This year, as Jews worldwide gather to read Megillat Esther during Purim celebrations, Israel and the United States are engaged in a military campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The Tehran regime has spent decades declaring its intention to destroy Israel and eliminate its Jewish population, and it invested billions of dollars in arming terror proxies across the Middle East and pursuing nuclear weapons to achieve that goal.
Megillat Esther recalls a moment in ancient Persia when Haman, a senior minister in the royal court, persuaded King Ahashverosh, the ruler of an empire spanning 127 provinces, to seal into law a decree authorizing the annihilation of the Jews on a single designated day.
Nothing in the Megillah suspends nature — no sea partings, no plagues, no sun standing still in the sky. Queen Esther approached the king without being summoned, aware that doing so might cost her life. Her uncle, Mordechai, refused to bow to Haman, fully conscious of the potential consequences. The decree was reversed only after they chose to act, regardless of the personal risk.
In an interview with the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), Rabbi Elie Lemmel, from Paris, France, said Purim offered a blueprint at a time when Jewish survival was once again under open threat. Devoted to families and education, Rabbi Lemmel was physically assaulted on the street twice in the span of a week last year simply for being visibly Jewish.
During the conversation, Rabbi Lemmel spoke about the danger of internalizing fear, the need to strengthen Jewish life from within, and the obligation to act decisively while remembering the source of strength.
You were attacked not because of something you did, but because of who you are. At a moment when many Jews are quietly reassessing how visible they can afford to be, what did that experience clarify for you about the dangers of retreat versus the necessity of presence?
“If we begin to hide ourselves, that is the beginning of the end,” Rabbi Lemmel said. “We must be right, but we must also be wise. Each person lives in a different reality. Every environment has its own risks. You have to look carefully at where you are and what you are facing.”
For example, he emphasized he would not tell a child to walk alone through a hostile neighborhood while visibly identifiable as Jewish.
Yet, he cautioned that “when people remove mezuzot, when they conceal who they are because of fear, it does not stay outside. It enters the mind. It changes how a person sees himself. And it changes how children understand what it means to be Jewish.”
“To raise Jewish children means to raise them with dignity,” he declared firmly.
Amid the normalization of antisemitism, how do you assess the current condition of Jewish life in France? Do you believe the community is positioned to endure and flourish there, or are we seeing signs of long-term decline?
“It is complicated,” Rabbi Lemmel noted. “Some young Jews question whether their future is in France. There is aliyah to Israel.”
Yet what troubles him most is not only how many leave, but who leaves. “When those who build institutions, lead schools, and sustain synagogues begin to leave, the community loses its backbone,” he pointed out. “If its builders depart, who remains?”
“French Jewry is strong,” he stated. It has endured many difficult periods.” He said Jewish schools were expanding, with long waiting lists in many cities. Parents are enrolling their children not only for security, but to ground them in Jewish learning and identity.
“Education is not optional,” Rabbi Lemmel said. “Identity cannot depend on whether society is comfortable.”
He also talked openly about internal pressures, including assimilation, young people struggling to find Jewish partners, and rising divorce rates. “We must strengthen from within,” Rabbi Lemmel said. “If Jewish life is strong internally, it can endure pressure from outside.”
For years, your work has focused on Jewish families, education, and continuity. Today, what does it actually mean to strengthen Jewish life in practice — structurally and spiritually? What must Jewish education prepare students for now that it did not before?
“The first place of education is the home,” he answered immediately. Schools are vital, but parents cannot outsource responsibility. “Judaism is not only about keeping commandments,” he said. “It is also a way of looking at life. How do I relate to society? How do I live among others while keeping a strong Jewish identity?”
A child who understands who he is does not need antisemitism to define him, and hostility will not reshape him. “If identity is clear, pressure does not erase it,” Rabbi Lemmel said. “If identity is weak, even comfort can dissolve it.”
As Jews today face an Iranian regime, its proxies, and other forces that openly or implicitly call for their destruction, what do you believe Jews around the world most need to understand about the Purim story and what it reveals about the present moment?
“There are open miracles,” Rabbi Lemmel said. “There are miracles that unfold within nature. And there are miracles so concealed that we call them ordinary life.”
The Exodus from Egypt was an open miracle. Purim was not. “In the Megillah, everything can be explained,” he said. “Politics. Timing. Human decisions.” And yet, when the story is read as a whole, it does not feel accidental. “Step back,” he continued, “and you see that it is not random.”
“The soldiers of Israel are doing extraordinary work,” but effort is not the source, Rabbi Lemmel said. “The Torah says, ‘You shall remember that it is the Lord your God who gives you the power to act.’”
Strength must be used, but the source must not be forgotten. “Do not be arrogant,” he underscored. “Be proud that you are using the strength you were given in the right way.”
“How is it,” he asked, “that Israel — resilient, democratic, open — is so hated?”
“Am Yisrael shows the nations what they could be,” he went on to add quietly.
Purim reminds Jews that faith never replaces responsibility.
The Book of Esther presents salvation as divine — but only after Esther and Mordechai act with courage. At a time when antisemitism is rising and outcomes feel uncertain, how should Jews understand the line between faith and responsibility? Where does belief end and obligation begin?
Rabbi Lemmel answers with a story. There was once a flood. Some leaders proposed organizing prayers. One rabbi said they must teach the people how to swim.
He connected it to the parting of the Red Sea in the Exodus story. “When the Israelites stood before the water,” he said, “God told Moses, ‘Speak to the children of Israel and let them move forward.’ Rashi says: this is not the time for prayer.” There are moments for prayer and moments for movement. “The effort must be maximal,” Rabbi Lemmel said. “But without the Holy One, nothing succeeds.”
He contrasted two ancient Jewish kings. King Hezekiah prayed and left the outcome to Heaven. King David fought wars. “Who do we call the greatest? David,” Rabbi Lemmel said. “When you are strong and still remember that the strength is not yours — that is greatness.”
Shortly after Purim, we celebrate Passover, when Jews declare that “in every generation there are those who rise to destroy us.” How should that line be understood today in a way that sharpens responsibility and action — while also cultivating resilience rather than fear or despair?
Rabbi Lemmel smiles before replying. “When a baby cries at night,” he said, “what do you notice first — the crying, or the fact that there is a baby?” The crying demands attention, but it also proves there is life. The existence of threat is not proof of abandonment.
“When we say that in every generation there are those who rise against us, we must say the whole sentence — and the Holy One saves us from their hand,” he added.
Rabbi Lemmel recounted his mother, a Holocaust survivor, hearing antisemitic chants in Paris decades after the war. “I always knew they thought this,” she told him. “Now they say it aloud.” Awareness did not produce hysteria. It sharpened vigilance. “Torah. Mitzvot. Tradition. Faith. The commandments between man and God and between man and fellow man — these sustain the protection,” he said.
Rabbi Lemmel has friends involved in Israel’s defense who have told him that some events defied understanding. “There are many miracles,” he said softly. “Many.”
“The Jewish people are like a great puzzle,” Rabbi Lemmel concluded. “Every piece matters. If one piece is missing, the picture is incomplete.”
