French Anti-Israel Boycotter Targets All Kosher Food
A French anti-Semitism watchdog called for a police probe against a former lawmaker who warned Muslim shoppers about locally produced kosher products.
“Ramadan soon: Watch out with your shopping,” Jean-Claude Lefort, a former lawmaker for France’s communist party and current president of the France Palestine Solidarity Association, or AFPS, wrote in a social media posting Tuesday.
Attached to the post, appearing on Lefort’s Facebook and Twitter accounts, was a picture of a package of leaf dough produced by the France-based firm Sofrabrick.
The package carried the firm’s name and address in Gonesse near Paris as well as a kosher seal with Hebrew letters. “We know this brand. This is Israeli leaf dough. Look closely at bottom, center,” Lefort said, apparently referring to the Hebrew.
The National Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, or BNVCA, on Tuesday denounced what it called “discrimination that shows once again, if anyone needed showing, how pro-Palestinian activists are calling for a blanket boycott of anything Jewish, though they pretend to target settlement goods.” The group said it was going to file a criminal complaint for discrimination against Lefort.
Lefort denied that he indeed had promoted a boycott, saying he merely “drew the attention of consumers to the product’s origins.”
Last year, Sofrabrick’s leaf dough, marketed under the brad JR, featured on the Twitter account of the French Islamic news site Al Kanz. The tweet’s author claimed that Sofrabrick changed its kosher label in 2000 to omit Hebrew letters for fear of a boycott.
A day after Lefort’s tweets, police raided his home, according to Humanite.fr. However, the raid may have been the result of a computer hacker who gave false information to the police about Lefort.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
