Sunday, January 12, 2014

Mass 'quenelle' outside synagogue sparks court action in Bordeaux...

On 12 January 1944, the Gestapo occupying the French city of Bordeaux dispatched its Jews, who had been rounded up and imprisoned in their own majestic synagogue, to the death camps.

Fast-forward exactly 70 years and a photograph shows a group of youngsters standing outside the same synagogue, performing the now infamous quenelle gesture invented by the controversial French comedian Dieudonné M'bala M'bala in 2005 and exported to Britain by footballer Nicolas Anelka.

The backdrop of the picture is a large stone plaque engraved A Nos Martyrs (to our martyrs) and bearing the names of the 365 people deported from inside the synagogue. In all, 5,000 Bordeaux Jews – out of a community of 6,200 – perished at the hands of the Nazis.

On the busy Sainte Catherine shopping street nearby, youngsters sitting on the steps near the synagogue entrance eating sandwiches shrug when asked about the quenelle and what it means.

"It is anti-establishment, funny. It's a laugh," they said. Ambiguous? "Oui." Provocative? "Oui." Antisemitic? "Non." Full story...

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  3. Anelka faces FA probe over "sickening" salute...
  4. Book claiming Smurfs are 'anti-semitic and racist' creates a storm in France...
  5. Pulitzer-winner playwright removed from honour list for critical views on Israel ...

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