Antisemitism : end of a controversy between the Grand Orient of France and the Crif.
The main obedience masonic French withdrew Monday, a text that accused the representative Council of Jewish institutions in France to promote anti-Semitism …… Explanations ……
“No, Freemasons are not anti-Semites, as they are neither racist nor xenophobic.”
The statement issued by the Grand Orient of France, Monday, and signed by the Grand Master Jean-Philippe Hubsch, is not commonplace.
A few days before the annual Convent of the first masonic obedience of France, which is held in Rouen from August 29 to 31, this document aims to close a controversy that ignited with the Crif, the representative Council of Jewish institutions in France.
A member of one of the 1360 boxes of this obedience – the Parisian lodge “Maximilien the Incorruptible”, which totals 53,000 members – in fact wrote last June what the Freemasons call a “wish” is a brief orientation note to be put to the vote of the general assembly, which meets in Rouen this weekend.
This text simply asked the leaders of the Grand Orient “to no longer participate in various events organized by the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France.”
Reason for this boycott of the most representative institution of the Jews in France beside the religious authorities: the “followism” of the Crif, according to the editor of the vow, the “politics of Israel”, qualified as “politics of the far right religious “. The text denouncing in passing “the nibbling by Israel of the Palestinian territories”.
Which would lead to a “rise of anti-Semitism”.
This wish, once adopted by the Lodge, was then transmitted to the Regional Congress of Grand Orient for vote and approval.
Then it was registered and published, in the file of the members of the national general assembly, the Convent.
What then led some Freemasons to take notice. Scandalized by its content, they decided to make it public a few days ago, triggering this violent controversy.
From anger to incomprehension
“I went from anger, then from stupefaction to misunderstanding,” says Francis Kalifat, president of Crif.
“How could an institution like Freemasonry emit a vow to the defamatory limit for the Crif and to the anti-Semitic limit by the terms used?
Admittedly, I immediately recognized the melenchonian prose that does not hesitate, it is a shame, to make the Crif responsible for anti-Semitism but I had a quick conversation with the Grand Master of the Grand Orient. He was as collapsed as me. He explained to me the origin of the problem. We were in osmosis of thought on this matter. “
It is the text of this “vow” that the Grand Orient has formally decided, Monday, to withdraw permanently. How, however, did such a “wish” nearly come to the National Convent of the Grand Orient?
The origin of the problem is twofold, explains an internal source to this organization.
A Freemason known for his “anti-Zionist and Melenchonist opinions”, a member of a lodge “sharing this same vision”, has actually drafted this text.
It should have been submitted to a regional vote before being sent to the Convent’s national vote.
But he fell through the cracks without the regional body can consult him. He then found himself in the catalog of wishes to be voted by the national delegates.
On 26 August, the Grand Orient more officially explains in a communiqué, the regional commission seized of this text has “legitimately decided to withdraw it” for two reasons.
The first is in the form: “this wish,” says the same source, “was never presented to the congress of the region of attachment of this lodge (Paris 3 Region) and it should not have been sent for analysis to the Convent “.
The second concerns the substance: “how,” says the same statement, “can one imagine that Freemasons of the Grand Orient of France could be anti-Semites?
Anti-Semitism and anti-Semitism are two forms of hatred, often joined in the obsession of the Judeo-Masonic conspiracy, and the blood of our Jewish ancestors and Freemasons has gone downhill in history. “
Hatred of Israel
“The case is defused but the damage is done, regrets an internal source in the Grand Orient that requires anonymity.
The Grand Orient is progressive. He has lodges in Israel. He supports a two-state solution. But it has nothing to do with anti-Semitism.
The internal Masonic justice will probably be seized. “
“The case is closed” for Francis Kalifat, the president of the Crif, who says he is “completely satisfied” with the way the Grand Orient has reacted to treat it and he assures that “there is no break between the Crif and the Grand Orient “.
But this manager is very worried because “such a controversy would never have occurred” a few years ago:
“French society is permeable to the spread of a new anti-Semitism, observes Francis Kalifat, who is not sufficiently fought and treated: the hatred of Israel. If it is legitimate to criticize Israeli policy – and no one is depriving Israel of it – this can not lead to the delegitimization of the existence of the State of Israel.
But this is precisely what this new anti-Semitism aims for. Under this mask, he works at the end of Israel.
It is therefore urgent in France to go beyond an indispensable step. The French National Assembly must vote the resolution presented by the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) which includes, in the definition of anti-Semitism, the hatred of Israel “.
Source Le Figaro
For those with a short memory, that the Nazis had the same hatred
Jews and Freemasons, the rest, you know it (Redaction)