Veil of Tears: Jewish dad backs headscarf daughters
Tuesday, 19 October 2010 06:21 Daniel Ben
Simon
Two sisters became
captivated by Islam, and their French liberal, `Jewish-by-chance' father has
found himself having to face up to their religiosity and subsequent expulsion
from school. The incident has provoked both private and national ferment.
Laurent Levy, a sworn liberal and a total atheist, noticed dramatic changes in
his two daughters, but he did not attribute much importance to them. One day,
about two years ago, the two girls stopped eating pork. "No problem," he said. A
while later, they informed him that they intended to fast during the holy Muslim
month of Ramadan. Levy thought it the most natural thing in the world that his
daughters were adopting.
When Levy's daughters - Lila, 19, and Alma, 16 - told him that they were going
to fast for the entire month of Ramadan, he did not stand in their way. "It is
their right," he said.
A while later the sisters informed him of their intention to pray five times a
day, as commanded by the Koran. There is no reason why they shouldn't do this,
thought the father. Then they stopped going to the beach and wearing bathing
suits, and even stopped using the family swimming pool during vacations. At
night the two sat and learned chapters of the Koran by heart. Friends in the
neighborhood and at school were amazed by the change in the two cheerful young
women. Gradually they began to wrap themselves in long clothing, even in the
summer, and covered their legs with thick stockings.
About a year ago the transformation was completed. Lila and Alma donned scarves
and covered their heads. After a while they also covered their chins and their
foreheads. At school they stopped talking to boys, whispered only to each other
and distanced themselves from the other students. They did not take part in
physical education classes, as they were required to wear gym clothes that they
felt revealed too much of their bodies.
Quickly the two sisters became a phenomenon. Even in Aubervilliers, the northern
Paris suburb where they live, eyebrows were raised. In recent years this suburb
has been taken over by Muslim immigrants from North Africa, and Parisians have
moved away. On Fridays, residents started taking the day off and preferred to
spend their time in prayer; many young people do not go to school. During the
month of Ramadan the neighborhood is silent during the hours of fasting, and
wakes up after the evening meal that breaks the fast.
According to the father, his daughters were captivated by the Muslim religion
and he found himself helpless in the face of their accelerated Islamization. All
his life he had loathed religious beliefs of any sort and blamed them for
ignorance and various kinds of distress. He preached secularism and joined the
movements of the extreme left, because he only felt at home there. In the
not-too-distant past, he served as counsel in suits filed against National Front
leader Jean- Marie Le Pen for having described the concentration camps as a
"detail" of World War II. He has also represented Islamic organizations that
sued actress Brigitte Bardot after she published an anti- Islamic book.
Head-covering debate
About a month ago the two sisters were called into the office of the principal
of the Henri Wallon high school, where they studied. Their external appearance,
they were informed, was causing ferment among the students, and therefore they
must dress like the others; if not, they would be expelled. The girls refused.
The school sent a letter to their parents and warned of the steps it was about
to take. The parents, who are divorced, defended their daughters, each in his or
her own way: The mother tried to moderate her daughters' militant stubbornness,
the father supported their struggle.
The two sisters were suspended from school until the convening of a disciplinary
committee that was supposed to decide their fate. The media depicted the affair
as a test of the state's secularism, and the story quickly hit the headlines.
The intellectual community was in an uproar, as were local political
institutions; both intellectuals and politicians openly applied pressure on the
school's disciplinary committee members to reach a decision that reflected their
point of view.
The debate did not remain at the theoretical level, but dealt with the smallest
details of items of dress as they express the state's secularism, compared to
clothing that threatens its status. Before the girls were suspended from school,
they were asked to remove their head coverings because of their religious
significance. The school authorities relied on a law that was passed in 1905
concerning the separation of church and state, and argued that the head
coverings violated the spirit of the law.
During the discussion of the suspension, one of the sisters argued that a Jewish
skullcap covers the head. She was told that partially covering the head does not
constitute a violation of the separation of church and state. "I'm angry," fumed
Lila after she was suspended from school. "They told us we have to show the
roots of our hair, the lobes of our ears and our necks. But if we do that we
might as well not wear a headscarf at all - we might as well carry it in our
hands."
