Hating Jews has become mainstream, warns French writer Sfar

Watching anti-Semitism rise again across Europe, the acclaimed author Joann Sfar doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“When I was growing up in France, hating the Jews was something repugnant; now it’s almost the consensus,” says the French graphic novelist and director of the film “Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life.”

“Anti-Semitism has become a way of bringing together people who have nothing else in common but can unite” under that banner, says Sfar with bitter irony.

The writer of the bestselling “The Rabbi’s Cat” books decided to tackle his fears head-on with the oldest Jewish weapon of all — humor — in his new satirical novel.

“The Last European Jew” turns on the elderly Desire Abergel, who has had enough of being a Jew and wants to become an anti-Semite like everybody else.

He even goes as far as asking a cosmetic surgeon to remake his lost foreskin.

The colorful cast of characters includes a female English rabbi who specializes in getting divorces for Hasidic lesbians.

There is also a completely unfunny stand-up comedian called Donnemoidufric — which means ‘give me the cash’ in French — who may or may not be based on Dieudonne, a convicted anti-Semite who has a cult following in France.

“I am terrified of boring my readers,” Sfar tells AFP.

Having given up long ago “the desire to win them over and convince them. I don’t write as an activist, or to change the world,” he adds.

“I love the idea of creating dread and making people laugh at the same time,” admits the polymath, whose father Andre is famous for prosecuting neo-Nazis.

— AFP