Créteil, France

"I was raised in district 19 in Paris, where many migrants lived, christian, muslim and Jewish. People came from Iran, Martinique, Aljier, Morocco.. We came from North Africa, Tunisia, and I believe that we shared a lot of commonalities with them. My great grandmother spoke only Arabic. My grandparents spoke Arabic and French. They studied in Alliance school in Tunisia. My grandmother graduated alliance in 1949, but never got the diploma, because the Germans took over France and its colonies. My parents spoke only French.

My grandmother realised that there is no future in Tunisia. Back than Arabic just became the official language. My mother and uncle immigrated to France in 1961. In 1967, in “the Six Days war” in Israel, Tunisia intended to send their soldiers, but the war was already over in six days. Instead, they took out their rage on the Tunisian Jews. My grandmother immigrated to France in 1969. My parents met in 1977 in Paris, married, and I was born in 1979.

I’ve never studied in a Jewish school. Only 10% of my classmates were Jewish. At home we were celebrating all the Jewish holidays, we separated between meat and dairy, my parents used to go to the synagogue on holidays. At age 9 my father started taking me to the synagogue on Shabbat and on Sunday for Talmud Torah, studying for Bar Mitzva, and than after until age 17. I didn’t enjoy it. I had many questions, and there were no answers. My father was easier with my younger brother, and even my sisters didn’t do Bat-Mitzvah.

When I was 10 years old, the year of the Gulf war, I realised I was a Jew. Abdul Kader Shabibi, a classmate, forcibly took me to the side and threatened full of hate in his eyes that “once I will finish with your brother, we will take care of you”. Prior to that, I knew that I was a Jew because I was told “you are a Jew”, because we had our holidays. But there was no exterior sign to show that. One time when I was fighting with one of the kids, somebody interfere for me and said that he should live me alone because I’m a good person and a good Jew. After that he really hated me.

I came to visit Israel first time as a kid. I spent the whole summer with my relatives and learned Hebrew really fast. Right before my university studies I came to visit one more time, and suddenly being in a place where everyone are Jewish, made all these memories come again. I was just after my preparatory year to management school, that was a disaster, and intended to start my university studies. I didn’t really know what to do, and being in Israel in this age made me think on joining the army. My uncle talked me out of it. I started studying for the Psychometric exams in Paris to start me studying in Israel, in parallel to my first year in the university. I was advised to complete my BA studies in Paris, and than I could do my MA in Israel.

I studied until the year 2000. The year of the second Intifada. For me it was the year when Judaism seize existing in France. When it started, a similar movement started in France. A synagogue was burned, Jews were beaten up. More and more things like that started happening. I started being involved in more and more organisations and forms. I was involved in the Union of Jewish students, I participated in the program of “Am Echad” of the International Jewish students union. I hosted Israelis that visited Paris, hosted a Seder Peach, organised tours in the city for them. I left the union of Jewish students because it was too religious for me. They hosted studying events, and at some point didn’t want to include women.

I got accepted to a combined BA and MA program, which meant that I will stay also for my MA studies in Paris. I was the first Jewish student to get accepted to Paris west university. During my studies there were huge rallies supporting Israel and rallies supporting Palestine. I used to come and visit Israel 3-4 times a year. I couldn't wait to move to Israel and take part in the fight. In 2013, I joined a fellowship program of the Jewish Agency and in partnership with the Chamber of Commerce in France and Israel. I lived in Petach Tikva. At that time there were a lot of terror attacks. We were extremely radical at that time. One time I got into an argument with my cousin that held left wing agenda. My other cousin instead took me to one of the extremist settlements, Karney Shomron. My internship was going very badly, while all my friends in Paris were doing their internships in the most prestigious places. I decided to terminate my internship and look for a new one. People tried to convince me to go back to Paris, and I had really difficult time with that, cause it meant my dream was broken. I found another Jewish agency that offered me an internship in Tel Aviv. What they wanted me to do is to sell footage for foreign news companies that shows things like the investigation room of the Shabak investigating a terrorist. I couldn’t understand how they can do that to the country. At that point I was ready to pack my things and leave. I did an internship in an advertisement company in Paris for a year. During all this year I felt torn. I wanted to go back to Israel and join the army. In the end of the year I joined a 3 month “tironot” basic training of the army. It was the best 3 month of my life. I had some difficulties though, the fact that the commanders were 18 years old and I was 25, and also I found it hard that some of the participants didn’t look at the program in seriousness, but they were making jokes from that. There was a guy that said that he has an autoimmune disease and hence he could not guard at night. I turned to him at night and told him with anger that if he thinks that he came to volunteer to do nothing, he better leave. In the end of the course I got a badge of honor.

I had some hard time getting into the army, it took two month to receive a visa, and finally when I got accepted into a service program of the army, I was late in two months and requested to wait a whole year for the next round. I went back to France and than again to Israel. I started I a young professionals program in the Negev where they teach extra hours of Ulpan and suppose to find you a job by the end of the program. It didn’t went well, it was very religious and I had a non Jewish girlfriend back than.

Again, I went back to France and found a job working with the vice head of the cabinet of Mayor, it was in the suburbs of Paris. One day in 2008, I came back home with his car. When I came back out I saw two men running like crazy. The first thing I thought is that they are playing or chasing each other. I than realised that they are running toward me. They were wearing a keffiye. I got punched by one guy, and than another guy came from the back and hit me in the head. One of them opened my car, they tried looking for the keys, and when they didn’t found them they tried putting me in the trunk. When I realised that they were looking for the keys they went away with the car and all my belongings in it. The police found the car a few blocks away, and the keys not far from there. They might have lived right next to me. No finger prints were found, as if they planned it. I was totally traumatised after that. I stopped driving a car and started using the subway. My work place was in the worst neighbourhood. One day in the subway two big men approach me saying that they want to have a look at my phone. They warned me that if I try to scream this will be the end of me. It kept on for two subway stations. I went off and they were following me. They stopped me and took my phone. They asked where I am from, and when I replied that I’m from Tunisia, they told me that they will let me go because I’m also a muslim brother. The police told me that they are looking for these guys for two years, and evert time they had a trial people were afraid to testify against them. On my next journey to Israel, I was doing an internship in the ministry of internal affairs. I was doing research in Shalem institute, translating French research done in Africa, that researched the political change in Muslim countries and how it affected them. While doing this research I cam across names that were similar to the names of my attackers. I started learning about their own difficulties and what they have gone through.

After that I did “Hasbarah” in the Israeli project, but at that point in my life, they were actually very extremist for me, and eventually I had to leave three months before the end. I didn’t know what to do professionally. At that point my brother was applying for a visa to Canada. I joined his application and together we got it. It went well, I was offered a lot of jobs. At some point I was called from Paris and asked to come back and work in Mayor’s office. I was working for them three weeks a months and than came back every months for a week in Canada.

Now I’m back in Paris. As you can see, I’m a bit of a mixture of religion and scholarism, America Europe and Israel, and even had girlfriends that were Jewish and non-Jewish. Now I would like to allow all these contradictions exist all together."

Ruben Uzan