As we wrote in June, Anti-Semitism is growing with surprising alacrity in France – where Jews face vandalism, threats, and terrorist attacks.
Early last year, a rabbi in Marseilles was attacked and murdered by an ISIS operative.
France is home to more Jews than anywhere else in Europe – but it’s also home to the most Muslims. The Syrian migrant crisis has boosted France’s Muslim population, which in turn is starting to overpower the Jewish population.
In 2015, more than 8,000 Jews left their homes in France to move to Israel. This is a huge increase compared to 2011, when only 1,900 Jews moved from France to Israel.
According to Jacques Canet of the Great Synagogue of Paris, France’s population of between 500,000 and 600,000 Jews feels increasingly threatened.
According to a recent poll, more than 40% of Jews currently living in France are thinking about moving to Israel; 51% report having felt “threatened.”
“Increasingly, Jews in Paris, Marseilles, Toulouse, and Sarcelles feel they can’t safely wear a kippah outside their homes or send their children to public schools, where Muslim children bully Jewish children,” said Canet.
Editor’s note: This is a sad state of affairs, a problem you don’t hear much about. Europe prides itself on its fairness towards its Islamic population, but the cost of that fairness is certainly borne unevenly.