Not so long ago, anti-Semitism was a marginal problem in most Western nations. However, sometime in the past decade what had been occasional outbursts of ignorance became acute, threatening and even deadly. The situation is worse in Western Europe than the U.S., especially in France where the country’s half-million Jews feel less secure than at any time since World War II.
Laura Fairrie’s tense documentary Spiral (Blu-ray, DVD and streaming) focuses on the insecurity of French Jews. And yet, Spiral crisscrosses between communities and nations, between angry French Muslims and dismayed French Jews as well as Palestinians and Israelis. The film opens onto a variety of experiences and perceptions, usually without making direct comments on the speakers. An exception is the especially regrettable French comedian, Dieudonne, a trafficker in Holocaust humor. He’s not so much a denier as a trivializer whose attitude is: “We’re bored with your old stories, we all have stories, don’t bother us with yours.” Spiral shows that many French Muslims have reason to feel like second class citizens, yet their resentment flows for no good reason toward their Jewish neighbors. In France, most of the violence draws from the same Islamist militancy that provides ISIS with its cannon fodder.
Reality is complicated and Spiral gets at that complexity. Arabs are also Semites, and probably the Jews closest genetic kin. In other times and places, as some of the film’s speakers add with wistful nostalgia, they were able to get along. Spiral looks at Israel’s barrier wall and West Bank settlements and then at European demonstrations against Israeli policies that have sometimes been hijacked by Jew haters. Some wonder if Benjamin Netanyahu is another manipulator of unreasonable fear like his friend Donald Trump? But if so, what is a justifiable response?
Spiral follows both a French Jewish family as they pack up their home and move to Israel and the teacher at a French Jewish school who is determined to stay. Spiral points to a dangerous resegregation of the world as tribes pull together and pull up the bridges. Another troubling note: most of the hateful anti-Semitic podcasts and YouTube videos shown in Spiral are audibly American in origin.
