1923 – The Birth of the Jewish Scout Movement in France

At the beginning

The movement was founded in 1923 by Robert Gamzon, known as Castor. At the age of 17, he had the opportunity to observe a Protestant scout camp and was inspired to offer similar activities to his fellow believers.

Robert Gamzon, founder of the EEIF

The logo of the EEIF (éclaireurs et éclaireuses israélites de France = Jewish Boys and Girl Scouts of France). Note that in France, “Scouts de France” means Christian, thus the choice by the Jews of the word “éclaireurs” like in “éclaireurs de France” the non-denominational scout movement.

On May 26, 1923, the Bluets patrol made its Scout Promise in the Versailles synagogue. Robert Gamzon obtained the support of several prominent figures in the community, including the writer, poet, and essayist Edmond Fleg, an inspiration, advisor to the Movement, Chief Fleg, and president of the EEIF (Éclaireurs et Éclaireuses Israélites de France = Jewish Boys and Girls Scouts of France). Together, they set up the movement and its governing bodies, and advocated for an original vision: Pluralism and the Common Minimum, education of boys and girls.

Fleg proclaims, “Let us seek what unites us and leave in the shadows what separates us.” He advocates, defends, and campaigns for pluralism and establishes the Common Minimum, a concept that facilitates “pluralism” and highlights the Movement’s capacity for openness and inclusivity.

What “Diversity and Inclusivness” really mean is further explained by the EEIF website:

• Chief Fleg dreamed of a youth movement where observant and non-observant Jews, Sephardic and Ashkenazi, Orthodox and Liberal, could come together to exchange ideas, share experiences, and pass on their knowledge. It was, in fact, on the condition that the EIF (Éclaireurs Israélites de France) welcome the Jewish population in all its diversity that he agreed to become President of the EIF.

Upon assuming the presidency of the EIF, he declared:

• “All Jewish children, regardless of their family or Jewish upbringing, must be able to be E.I.
• No segregation is acceptable. Our motto must be: accept any young Jew who identifies as such, in whatever capacity.”

Thus, Robert Gamzon would later write, “I was happy to see a man of Fleg’s caliber think like me that scouting could be a unique opportunity to bring together all the tendencies of Jewish youth in France.”

So, as you can see, absolutely nothing French there, except that the somewhat ominous Jewish Scout Promise was made in Versailles. In France, the scout association is (or was) a Christian-only movement. But even in 1911, a non-denominational movement existed that was open to every child: Les Éclaireurs de France; Jewish girls and boys could fit in.

But they didn’t; why so and how was the creation of a Jew-only scout association in France made possible and successful?

First thing first, you need enough children: Eugène de Rothschild will see to it (see below).

Second, you need to hush up the French: Bernard Lecache (LICA) and the Marchandeau decree will take care of that (see below).

But let’s start with the Fleg’s statement which the current site of EEiF is not keen to recall.

1 – The Edmond Fleg Founding Declaration

In the year 1938, the Jew Edmond FLEG wrote:

• …Today, the tragedy of Israel is no longer in its disintegration, it is in its very rebirth: we feel that we are Jewish, we want to become so again, but to whom do we turn and how do we do it?
• Cultivating the history and literature of Israel? That’s not within everyone’s reach, and books don’t nourish the hearts of men of action. Turning to Zionism? A noble ideal! But to contribute half-heartedly and from afar to the rebirth of Palestine, wouldn’t that be to settle for Judaism by proxy? To observe the Sabbath and the holidays? To resurrect the rites of the ancestors? Is this possible within a family that is often indifferent and in a social group with no connection to the past? One cannot be Jewish alone: it requires many. To rebuild Judaism, one must rebuild Jewish life, one must act, one must come together and command respect.
• This task, which current circumstances surround with difficulties, seems to be something that Scouting is not only capable of undertaking, but of accomplishing victoriously. I believe I will offend no one by observing, not without melancholy, that there is very little to hope for from our worn-out generations.
• But from adolescence and childhood, anything is possible.
• Jewish scouting offers this first, invaluable advantage: the creation of a vibrant Jewish community. Simply by bringing them together, Judaism, which for these children was often little more than a memory, spontaneously becomes a reality again.
• We see them spontaneously, almost unconsciously, discovering ways of thinking and feeling that are more natural to them than to others. From their gathering, a common soul emerges, and this soul is the very sum of the instincts of our race that lay dormant within us.
• So here we are preparing something analogous to the lost emotions of family worship: we are giving back to these children what is essentially lacking in our generations without a past: the treasure of memories accumulated in the very blood of the ancestors.
• Then this rediscovered Judaism takes on a more conscious form, and among the badges that mark the stages of a Jewish scout’s life, the Hebrew or Jewish history badge is among the most valued.
• Therefore, the work of our scouts cannot be encouraged enough.
• Preserving blood and race, we can hear it loud and clear, we agree 100%, but then, what about scouting in order to defend the race and Jewish blood in France? And Fleg specifies, to defend it victoriously, against whom? The French?

