Report: Toulouse Massacre ‘Triggered an Explosion’ of French Anti-Semitic Attacks

Jewish Press

The recent massacre at a Jewish school in Toulouse “triggered an explosion” in anti-Semitic attacks across France, according to the French Jewish community’s protection service.

Last Saturday afternoon, three young Jewish men came under attack on their way to synagogue in the French city of Villeurbanne near Lyon, sustaining injuries inflicted by at least 10 men described as being of North-African origin.

Shmuel Mikias, 18, Levi Azoulay, 19, and Shmuel Bitton, 23, had just left a friend’s house where they had enjoyed a Sabbath lunch and were walking towards the Ecole Beth Menachem – a Chabad-Lubavitch run community school where they attended high school – when they encountered three men.

The non-Jewish men “swore at them, spat on them and beat them,” detailed the father of one of the boys, David Azoulay. The boys “thought that was the end, but after walking just another 500 meters, 10 more people started attacking them with hammers and iron bars.”

Azoulay’s son sustained an open head wound and one of his friends was injured in his neck. Both required hospitalization.

“They struck my son’s head with a hammer,” said Azoulay. “His head was opened. He needed four stitches.”

The perpetrators fled when police arrived.

Israel expressed its “profound concern” on Monday following the Villeurbanne attack in a statement from its ambassador:

“The Israeli ambassador to Paris expresses his profound concern in the face of Saturday’s attack on three Jews in Villeurbanne. These three people wore a kippa (Jewish skullcap) on their heads. It would seem that such violent attacks on French citizens of Jewish origin are brought about solely because of their ethnicity.”

The Service de Protection de la Communauté Juive, or SPCJ, made the observation in a statement about its report released Monday, which documented more than 90 anti-Semitic incidents in the 10 days that followed the March shooting at a Jewish school in Toulouse that left four dead.

The SPCJ report was released two days after the violent anti-Semitic attack on June 2 against three Jews at Villeurbanne near Lyon.

The report relies on data compiled by the French Interior Ministry since the March 19 Toulouse shooting, in which Muslim radical Mohamed Merah killed three children and a rabbi at a Jewish school.

In total, the ministry recorded 148 anti-Semitic incidents in March and April, 43 of which are classified as violent, compared with 17 and 37 respectively in March and April 2011.

The last violent incident recorded in the interim report occurred April 30 in Marseille. A Jewish man and his friend were assaulted by people who self-identified to the victims as Palestinians and promised to “exterminate” the Jews, according to the report. The perpetrators assaulted the man, causing him internal bleeding.

SPCJ called the situation “deeply worrisome” and added that it reflected “empathy” on the part of some attackers toward the actions of Toulouse shooter Merah.

A statement by French Interior Minister Manuel Valls read:

“These extremely serious acts are a deliberate attack against our Republic, which allows everyone, without exception, to live freely and in all safety in their religious affiliation,” read the statement.”

Newly-elected French president Francois Hollande in the past said he was “relentless in the fight against anti-Semitism,” and that “security of Jews in France is not a problem of a particular community, it is that of the national community. It’s not up to French Jews to defend themselves but rather to the Republic to protect them. I will not let anything pass, anti-Semitic acts as well as words and more broadly anything that may contribute to a climate which would isolate Jews within their own country.”

This report includes content from JTA and Chabad.org.

June 5, 2012 | 12 Comments »

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12 Comments / 12 Comments

  1. Coming back to the practicalities, the French Jews should have an organisation like the British CST, formerly the Jewish Ex-Servicemen. The CST provides our record of antisemitic incidents and takes steps in collaboration with the police to prevent them and to make sure they do not happen again. They do not depend on information from the equivalent to the Interior Ministry (the Home Office) but inform them. We have very little trouble in Leeds nowadays, whereas some years ago such incidents were more frequent. A system of swift reporting often means the CST are first on the scene and they have found that a quiet but firm word with the perpetrators tends to discourage them from repeating their attacks.

  2. The European intelligentsia is simply jealous and can’t stand the Jews.
    The European Jews do not want to know that history repeats itself!

