenda.
> 
> There, non-elected bureaucrats tend to retain an
> image of Israel as a
> destabilizing element in the Middle-East rather then
> the first line of
> defence of democracy.
> 
> Few civil servants in Quai d'Orsay would consider
> risking France's interests
> or increasing chances for "a clash of civilizations"
> in order to help
> troubled Israel or Palestine to reach peace.
> 
> It is a fair to predict that France will stay
> consistent with its support in
> establishing a viable Palestinian state with East
> Jerusalem as its capital,
> existing side by side with a peaceful Israel.
> 
> How to get there, if at all, will not be set by
> Sarkozy's flagship but
> rather he will follow the leadership of the US and
> the EU. Not much new
> policy is expected regarding Iran, on which Sarkozy
> has already voiced
> willingness to allow development of civilian nuclear
> capabilities, alongside
> tighter sanctions on any developments with military
> potency.
> 
> One significant policy modification that could
> actually come through under
> Sarkozy is on the Syrian and Lebanese fronts. The
> new French president is
> not as friendly to Lebanon as was his predecessor,
> furthermore, as the
> Minister of the Interior, Sarkozy even advocated
> closer ties between France
> and Syria.
> 
> Especially if the later plays the cards of
> talking-peace correctly, Sarkozy
> may increase pressure on Israel to evacuate the
> Golan Heights in return for
> a peace deal with Assad.
> 
> Despite the above, although Sarkozy's family roots
> will not bring France
> closer to Israel, the presidents' personal Israeli
> friends may. As a
> Minister of Interior, Sarkozy shared much common
> policy ground with former
> Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
> 
> The two started to develop a close friendship not
> long ago and it is easy to
> observe similarities not only in their ideology and
> politics, but also in
> their public image. If Netanyahu returns to Israel's
> chief position it will
> be interesting to see whether their personal dynamic
> will lead to a fresh
> start for Israel and France, and a more constructive
> European role in the
> region.
> 
> 
> Raanan Eliaz is a former Director at the Israeli
> National Security Council
> and the Hudson Institute, Washington D.C. He is
> currently a PhD candidate at
> the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, and a
> consultant on
> European-Israeli Affairs.
> 
> 
> 
> 


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