2 – 1938 / 1939The Rothschild Convoys of Jewish Child

We quote here in full from Jean VELLAVE in an anti-Semitic magazine published in April 1944:

We must give here a memorable example of how the Jews, in 1938-1939, were able to fully exploit the right of asylum that Republican France granted them so generously.

Eugène de Rothschild’s last diabolical invention to protect the Jewish race was to systematically round up all Jewish children from the various states of Central Europe and bring these children to France by special convoys.

The first train, unable to obtain the requested visas from the French Consulate, detoured through Holland and Belgium, but nevertheless arrived in Paris. It is worth noting, in this regard, that Jews at that time very readily separated from their children, although this separation was not a matter of emergency.

Subsequently, the French Consulate in Vienna received formal instructions from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was obligated to issue group visas to groups of Jewish children emigrating. This occurred in late 1938 and early 1939. Several convoys of children were thus sent to Paris.

The Jew GRUMBACH, a specialist in naturalizations at the Foreign Affairs Commission, took it upon himself to make them, in a very short time, into authentic little Frenchmen, subsequently Frenchifying their names in order to confound any searches that might be undertaken.

Thus, in Paris at the end of May 1939, everyone was astonished to see veritable regiments of scouts, elegantly and comfortably dressed, in the metro and on the streets. These were Mr. de Rothschild’s scouts. Salute, young Frenchmen!

These children not only had a uniform that distinguished them from Lord Baden-Powell’s classic scouts, but above all, a different face, a different silhouette, a different expression, bearing all the physical and moral stigmas of their race and the vices of the ghetto. Good recruits, in short!

Yet this was the gift that Mr. Eugène de Rothschild had decided to give to France, aided in his task by the Jewish doctors of the maternity wards who, through abortive or other maneuvers, mutilated French mothers, turned our cradles into coffins, and deprived our women of the sacred power to procreate.

Under these circumstances, wasn’t it necessary to repopulate the country? That was the main objective. Its direct consequence was to encourage Jewish emigration in general. The child had been granted the right to reside in France; could anyone be so inhumane as to prevent his mother, his father, and his poor old grandparents from joining him? [American readers will recognize the Family Unification rule set up by their own Jews].

At that time, clandestine visa agencies were making enormous fortunes. Visas refused by consulates were fabricated by them, but while other countries carried out strict border controls, the Freemason Chautemps, Prince of the Royal Secret, gave unofficial orders that no trouble would befall those who could not produce official documents but responded to a prearranged Masonic sign. One Jew, the entire Jewish community—that was the plan! [Camille Chautemps, many times President of the Council of Ministers = Prime Minister, specially in the year 1938 – by the way, he spent the end of his life in the USA, and died in Washington. A very good French indeed…]

3 – 1938 / May 3, 1939 – Lecache / Marchandeau Decree-Law on hate speech

To prevent an outcry from the French people confronted with this downright organised invasion of their country, the French Jews and Freemassons came up with a solution that was as simple as it was radical: prohibit the use of the word “Jew” in the press.

On January 24, 1939, LICA President Bernard Lecache submitted a bill to Justice Minister Paul Marchandeau, appointed on November 1, 1938. He drafted the decree-law concerning the press with the aim of limiting the racist and anti-Semitic discourse of the far right.

This is probably the very first hate-speech law in the world; it provides for prosecution “when defamation or insult, committed against a group of people belonging, by their origin, to a particular race or religion, has had the aim of inciting hatred between citizens or inhabitants.”

The only difference with modern laws of the same kind is that one had to have actually suffered personal harm; consequently, associations could not file a complaint.

To be precise, there is another difference: only the press is targeted by this law, not individuals: the decree-law amends articles 32, 33, and 60 of the 1881 law on freedom of the press by enshrining in French law the prohibition of racial or religious attacks against a group of people and no longer solely against an individual.

Since the law was demanded by Bernard Lecache, a Jew of Ukrainian descent and founder of LICA (International League Against Anti-Semitism), it is very clear that the “group of people” to which the law refers is none other than the chosen tribe.

Lecache also headed a newspaper called “Droit de Vivre” (Right to Live). A right to live, it would appear, that was not granted to everyone; here’s what he declared at a LICA public meeting:

This is the progress of this anti-Semitism about which a minister of the Republic told me: let it grow; when it is big, we will clean it up with machine guns!

In other words, the French must wage wars on behalf of the Jews.

As for Paul Marchandeau, he was the usual shabbat-goy-Freemason.

The decree was repealed by the Vichy regime on August 27, 1940. The government granted amnesty for all acts committed prior to the repeal decree.

A temporary victory for the nationalists, the decree was reinstated in September 1944, following the Liberation.