Madame Le Cerf
Historically, there have always been rises in levels of antisemitic incidents in France when the I/P conflict hits the headlines. In summer 2014, during the Israeli incursion into Gaza in Operation Protective Edge, an illegal demonstration, which had at first been peaceful degenerated. During this period the government attitude towards pro-Palestinian demonstrations had hardened and they were forbidden. This did not stop some of the demonstrators on the Paris march on 13th July, which started at Barbès and ended at the Bastille, from peeling off to rue de la Roquette where the synagogue was full of Jews praying for peace. The marchers threw stones, and some tried to force their way inside. The synagogue in rue des Tournelles was similarly attacked. Several witnesses spoke of shouts of “Death to the Jews”. The authorities, unprepared for the amplitude of the disturbances, had put in place only sufficient gendarmes and CRS (riot police) to secure the route of the march. The attackers at the rue des Tournelles were quickly dispersed with tear gas, but the police couldn’t prevent the demonstrators from surging into the rue de la Roquette. There they were met by members of the Jewish Defence League who urged the Jews to stay inside the synagogue until the police could take control of the situation. The defenders “borrowed” chairs from neighbouring café terraces and fought with the keffiyeh-draped demonstrators some of whom were armed with sticks. It took 45 minutes for the police to arrive in sufficient numbers to disperse the attackers and it was not until 20.45 that the synagogue could be evacuated. The administrator spoke of the horror felt by those trapped inside and how the community would always remember that day.
The following week, on Sunday 20th July an illegal march degenerated into an antisemitic riot at Sarcelles (dubbed “Little Jerusalem”). The illegal march had managed to muster only about 500 demonstrators and had been peaceful. But, when it ended, about 50 marchers started to provoke the police and a riot kicked off with about 300 people implicated according to police figures. Young locals armed with iron bars and wooden clubs attacked and looted businesses owned by Jews and non-Jews. A kosher grocery was set on fire. The rioters attacked the synagogue but a cordon of young members of the Jewish Defence League held them off. A tract had been distributed calling on people to descend on the Jewish quarter of Sarcelles equipped with “firework rockets, fire extinguishers and clubs”. The attacks were strongly condemned by Manuel Valls and the Interior Minister, Cazeneuve. The prosecutor asked for the arsonist of the kosher grocery to be sent to prison for 2 years. The court sentenced him to 4!
The barbarous Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 has led to a massive wave of antisemitism in France with attacks on members of the Jewish community unparalleled since the Second World War. This has been incited by the disgusting polemics of LFI and other far left parties who seem to be making it their mission to render blatant antisemitism “respectable”. Since the 7th October there have been the usual “pro-Palestinian” marches in Paris and other major cities though these have not been as sustained or well attended as those in the U.K.and America. Sit-ins and occupations at universities like Science-Po have been broken up by law enforcement. Antisemitic incidents are up massively (government figures show a tripling in the last six months). A small sample is outlined below.
On 28th January three young Jewish students were attacked on the campus of Strasbourg University, knocked down and beaten up by a gang of six people who called them “Zionist fascists”. On Friday 1st March a man in his sixties was attacked as he left a synagogue in Paris. The assailant, who was arrested 5 days later, called him “Dirty Jew” and punched and kicked him several times.
On 4th November 2023 a Jewish woman was attacked in her apartment in the 3rd arrondissement of Lyon. Her unknown assailant rang her doorbell and stabbed her twice when she opened the door. A swastika had been daubed on her door next to the mezuzah. The victim said that the attacker’s face was hidden under a balaclava. The investigators proposed 3 possible motives. One: it was an antisemitic attack. Two: it was instigated by her spouse with whom she was involved in a messy divorce. Three: she had stabbed herself! According to the victim’s mother none of the three doctors who had examined her at the hospital had called for a pathologist’s examination. Fortunately the wounds were not serious and she posted on social media a few days later to say that she was doing well. The assailant was never found, and the case was closed last April.
On 15th June France was horrified by the report of a gang rape at Courbevoie in the department of Hauts-de-Seine of a 12-year-old Jewish girl by three boys aged 12 and 13. The child said that she had been with a friend in a park close to her home when the three boys dragged her into an abandoned building. There they beat her and raped her vaginally, anally and orally, continually reviling her as a dirty Jewess and threatening to kill her. Two of the adolescents were put under investigation for gang rape and issuing death threats and antisemitic insults. The third was categorised as a witness in respect of the rapes and a suspect in respect of the other crimes. Antisemitic images were found on one of the suspects’ mobile. One of the three had been in a relationship with the girl until a few days before the attack. The girl had concealed the fact that she was Jewish and when the boy found out he became very angry. The motive for the attack seems to have been revenge exacerbated by the victim’s forceful criticism of “Palestine”.