Last Friday the disciplinary committee met at the school. Dozens of journalists
crowded into the entrance to the school, and television cameras broadcast live
the arrival of the girls and their father. The deliberations began at 6 P.M. and
went on until after midnight. The French waited for the committee's ruling as if
the future of the French Republic depended on the decision of a few members of
the school board of an obscure suburb of Paris.
At the end of the discussion, the members of the Levy family left the hall. The
expressions on their faces testified to what had happened inside. "This was not
a pedagogical discussion," one of the teachers told the journalists. "It was
like a court martial." Another teacher, with a broad smile on his face, related
that the correct and inevitable decision had been taken. "We decided to expel
them from the school," he said, "because the internal `balance' in France makes
it essential that a head covering not cover the hair, the ears or the base of
the neck. It turns out that Muslim young women do not want to expose these
parts.'
`How low France has sunk'
After midnight, the family got home. Levy was furious; the girls were still
wiping away tears.
"They've thrown them out like dogs," Levy told Haaretz two days later, "and this
shows how low France has sunk." According to him, he couldn't fall asleep that
night, nor could his daughters. They read verses of the Koran. "I was proud of
them," he added. "I educated my children to be rebellious and I am proud that
they have followed in my footsteps."
Laurent Levy is a strange individual. This week he was surprised to hear that
the reverberations of his daughters' struggle have reached Israel. "No wonder,"
he said. "With a name like mine, in Israel they probably think that I'm a little
crazy."
Levy angrily recalled the deliberations that were held on Friday: "We entered
the hall where a number of representatives of the school's educational council
were sitting. I had been summoned with my two daughters, but I was not allowed
to bring witnesses. They also refused to allow my partner to enter the hall."
With almost religious fervor, Levy defended his daughters' right to lead a
strictly religious Muslim lifestyle. He rejoiced that they had chosen a way of
life that affords them happiness and argued that even though he is an atheist,
he cannot help but admire their choice.
The panel listened and appeared not to be impressed by his fervor. At the end of
the deliberations they authorized the expulsion of the two girls from the school
on the grounds that their exceptional appearance violated the secular standing
of France and the values of the Republic.
Not for a moment did he feel that his Judaism was threatened, nor did he act as
a Jew. "I'm a nonreligious person," Levy admitted. "I grew up without a religion
and there was not a trace of Judaism in the education I received. My children
ate pork like any other French person. There was no religious influence on my
children apart from the fact that my wife's parents told them about Islam."
Levy, 47, was born to a Jewish family in Tunis and immigrated to France when he
was young. According to him, he is a Sephardi Jew with roots in Amsterdam and
Leghorn. His father was active in the Jewish community in Tunis and even wrote a
book about the community. "As far as my daughters are concerned, they have never
hidden their Jewishness and were even proud of their Jewish heritage."
Levy has four children: Lila and Alma, Sami, 20, and Noura, 16. "They're good
kids," he said humorously, "because I educated them, too, not to accept reality
the way it is and to be rebellious. I am proud that I have been successful in my
education. Lila and Alma have also rebelled in their own way."
The Fifth Republic has taken a stance against their rebellion with an almost
Napoleonic brutality and has given them a tough choice: either school or the
head covering.
"Let there be no doubt," added Levy, "I know that the disciplinary committee's
decision was taken at the highest levels of the country's government. Only
someone who isn't French is unable to understand this country's insanity when it
comes to the veil. Say `head covering' to a French person and they're ready to
embark on a civil war. I'm a leftist and definitely a secular person, but as I
see it, secularism is the freedom to act on your religious beliefs without the
government interfering.
"My daughters are not militants and they didn't try to convert other girls in
the school. None of the members of the disciplinary committee claimed this, but
they all demanded that the girls expose parts of their bodies. These people have
really become ayatollahs of secularism. Since when, I asked them, can people be
forced to expose their bodies? To my regret, this was an embarrassing spectacle.
None of them listened to me because the outcome was predetermined."
In the coming days he intends to find another educational setting for his
daughters, so that they will be able to take their baccalaureate exams and so
that Alma will be able to complete 11th grade. "At least at university, no one
will stop them from covering their heads," he added. "There they will be able to
feel like Muslims without anyone hassling them."
Scarf or veil?
It would appear that the Muslim religion in France boils down to the matter of
head covering alone, as if all the ordinances of the Koran have drained into
that piece of cloth called a head covering by some, and a veil by others. The
French call it a "scarf" so as to make it less symbolic.
