Paris, France - Bris Performed on French President’s First Grandchild
President Sarkozy with son Jean
Paris, France -French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s first grandson,
Solal, was circumcised according to Jewish tradition.
Solal, the son of Jean Sarkozy and Jessica Sebaoun, was born January 13
in the western Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine.
"It happened like all circumcisions, with a rabbi and a mohel," Jean
Balkany, the president’s friend, who was present at the brit for Solal,
told Jewish radio Radio J.
President Sarkozy did not attend the brit, apparently because of
work-related obligations, but Balkany said the president’s entire
family was present, including his parents and brother.
Jessica Sebaoun is "a very observant Sephardic" Jew and the French
president "sees no problem with that," said Balkany, a member of the
French parliament and mayor of Levallois-Perret, a town northwest of
Paris.
Balkany, who is a Jew (his father was deported to Auschwitz), said that
when he met Sarkozy more than 20 years ago, one of their first
conversations was about their shared “Jewish origins.”
Sarkozy’s first grandchild was named Solal, after the hero of a novel
by Swiss writer Albert Cohen. The first name Solal comes from the
Hebrew ‘Solel’ which means “to carve a path,” showing the way for
others and leading by example.
Jean Sarkozy is a law student and regional councilor west of Paris. He
married former high-school classmate Jessica Sebaoun-Darty, an heiress
of a Jewish family that founded the electronics retailer group Darty.
The Darty family founded what became an eponymous nationwide chain of
big-box home appliance stores, now owned by Britain’s KESA Electricals
group.
The French president, who turned 55 last month, has two sons from his
first marriage – Jean and Pierre – and a third, 12-year-old Louis, from
his second.
Nicolas Sarkozy has Jewish roots as his mother Andrée was born to the
Mallah family, one of the oldest Jewish families of Salonika in
northern Greece.
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