French Jewish community site among those vandalised amidst country-wide riots
Community member says that burglary appears to have been the motive rather than Jew hate
The site of a Parisian Jewish congregation was vandalised over the weekend, during what has been the worst rioting in France for a number of years; though it is not currently believed that the attack was explicitly antisemitic in nature.
According to media reports, the Ohalei Yaakov congregation in Paris’s 19th arrondissement found that their temporary prayer site, currently being used while refurbishments are being carried out on the main Synagogue, was ransacked on Saturday night.
However, a congregant told French Jewish media site IsraJ that while lockers had been broken into and the religious contents strewn on the floor, this looked to have been an attempted burglary.
The Shul member, named as Raphael, told the outlet: “It really looks like an attempted robbery; you can see that those who did this were probably looking for money. The Torah scrolls weren’t touched; we just found the items that were in the lockers on the floor.”
However, he went on to say that “it can’t be a coincidence that they chose to target a Jewish place of worship. They must have thought that since they are Jewish, there must be money there. As it’s a temporary building, there’s no sign outside to indicate that there’s a synagogue here. This leads me to believe that those who broke in last night must have scouted the place, seen that Jews went there for prayers.”
Separately, the Service de Protection de la Communauté Juive (SPCJ) French Jewish security organisation identified a number of other sites connected with the Jewish community in France which had been targeted during the overall rioting which has swept the country over the past week. The SPCJ urged members of the Jewish community not to unwittingly spread misinformation about the motives behind the incidents in question.
What began as student-led protests earlier this month, supposedly over the French government’s plans to cut funding for educational initiatives, has now spiralled into full-fledged rioting. While Paris has been at the epicentre, the riots have also spread to other major cities in France, including Marseille, Nantes, Montpellier and Strasbourg, with cities in Spain, Portugal and Italy now also affected. French President Emmanuel Macron has rejected an attempt by the Interior Minister to tender his resignation, while protestors have announced renewed demonstrations, to take place this coming weekend.