So far, the victim and her family have managed to hang onto their anonymity. Nine days after the attack the parents spoke out saying their daughter was suffering from nightmares and flashbacks and that they feared that her childhood had been stolen from her. Her father said that there had been a very nasty atmosphere at the school for the last several months due to the war in Gaza.
On 22nd June in the So Ouest shopping mall in Lavallois-Peret on the outskirts of Paris, six young Jewish people were accosted as they left a cinema. They were subjected to antisemitic insults and two of them were assaulted. They managed to get away and lodged a complaint at the 17th arrondissement police station. So far, the aggressors have not been found.
A similar incident took place in Nice on 1st July. A group of Jewish primary school children were insulted and threatened near their school by two individuals. The teacher who was accompanying them was hit in the face.
In Montpelier on 6th August, a man approached a 61 year old passenger on the tramway demanding to know whether he was Jewish. When he got no answer he hit him and said “I’m talking to you. Are you Jewish or not? You are Jewish. Me, I’m not a Jew, I’m Moroccan. I’m going to fuck your mother, you Jewish shit”. The other passengers threw the attacker out of the compartment. The irony is that the victim told the police that he was not Jewish and not wearing any distinguishing signs when the attack took place.
Attacks of the sort described above have multiplied hugely since 7 October 2023 with an increase of 73% since the start of 2024. In June alone, there was a record of 191 complaints, including 14 physical attacks. Schools are badly affected by this. 658 antisemitic incidents were recorded in French schools between 7th October 2023 and 24th January 2024. Despite soothing words from the arch-dhimmi Education secretary, Nicole Belloubet, it is unlikely that later figures will show any improvement.
Probably the most serious attack this year was the attempted arson of the Grand Motte synagogue. On Saturday 24th August at about 8.30 am, there was an explosion near the synagogue in this seaside town. Surveillance camera footage showed a person leaving the scene just before the blast. He was wearing a keffiyeh wrapped around his head but leaving his eyes and the lower part of his face exposed. He had a Palestinian flag draped around his waist and the grip of a pistol can be seen poking out of this flag. In each hand he held a bottle containing a yellowish liquid. The then Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin, called for immediate reinforcement of security at all French synagogues and the anti-terrorist police were charged with the investigation.
That evening the prime suspect was arrested in nearby NÎmes — a 33-year-old Algerian, El Hussein Khenfri. Although unknown to the security services, he was known to the police for traffic violations and drug use. At the time of his arrested he was living in an illegal squat in Pissein a “quartier sensible”. He opened fire on the arresting officers with his pistol, which was actually loaded with blanks! They returned fire and he suffered arm and chest wounds.
The initial investigation showed that Khenfri had acquired the gun and conducted internet research on the local synagogues and Jewish holidays. Having chosen the Beth Yaacov synagogue as his target he found out the time of the Shabbat services there. He admitted in interviews that he had driven alone to the synagogue in the evening of 23rd August and slept part of the night in his vehicle. At 8.21 am, he climbed over the synagogue wall armed with his pistol and an axe and carrying several plastic bottles filled with petrol. He set fires in several places — the entrance doors to the main building, the door to the room where services were held and the communal room. In the car park he set fire to one of the parked cars and then hid behind an air conditioning unit. After about 30 seconds he, he torched another car parked nearby and opened a gas bottle in the barbeque area. That exploded when the first responders arrived slightly injuring a municipal policeman. Having done what he came to do, Khenfri left, probably because he realised that he had got the hours of the services wrong. On Saturdays the services started at 9.00, 30 minutes later than on other days. So, there were no Jews arriving for him to attack at the time he expected them. However, a few dozen metres from the synagogue, he accidentally set fire to his own car and was forced to abandon it! He phoned an acquaintance who was at Grau-du-Roi market and persuaded him to pick him up and drive him back to NÎmes. There he met up with another acquaintance with whom he had discussed the attack earlier. This man told him that the police were coming to arrest him.
