Let me begin by saying that I love France. It is a country to which I have traveled often, and whose language I have struggled to learn. I am grieved to see her harmed by these latest murderous attacks.
However, I am also ashamed for her. To see emblazoned in lights on the Arc de Triomphe the words, “Paris est Charlie” and to hear “Je suis Charlie” chanted by large crowds and reproduced on innumerable placards, moves me to say, “Je ne suis pas Charlie.” I would have been happy, by the way, to say, “Je suis Juif,” in solidarity with the French Jews who were executed in the Jewish grocery store on that terrible day. Why not Charlie?
