Empty Doorposts
A photo essay on the missing mezuzot of Paris

©Patrick Zachmann / Magnum Photos

©Patrick Zachmann / Magnum Photos
©Patrick Zachmann / Magnum Photos
©Patrick Zachmann / Magnum Photos
The number of antisemitic acts in France has soared after the Hamas massacres in Israel, from 436 in 2022 to 1,676 since Oct. 7. As a result, the mezuzah has become a mark of Jewishness that, instead of protecting the occupants of a home, can become an invitation to antisemitic attacks such as the one that took place in the 20th arrondissement of Paris at the home of an elderly Jewish couple whose door, with its mezuzah, was set on fire.
Many Jews have reluctantly removed their mezuzot from outside their homes and put them inside. Some refuse to do so, so as not to be overcome by fear.
As a photographer, I have long been documenting the phenomenon of antisemitism in France. In the 1980s, it was manifested in the form of attacks perpetrated by Palestinians at Goldenberg’s deli, the rue Copernic synagogue, in Carpentras, at the Bagneux Jewish cemetery, and elsewhere, triggering huge demonstrations of support—but also in Jean-Marie Le Pen’s disturbing far-right political party, which was openly antisemitic and negationist. Since the 1990s, France has been witnessing a new and more pervasive form of antisemitism, not imported from abroad but coming from French people of Arab Muslim origin.
When I learned that some Jews were removing their mezuzahs from outside their homes, some even removing their names from their mailboxes, I had the idea of photographing the traces of these mezuzot.
I started by talking to Jewish friends and acquaintances about it, then I tried a few more institutional contacts, such as a Jewish radio station, a rabbi, a Jewish museum. None of these official leads came to anything. Only my personal contacts worked. My first missing mezuzah came through a friend whose daughter Hannah, a student, immediately agreed to let me visit her and her flatmate.
Word of mouth started to spread. Some people recommended me to their son, to an elderly cousin. This photographic essay is therefore not representative of the Jewish community as a whole but rather of an enlarged circle of practicing or just believing friends.
While the events of Oct. 7 were traumatic for Israelis and for Jews in the diaspora, they should not have generated this feeling of insecurity, or even fear, here in France or elsewhere. But that’s what has happened.
Personally, I refuse to live in fear. But I can understand why old people who live alone and are used to having their food delivered to their homes, or families living in working-class suburbs, are afraid. They have good reasons.
©Patrick Zachmann / Magnum Photos
©PATRICK ZACHMANN / MAGNUM PHOTOS
©PATRICK ZACHMANN / MAGNUM PHOTOS
©PATRICK ZACHMANN / MAGNUM PHOTOS
©PATRICK ZACHMANN / MAGNUM PHOTOS
©PATRICK ZACHMANN / MAGNUM PHOTOS
Patrick Zachmann is a French photojournalist, based in Paris. He is a full member of Magnum Photos. In 1989 Zachmann received the Niépce Prize, and in 2016 the Prix Nadar for his book So Long, China.