Roger Cukierman. Photo: worldjewishcongress.org.

Roger Cukierman

Community leader

Roger Cukierman, the veteran president of CRIF, the representative body of French Jews, recently issued an extraordinary warning concerning the potential fate of his community. “Jews will leave in large numbers and France will fall into the hands of either Shari’a Law or the Front National,” Cukierman declared at a December 2014 rally against antisemitism in the Parisian suburb of Creteil in response to a chilling assault on a Jewish family by three antisemitic thugs. The attack occurred prior to the hostage crisis at a Paris kosher supermarket. Some called the remarks by Cukierman unprecedented. “I have never heard comments like these ever before proclaimed publicly,” said Ron Agam, a French-Israeli artist and political activist. “It really highlights the very grave concern, and almost heartbreaking appeal of members of the Jewish community,”