9 December ceremony

Ceremony of 9 December 2018

The commemorative ceremony for the round-up of the Jews of Tunis by the SS took place on Sunday 9 December 2018 at the Mémorial de la Shoah, in the presence of nearly 300 people, including many children from the Talmud Torah of the Neuilly-Ancelle synagogue and from the Talmud Torah of the synagogue of the Association des Juifs de Djerba (A.J.J.).

Mr Haïm Korsia, Chief Rabbi of France; Mr Serge Klarsfeld; Mr Michel Harel, Consul General of Israel; Mrs Antoine, Director of the O.N.A.C., representing the Minister for the Armed Forces; Senator Carcenac, Vice-President of the France-Tunisia friendship group in the Senate; Mrs Catherine Vieu-Charrier, representing Mrs Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris; Mr Roger Vincent, Regional Councillor, representing Mrs Valérie Pécresse; Mr Patrick Haddad, Mayor of Sarcelles; Mr Ariel Weil, Mayor of the 4th arrondissement; Mrs Maryline Sfedj, Deputy Mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine, representing Mayor Jean-Christophe Fromantin, who was unable to attend; Mr Joël Mergui, President of the Consistoire; Messrs Gil Taieb and Arié Flack, Vice-Presidents of the FSJU, representing President Ariel Goldmann, who was unable to attend; Milo Adoner and Victor Perahia, representing the former deportees; representatives of the CRIF, the Alliance Israélite Universelle, the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah, veterans' associations and remembrance associations; and a delegation of the Jewish Military Chaplaincy honoured this ceremony with their presence.

After the President's speech and the lighting of 6 candles by dignitaries accompanied by children, the customary prayers were recited by Rabbi Amos Haddad. Serge Klarsfeld linked the events in Tunisia to the Shoah as a whole, and the Chief Rabbi of France gave this ceremony its full spiritual meaning.

The names were also read of the Jews of Tunisia who died on the Field of Honour during the Second World War, of the deportees who died in the camps of Europe and of those who died in the labour camps in Tunisia.

The choir of the Spanish and Portuguese Sephardi -rite Temple on Rue Buffault, conducted by Jean-Jacques Velly, gave a masterly performance of Mima Amakim (Out of the depths of the abyss), the Song of the Partisans and, to close, the Marseillaise

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