  3. @ Andy Lewis:

    Europeans become frothing animals when it comes to Jews. They become irrational, self-destructive, psychotic killers with no sense of self-preservation. I would not even call them savages, for savages at least have a sense of self-preservation.

    European hatred of Jews is all consuming and trumps even their own lives. Europeans will gladly die if it means getting rid of Jews.

  4. I’ll go out on a limb and say the Europeans probably see the Arabs as doing their dirty work for them. This cannot go on, nor could it, without their complicity.

    This way, they can come out looking clean.

  5. http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/06/04/after-toulouse-more-attacks-on-french-jews-anti-semitism-israel/

    The flow of raw hate speech against Jews from Cairo and Tehran and other Arab and Muslim capitals is not to be underestimated, but the willingness of European intellectuals to lend their support to the demonization of the Jewish state has given these sentiments a patina of undeserved legitimacy.

    The notion that there is a clean distinction between street violence and the effort to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist and defend itself cannot be sustained. European intellectuals may think they operate on a different level from street thugs. But the logical next step from the hounding of Jews on the editorial pages and in academia is clear. So long as Israel is singled out for unfair treatment and economic and academic boycotts of the Jewish state are treated as “human rights” causes, we should not be surprised that violence against Jews is on the upsurge.

  6. @ CuriousAmerican:

    Were these ethnic Frenchmen or Muslims in France?

    Do you think it matters to the victims whether the perps were Muslim Frenchmen or Ethnic Frenchmen who are non Muslim? I assume they were of French nationality, living in a French society , governed by Frenchmen under French Legal system and laws. Criminals are criminals whether they are Muslims, Christians or Jews. A society that is permissive of criminals is no less guilty than those who actually commit criminal acts. If those who were witnesses did nothing to intervene on behalf of the victims they are no less guilty. If the Police and the State do no invest every resource to apprehend and prosecute and convict the criminals they are also complicit. If it was a hate crime then it should be declared as such and if the Leadership of all established religions do not denounce in the strongest manner criminal hate crimes they also are complicit.

    France as part of the new Eurabia and North America as well have adopted Tolerance as a major pillar of their open and democratic liberal societies. Tolerance starts with accepting other religions and not ostracizing homosexuals. The sphere of tolerance is continuously expanded.

    If we tolerate all religions, why not tolerate Islam? If we tolerate homosexuality, why not accept gay unions? Soon their countries are flooded with Muslim immigrants and the cornerstone institution of family is undermined by same-sex marriages. Judges will find no reason to prohibit polygamy, and the only argument I’ve heard against bestiality is animal rights; shouldn’t rape a sheep, you see.

    Faced with obvious immorality, leftists either have to admit their policy of tolerance to be wrong, or embrace the deviations as beneficial. They will fight to the death in favor of the latter rather than admit they were wrong thus compounding the original ill-conceived conceptional flaw.

    Tolerance is what will destroy western civilization from within. Muslims understand this and will exploit it to the fullest. Every act of appeasement by non Muslims in favor or Muslims and Islam, drives the nails in the coffin of western civilization deeper.

  7. French Jews should seriously considering leaving.

    The non-Jewish men “swore at them, spat on them and beat them,” detailed the father of one of the boys, David Azoulay. The boys “thought that was the end, but after walking just another 500 meters, 10 more people started attacking them with hammers and iron bars.”

    Were these ethnic Frenchmen or Muslims in France?

  8. Time for the Jews of France to come home. Same could be said for all the remains Jews of Eurabia. The in-gathering of the exiles is accelerating as the messianic era is about to unfold.

  9. It’s only going to get worse with the Marxists in power – Marxists who owe their position to the Jihadi vote; pogroms and massacres by Muslims are now inevitable (with the state doing nothing to stop it, or even actively supporting them), and there is no way Israel can defend against this; any attempt to use Israeli troops to defend Jews against a nuclear power like France will result in a second Shoah.

    The only thing French Jews can do now is leave. If they stay, it is a death sentence.