Sunday, November 26 took place the elections of the Consistory of Paris. Twelve candidates who wanted to renew Joël Mergui as President of the Consistory of Paris were elected.
Of the nine candidates on the Notre Consistory Demain list, only David Revcolevschi, who led this renovation project, was elected.
We would like to thank all the voters who trusted us and recognized themselves in our project for a renovated institution, carrying a Judaism faithful to our traditions, inclusive, which enriches modernity and is enriched by it, a Judaism open to the city and reintegrated into world Judaism.
This election also confirmed the disaffection vis-à-vis a major institution and revealed its extent: out of 30.000 voters, 3713 voters turned out against 5.352 voters in 2013. Abstention, already considerable, has now reached nearly 90 %… The conduct of the electoral process also confirmed the need to reconnect with respect for the rules and democratic transparency in order to restore confidence in the Consistory.
But that leads us neither to resignation nor to renunciation.
A new voice has arisen in which many co-religionists, members or not of the Consistory, find themselves. We note, in this respect, that with the exception of a very limited number of electoral strongholds of the current president of the Consistory and his supporters, most of the large communities of the Consistory of Paris have placed our candidates either at the head of the votes , or on an equal footing with the candidates who were elected.
The lower scores that the candidates of Notre Consistory Demain obtained in the smaller communities remind us of the necessary attention that we must give them.
During the too short campaign of the past few weeks, we have also felt the frustrations of a community vis-à-vis an institution which only brings together 80 communities and 40 associated communities, whereas more than 250 communities in Ile de France, including 100 Lubavitch, are not attached to it.
Among the projects that we wanted to implement for the Consistory was the necessary planning, which is sorely lacking today, of the present and future needs of a community worried about its future but rich in its potential.
We will therefore continue our work by extending the scope: in the coming weeks, Our Consistory Tomorrow will become “Our Judaism Tomorrow”, a structure for reflection and planning of the strategic needs of the community. Open to all aspects of Judaism, Notre Judaisme Demain will develop tools for identifying and planning the needs of French Judaism.
To analyze its situation, anticipate its needs and formulate proposals on subjects such as the demographic evolution of our community, our religious, social, educational and heritage needs, the training of our rabbis and our leaders, the defense of our freedoms nuns, the place of women, the reintegration of a French Judaism that is too inward-looking into world Judaism, pluralism, the identification of new funding strategies, the entry of our communities into the digital age, etc
Within French society and the international Jewish community, French Judaism, through its traditions, its religious and cultural heritage, its history, its diversity and the women and men who embody it, carries an original and inclusive message that t is up to us to embody and share.
It will be the mission of Our Judaism Tomorrow to work there to build the future of our community.
Our Consistory Tomorrow
David Revcolevschi, Michaël Blum, Ellen Hagege Benichou, Eric Hazan, Hervé Kabla, Stéphane Kanovitch, Gérard Parienti, Serge Perez, Benjamin Revcolevschi.
Source: © Election of the Consistory – Press release of Our Consistory Tomorrow
