Europe has no Jewish future. The threat of Muslim terror is driving away young people and assimilation is destroying the largest diaspora outside the United States. Fed by media reports over the last few years, that was the picture I fully expected to see on a recent trip to Marseille for a gathering of 30 young rabbanim from across the continent organized by the Conference of European Rabbis. But those grim eulogies turned out to be, in a popular phrase, fake news.

What I discovered over two days of conversations with rabbis from Moscow to Toulouse was a far more nuanced picture. True, Europe’s Jewish communities face major problems, not least Muslim anti-Semitism; but these communities are growing, from east to west. And these rabbis have not come to turn Europe’s Jewish lights out; where there’s assimilation, they’re combining traditional rabbanus with kiruv efforts to reach the next generation.

Creating the Need Visiting France for the first time in 16 years felt like something of a trip down memory lane. Even long after innumerable family holidays surviving on baguettes and bemused by France’s cultural wonders, everything was strangely familiar. Orangina, an iconic French soda, still filled the drink machines. The TGV, France’s vaunted high-speed rail network, still makes the US look backward. And despite the global reach of English, the French still expect you to parlez-vous.
But as I cleared customs in Marseille, one difference stood out: the soldiers. In addition to the gendarmes in high boots and crew-cuts that I remembered, there were groups of patrolling infantrymen, assault rifles at the ready and helmets swinging from their belts. This, after all, is France post-terror attacks in Paris, Toulouse, and Nice.

Naturally, this is the first topic that I raise with Rabbi Jeremie Asseraf, a young rabbi in one of Marseille’s local shuls. Sitting at the conference’s opening dinner in the historic Great Synagogue in Marseille’s upmarket center, he tells me: “I work for the Consistoire [official state-recognized Jewish community] in gittin and other functions, and every time there is an anti-Semitic attack, I see an uptick in the numbers wanting documents for aliyah.”
So is Marseille unsafe for Jews?
“Of course we don’t go into Muslim districts,” Rabbi Asseraf says. “But Jews live all over the city, not just in ghettos, like in London, and it’s safe to walk around with a kippah. I feel far safer in Marseille than in Paris, where I come from.”

Lacking a chauffeur, over the course of the next two days I proceed to test his claim by walking between our hotel and the various conference venues late at night. The result? No one so much as glances at me, yarmulke and all.

Beyond security, Marseille’s Jewish community boasts some enviable numbers. At 80,000, it is Europe’s third-largest community, after Paris and London. And with 50 shuls and a few kollelim, this is no backwater. Situated in France, the birthplace of haute cuisine, Marseille also punches above its weight gastronomically — it has almost 60 kosher restaurants. I hear this repeatedly during my visit: Life is good for Jews in Marseille, and people have many reasons to stay.

Later in the evening, I meet the conference’s host, Rabbi Reuven Ohana, chief rabbi of Marseille and a new member of the Conference of European Rabbis’ standing committee. Born in Casablanca, the distinguished-looking Rabbi Ohana immigrated to France in 1961 and later learned under Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel in Yeshivas Mir. Over the last 15 years, he has presided over a Jewish boom in Marseille, and is well placed to advise the gathered rabbanim and community builders.

The job of a modern rav, says Rabbi Ohana, is to “create spiritual needs where none exist. If you only provide the religious services that people want, that is an impoverished rabbinate.”
What this means in practice is a two-pronged effort, with “stage one” being outreach, and in parallel, developing a beis medrash for “stage two”: advancing those who want to grow in Torah. An ambitious program like requires rabbinic manpower, and this is developed in-house: “Avreichim in our kollel take the Israeli Rabbanut tests, and in fact we’ve persuaded Heichal Shlomo to come and test the avreichim here.”

A sense of humor comes in handy, as well. Rabbi Ohana’s Merkaz Halimmud is housed in a former Jewish natal hospital, where many in Marseille’s Jewish community were born. “I tell them to come here to be born again!”

(Excerpted from Mishpacha, Issue 73