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Remembering France’s Minister of Justice Who Was Shaped by Holocaust Past
Robert Badinter was a French lawyer, politician, and author who enacted the abolition of the death penalty in France in 1981, while serving as Minister of Justice under François Mitterrand. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
Until 1981, the guillotine continued to be used as the means of implementing death sentences in France. However, in that year, France abolished the death penalty. The person who played a pivotal role in achieving this outcome was a Jewish lawyer, Robert Badinter, who had just been named Minister of Justice by the newly-elected President François Mitterand.
Badinter, who died at age 95 on February 9, was a renowned lawyer, a politician, and a historian. He was proud of his Jewishness.
Some years ago, I had the honor of meeting Badinter here in Washington at a lunch organized by B’nai B’rith during one of Badinter’s tours of the United States in his unsuccessful effort to persuade Americans to follow France’s example and eliminate the death penalty. Sitting next to Badinter for a couple of hours, speaking in my native French, I discovered a brilliant exponent for liberal causes. Even though we did not agree on much, we got along famously.
Our common interests in the law, about history, and in matters Jewish made conversation easy. The fact that the bushy eyebrowed lawyer, whose family came from Bessarabia in Eastern Europe, looked strikingly like one of my uncles, made me feel a certain closeness to Badinter.
Indeed, his family’s history is a reflection of both the suffering of the Jewish people in the 20th century and the success that Jews have experienced in the Western world. His immigrant parents met in France, married and had two sons, of which Robert was the younger. When Nazis occupied France in 1940, in an effort to evade German persecution, the family left Paris and moved south. Unfortunately, in 1943, Badinter’s father was arrested by Klaus Barbie, the sadistic SS officer in charge of the region, and was sent to Sobibor, where he was murdered.
Following the liberation of France, Badinter went on to study law. As a criminal lawyer, he defended a number of murderers and attended the execution of one of them. That experience turned him into a ferocious opponent of the death penalty. His opposition bore fruit when, having been named Minister of Justice, he was able to persuade the French National Assembly to vote for the abolition of the death penalty in spite of significant public dissent.
He also championed other causes, including, in particular, the decriminalizing of homosexuality. At the end of his term as Minister of Justice, for nine years he served as President of France’s Constitutional Council, effectively its Supreme Court.
While pursuing his legal and political career, he became an author. He most notably wrote an important book regarding the grant of equality to French Jews during the French Revolution. He also wrote a book that was significantly less laudatory of France. That book, entitled An Ordinary Antisemitism, focused on the role of the Paris Bar during the German occupation. In meticulous detail, Badinter described the complicity of the Paris Bar in the implementation of the discriminatory laws which sought to strip the vast majority of Jewish lawyers of their right to practice law.
In an annual lecture that I give to law students at the Holocaust Museum, I cite Badinter’s book as an example of how lawyers can lose their moral compasses when they get too focused on the details of law practice and fail to keep their eyes on the moral components of the law. My reference to Badinter’s research invariably has an impact on my audience.
Most recently, Badinter wrote a moving book about his grandmother, Idriss, who had immigrated to France in response to the pogroms in her native Bessarabia. He wrote with affection and respect of the struggles of the immigrant generation in adapting to life in a new land. Not surprisingly, the book struck a chord with the French public and was widely read.
All of Badinter’s accomplishments have had a profound impact on France. His importance to France is such that he will be given a special public tribute by President Macron. It is possible that he will ultimately be buried in the Pantheon in Paris, the mausoleum in which France’s greatest heroes are interred. Only three other Jews have been similarly honored to date.
While all of Badinter’s accomplishments are an eloquent memorial to a distinguished Frenchman, I will always remember him by reason of an exchange we had at our lunch. When speaking about the Holocaust and his family’s suffering, he noted that, as the son of a martyred father, he had had an uncommon opportunity to rectify a terrible wrong. In 1983, while he was Minister of Justice, Klaus Barbie, the man who had arrested and sent Badinter’s father to his death at Sobibor, was found in Bolivia and extradited to France. Badinter told me that, in memory of his father’s suffering, he decided that it would be appropriate to reopen the abandoned prison in which his father had been incarcerated by Barbie, and that he sent Barbie there to serve out a life sentence.
