French Jews say Lyon assault latest in series of anti-Semitic incidents

Times of Israel:

Jewish leaders call atmosphere unbearable, say attacks have picked up since Toulouse shootings in March

By  June 4, 2012, 8:41 am 2

 

Protesters raising a banner reading "in France, we kill Blacks, Jews, and Arabs" during a silent demonstration in Paris in March. (Photo credit: Daniel Hoffman)

Protesters raising a banner reading “in France, we kill Blacks, Jews, and Arabs” during a silent demonstration in Paris in March. (Photo credit: Daniel Hoffman)
Jewish communal leaders in France say an attack on three Jewish men Saturday night was just the latest in a line of anti-Semitic incidents against the country’s Jews.

“There has been a series of acts like the one in in Villeurbanne,”  said Richard Prasquier, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF), according to Le Figaro.

Police are still searching for the culprits behind the incident Saturday night near the southern city of Lyon, in which 10 attackers assaulted three 18-year-old Jewish men outside a Jewish center in Villeurbanne. Two of the victims were taken to the hospital after being beaten with a hammer and metal rod.

Police believe the attackers are of North African extraction.

Joël Mergui, president of the Central Consistory, an umbrella organization working to coordinate local Jewish communities, said the country’s Jews were under constant attack. “Not a week passes without anti-Semitic assaults in France. I refuse to believe Jews will be forced to choose between security and their Jewish identity.”

The Grand Synagogue in Lyon, France. (photo credit: CC-BY Anne Varak, Flickr)The Grand Synagogue in Lyon, France. (photo credit: CC-BY Anne Varak, Flickr)

The chief rabbi of the Grand Synagogue in Lyon, Richard Wertenschlag, called the atmosphere “unbearable.”

“These incidents are becoming more and more frequent, so much so, alas, as to make one take them for granted,” he said.

Click to continue:

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

3 Replies to “French Jews say Lyon assault latest in series of anti-Semitic incidents”

  1. It is the late 1930s and the Jews in Europe are refusing to read the signs that show they are facing another holocaust, of course most people are stuck in the idea that if we disarm things will calm down so I guess we are even in the delusions department.