CRIF SHOCKED BY DECISION TO BOYCOT JEWISH WEEKLY

The weekly Actualité Juive published a feature unambiguously headed: «are French Jewish tourists in Israel being taken for suckers? » The weekly noted that French Jewish tourists are regarded as rolling in money and that «air fares are prohibitive and that El Al has abused a quasi monopoly position. Then there are the hotels». In the same issue, Meyer Habib, member of the CRIF Executive, announced that the problems of airline tickets would be discussed by the CRIFT in a meeting with Ariel Sharon. CRIF president Roger Cukierman then made public the content of this meeting.

Since the publication of Actualité Juive, the Israeli Ministry for Tourism has officially decided to boycott the weekly. Actualité Juive published the letter sent to it by the director of Israel’s National Office of Tourism in Paris in which the official wrote: "As a representative of the Israeli Ministry of Tourism, I inform you that we are breaking off all relations with your newspaper".

Roger Cukierman wrote to Avram Hirschensohn, Israel Minister of Tourism to convey to him the «shock felt by the Jewish community». The CRIF president «does not understand» that the minister «is using the boycott as a weapon» as do Israel’s enemies again whom «we wage a daily fight».