But I also noted that, even though Barbie had been previously sentenced to death in absentia, long before the abolition of the death penalty (and notwithstanding his personal desire to avenge his father), Badinter stood by his opposition to the death penalty and did not wish nor seek to have his father’s killer executed. He thereby demonstrated a rare willingness to place principle over the powerful personal desire to avenge the brutal death of a beloved parent.
Badinter was an important French political figure, a brilliant lawyer, an erudite historian, and a man of principle. He was, as President Macron stated recently, “a man of great significance.”
Gerard Leval is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of a national law firm. He is the author of Lobbying For Equality, Jacques Godard and the Struggle for Jewish Civil Rights during the French Revolution, published by HUC Press.
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University of Toronto is granted an injunction to dismantle a pro-Palestinian encampment that has been on campus for two months
The University of Toronto has received an injunction to dismantle the pro-Palestinian encampment on its property. The 98-page decision from Justice Markus Koehnen of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice said that members of the encampment must take down the tents within 24 hours, by 6 p.m. on Wednesday, July 3. Toronto Police will have […]
The post University of Toronto is granted an injunction to dismantle a pro-Palestinian encampment that has been on campus for two months appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Jewish Cemeteries Vandalized in Cincinnati, Montreal
Vandals in Canada targeted a Jewish cemetery. Photo: Screenshot
Vandals have targeted notable Jewish cemeteries in Cincinnati, Ohio and Montreal, Canada, sparking outcry and concern over mounting threats of antisemitism.
Vandals at Montreal’s Kehal Yisrael Cemetery placed memorial stones in the shape of a Nazi swastika on top of tombstones. Ones with the last names Eichler and Herman were targeted in the antisemitic attack.
Placing memorial stones on graves is an ancient Jewish custom to memorialize the dead. Jewish cemeteries oftentimes have stones nearby tombstones for mourners.
Canadian leaders decried the vandalism.
“It is absolutely abhorrent and revolting to defile the dead with swastikas,” Jeremy Levi, the Jewish mayor of a Jewish-majority suburb of Montreal, commented on X/Twitter. “This desecration at the Kehal Israel cemetery in Montreal is beyond contempt. [Canadian Prime Minister] Justin Trudeau, step aside and get out of the way so we can reclaim our country. May this Kohen’s neshama have an Aliyah on high.” One of the tombstones vandalized belonged to a Kohen.
The leader of the Conservative Party in Canada’s parliament and candidate for prime minister, Pierre Poilievre, lambasted Trudeau and denounced antisemitism. “We cannot close our eyes to the disgusting acts of antisemitism that are happening in our country everyday,” he posted on X/Twitter. “The prime minister must finally act to stop these displays of antisemitism. If he won’t, a common sense Conservative government will.”
Canada, like many countries around the world, has experienced a surge in antisemitic incidents since the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’ massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7.
Meanwhile in Cincinnati, vandals targeted two historic Jewish cemeteries this past week, toppling and shattering ancient tombstones — some dating back to the 1800s.
According to a statement from the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati, 176 gravesites in Cincinnati’s West Side were ruined “in an act of antisemitic vandalism.”
“Due to the extensive damage and the historical nature of many of the gravestones, we have not yet been able to identify all the families affected by this act,” the statement continued. “Our community [is] heartbroken.”
The Cincinnati Police Department and the FBI are investigating the incidents.
The destruction of monuments is the latest in a greater trend of antisemitic vandalism. In an incident over the weekend, vandals in Australia targeted war memorials dedicated to Australian veterans who sacrificed their lives in Korea and Vietnam with pro-Hamas graffiti.
A couple weeks earlier, vandals in Belgium defaced two memorials for Holocaust victims with swastikas and a phrase calling for violence against Israel. In Germany, meanwhile, at least seven stolpersteine, or stumbling blocks in the sidewalk meant to mark Jewish homes seized by the Nazis, were defaced with the message “Jews are perpetrators.”
The US, Canada, Europe, and Australia have all experienced an explosion of antisemitic incidents in the wake of the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7, and amid the ensuing war in Gaza. In many countries, anti-Jewish hate crimes have spiked to record levels.
According to the B’nai Brith, antisemitic incidents in Canada more than doubled in 2023 compared to the prior year.
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UN Launches Probe Into Anti-Israel Rapporteur for Allegedly Accepting Trip Funded by Pro-Hamas Organizations
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The United Nations has opened an investigation into allegations that its special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories accepted an all-expense paid trip to Australia from various pro-Hamas groups.