The political establishments breathed a sigh of relief. Left and right went out
of their way to praise the school's decision to expel the two sisters. For
several years now the right has been conducting a relentless fight against
Muslim immigrants whose ritual observances are depicted as undermining the
symbols of the Republic. Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin has recently
ordered the preparation of legislation that would prohibit the wearing of head
coverings on school premises. The left, which has adopted secularism as its main
religion, has fought hand in hand with the right in the war against Muslim
ostentation.
Socialist Party leader Francois Holland was enthusiastic about the decision: "We
are living in a secular country and the veil is not permitted on school
premises." The Republican Raffarin also expressed satisfaction with the decision
and his popular Interior Minister Nicola Sarkozy supported it with all his
heart.
Increasing anxiety
In light of the increasing anxiety about Islam in France, the affair of the Levy
sisters has demonstrated the extent to which Islam has grown more influential in
their country. It is not only Islam that scares the French, but also any
religion that lifts its head and threatens to blur the secular outlines of the
Republic. Studies show that only one out of 20 French citizens sees himself as
connected to religion, the lowest proportion in all of Europe.
The question that is being asked today is how to stop the spread of Islam. About
two months ago, worrying details surfaced from a secret report written by the
French internal intelligence service about French people who have converted to
Islam. The information was leaked to the right-wing newspaper Le Figaro and
sparked anger mixed with fear throughout the country. According to the secret
report, about 50,000 French people have converted to Islam. The intelligence
services described this process as "a disturbing phenomenon that is at the
height of flourishing."
Many of the new converts were considered to have been affiliated to no religion
before they adopted Islam. From extreme secularists they have become religious
extremists. It turns out that they also stand out in comparison to their Muslim
colleagues. While the ordinary Muslims follow a moderate way of life, the new
Muslims have shut themselves into mosques and have learned the entire Koran by
heart. They have forced a similar lifestyle on their wives and have cut off ties
with their families.
Part of this group consists of women who have converted to Islam because of
marriage or social pressure. Men have converted for ideological reasons, because
they came to the conclusion that there is no religion more sublime and more
purifying concerning the soul than Islam. In the report, the intelligence
services expressed "great concern," as they put it, about the exploitation of
the new converts by terror elements to advance their aims: It is easy to make
the converts operatives as they have European passports and the ability to move
among countries without restriction, without arousing suspicion. They look
Western and it is easy for them to evade the suspicious looks of border police.
This was the case with Pierre Robert, a French citizen who converted years ago
and joined a terror organization in Morocco that was responsible for a series of
terror attacks in that country last May. He has recently been given a life
sentence for his part in the affair.
Not all Muslims are on the same side. More and more Muslim immigrants are
speaking up against the exploitation of religion by extremists. "The whole story
about the head covering is a matter that is connected to the sexual problem of
Muslim men," says Prof. Leila Babes, a sociologist of religion at Lille
University, who is herself a Muslim. "The scarf drives Muslims crazy, because
they see a woman's body as an instrument for sexual lust only and therefore they
force her to cover herself from head to toe to calm their sexual desires. If she
is covered, she is a `good Muslim woman' and if not, then she is licentious."
This is why Babes and many other Muslim academics have taken a stance on the
side of the government and have demanded the prohibition of Muslim head
coverings on school premises.
Levy, however, supported the wearing of the head coverings on school premises
even before his daughters became devout Muslims. According to him, over time he
learned to appreciate the path they followed until they adopted Islam, and the
strength they needed to carry this out.
"A few days ago my daughter told me that she and her sister met a pious Muslim
in the street who wanted to enlist his mosque in their struggle," he related.
"They told him that it was none of his business. Had I thought that they had
fallen into the clutches of Muslim proselytizers, I would have acted
differently. But their mother and I know that they came to this of their own
accord. However, I'm not with them all day long and I can't swear that something
else hasn't happened."
On one of the shelves at his law office Levy keeps a picture of his daughters,
with their heads uncovered and shoulder-length hair. Despite the fierce struggle
he is conducting, he does not conceal some degree of personal distress. Recently
he spoke with his daughters in order to test the limits of their flexibility and
willingness to compromise. As a romantic at heart, he feels that they have been
swept up as if they had fallen in love. This is why he does not reject an
imposed compromise to end the affair. Meanwhile, he has been careful about not
hurting them after the state has already done so.
"I am afraid they will leave everything," Levy admits. "Both school and the
family environment."