Perusal of Khenfri’s social media revealed that he had gradually become more radicalised and had for a long time hated Jews because of the I/P conflict. He had confided to some of his circle that he wanted to go and fight in Gaza. The attack on the Grande Motte synagogue shocked the Jewish community in France enormously. Only Khenfri’s incompetence and amateurism had prevented what could have been a massacre.
The above examples on attacks on Jews take place in a context of regular, probably daily, relatively minor instances of insults, such as being called “Youpins” or “Sales Juifs”, jostling in the streets and harassment e.g. being spat at. Discrimination, such as women being refused service by their hairdressers, is common. Travellers on the Metro or RER who are suspected of being Jewish are treated to antisemitic chants. Some Jews who have identifiably Jewish names have changed it on their Uber and Deliveroo accounts and taken it off their letter boxes. One woman sighed “When one is called Lévy or Cohen, it’s better now to use a pseudonym.”. She had put her initials only on the doorbell to her apartment. Jews are removing their mezuzot from their doorposts, hiding their kippahs under baseball caps and taking Jewish names from their letterboxes.
As I write this article, a survey commissioned by the CRIF (representative council for Jewish institutions in France) has just come out with some appalling results… 12% (twice the 2020 figure) of French people would be happy to see all Jews leave France. This rises to 20% of LFI voters. 40% of French people believe more than 5 antisemitic tropes — a rise of 7% since 2020. 23% of those surveyed thought that Jews were not really French and 84% thought that Jews were not well integrated. This new survey also shows that far-left supporters were more antisemitic than their far right counterparts. For context, official figures show that about 10% of the population of France is Muslim.
But let’s cheer ourselves up — things are even worse in Belgium, where despite the Jewish community being tiny — between 25,000 and 30,000 — the authorities, in their desire to pander to the ever-growing Muslim community, are more inclined to condone antisemitism. Jews have to take the same precautions there. They even hide their menorot in cupboards in case any workmen who come to make repairs might be radical Muslims. If they order take away food, they give a Christian sounding name. Hiding the kippah is necessary even in airports and train stations.
On 4th August a Flemish “humorous” magazine published an article signed by one of its editors, who said he was so angry with Netanyahu that he wanted to stick a knife in the throat of every Jew he came across. Several associations are taking him to court, but he remains unrepentant and considers the angry reactions to his antisemitism misplaced.
Against this kind of background, Brussels has refused on grounds of security to host a Belgium-Israel football match. This is a clear indication that, due to the huge number of Islamists in Belgium, the Belgian government considers itself unable to ensure the security of the Israeli football team on its territory. Or could it be that the insecurity claim is a fig-leaf to cover the fact that Israelis are not welcome in Belgium? The town of Gand refused at the last minute to let the Israelis take part in the European Frisbee competition for young people because local antisemitism was too powerful. The night before the Israelis were due to play their court was vandalised. They were not even allowed to spectate.
A survey caried out in June this year showed that 11% of Belgians think there are too many Jews in Belgium despite their actual tiny number. This rose to 16% of those who live in Brussels. 24% think Jews are responsible for economic crises. 45% think that Jews think themselves superior to others and 47% think the Israelis are treating the Palestinians in the same way as the Nazis treated the Jews. Despite the worrying data, the study minimised the central factor in current antisemitism in Belgium — the relatively recent arrival of significant numbers of Muslims. The situation in Brussels is particularly bad — the Muslim population is estimated at between 30% and 45%. Although the hijab is omnipresent in many areas of Brussels, nobody wears a kippah anymore. A Jewish school near the Gare du Midi was forced to relocate after increasing incidents made it unsafe for the pupils to take the Metro. The majority of schools in Brussels stopped giving Holocaust lessons some time ago. Since 7th October, Jewish students have been threatened and attacked at the Brussels “free” University.
Hypocritically, the Belgian authorities line up to repeat with their hands on their hearts that antisemitism has no place in Belgium while turning a blind eye to the ever mounting tide. As in France, so in Brussels, left wing parties have come to believe that the Muslim vote has become indispensable to their success. But neither the media nor the political world will acknowledge this.
One Jewish Belgian told the magazine Causeur “My grandfather arrived from Hungary in 1945, and he always told me that Belgium was a safe country for Jews and our family would never be at risk here. Today I explain to my children that their future lies elsewhere and that they need to prepare themselves to leave.” Another said :
“Brussels is a lost territory – lost by cynical manoeuvring based on pandering to community politics. Unlike France, there are no real red lines. Although the danger may not be imminent, the atmosphere here does not inspire any hope.”