In November 2023, Francesca Albanese allegedly traversed around the Australian continent on a trip whose high price tag was covered by anti-Israel organizations, according to documentation acquired by UN Watch, a Geneva-based NGO that monitors the UN.
Albanese initially landed in Sydney and subsequently enjoyed flights into Melbourne, Adelaide, and Canberra, as well as Auckland and Wellington in New Zealand. The glamorous excursion is estimated to have cost a staggering $22,500.
The UN Investigations Division of the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) told UN Watch last week that it had alerted the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the allegations of financial impropriety levied at Albanese.
In a letter sent to UN leadership last month, UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer outlined evidence based on multiple sources indicating that Hamas-supporting organizations funded Albanese’s trip to Australia, which has been experiencing an alarming spike in antisemitic incidents since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October.
Australian Friends of Palestine Association (AFOPA), an organization that lobbies Australian politicians on behalf of the pro-Palestinian cause, claimed on its website that it “sponsored Ms. Albanese’s visit to Australia” to speak at its annual Edward Said Memorial Lecture in Adelaide. During the lecture, Albanese thanked AFOPA for “organizing such a busy visit,” in which she met with numerous Australian politicians and foreign ministry officials.
Free Palestine Melbourne (FPM) and Palestinian Christians in Australia (PCIA) both claimed to have “supported her visit to Victoria, ACT [Australian Capital Territory] and NSW [New South Wales].” Both groups also publicly declare that they participate in explicit lobbying of Australian politicians in an attempt to “change their minds” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
While on her visit, Albanese served as a keynote speaker at a PCIA fundraiser. FPM encourages politicians to endorse the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel on the international stage economically and politically as the first step toward the Jewish state’s eventual elimination.
Australian Palestinian Advocacy Network (APAN) said it was “honored to support” Albanese’s visit. The organization’s president, Nasser Mashni, openly endorses the terrorist group Hamas and has stated that the eradication of Israel is necessary to secure “the liberation of earth.” APAN states that it “facilitated a range of meetings” for Albanese with Australian parliamentarians.
Palestinians in Aotearoa Co-ordinating Committee (PACC) and Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) both organized and likely bankrolled Albanese’s trip to New Zealand, according to UN Watch. At the behest of these groups, Albanese helped lobby a New Zealand sovereign wealth fund to divest from Israel-linked companies.
Albanese outright denied that her trip was funded by Palestinian lobbying organizations, insisting that the UN footed the bill.
“Yet another trail of egregiously false claims agst me,” she tweeted. “My trip to Australia was paid by the UN as part of my mandate’s activities. Continuous defamation agst my mandate may be well remunerated,but won’t work. It just wastes time that should be used to help stop violence in [the Palestinian territories].”
Albanese did not present any documentation confirming that the UN paid for her travel and accommodations. Rather, she pointed at a statement from AFOPA reading, “Ms. Albanese was authorized by the UN to accept AFOPA’s invitation to deliver the Edward Said Memorial Lecture. The UN funded Ms. Albanese’s travel & accommodation costs. No Palestinian Solidarity group paid for this trip.”
Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’ attacks on the Jewish state.
In April, Albanese issued public support for the pro-Hamas protests and encampments on American university campuses, saying that they gave her “hope.” She has also repeatedly falsely accused the Jewish state of committing “genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza and enacting “apartheid” in the West Bank without condemning Hamas’ terrorism against Israelis.
In February, Albanese claimed Israelis were “colonialists” who had “fake identities.” Previously, she defended Palestinians’ “right to resist” Israeli “occupation” at a time when over 1,100 rockets were fired by Gaza terrorists at Israel. Last year, US lawmakers called for the firing of Albanese for what they described as her “outrageous” antisemitic statements, including a 2014 letter in which she claimed America was “subjugated by the Jewish lobby.”
Albanese’s anti-Israel comments have earned her the praise of Hamas officials in the past.
Additionally, in response to French President Emmanuel Macron calling Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel the “largest antisemitic massacre of the 21st century,” Albanese said, “No, Mr. Macron. The victims of Oct. 7 were not killed because of their Judaism, but in response to Israel’s oppression.”
Video footage of the Oct. 7 onslaught showed Palestinian terrorists led by Hamas celebrating the fact that they were murdering Jews.
Nevertheless, Albanese has argued that Israel should make peace with Hamas, saying that it “needs to make peace with Hamas in order to not be threatened by Hamas.”
The UN did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
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