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French court sentences woman for vandalizing kosher grocery with antisemitic graffiti

The court passed a ten-month suspended sentence on the woman as well as a total fine of 14,500 euros.

By Ben Cohen, The Algemeiner

A 44-year-old mother of four children broke down in a French court on Tuesday after she was convicted of daubing antisemitic graffiti on a kosher grocery store in the Paris suburb of Nanterre.

The unnamed woman was arrested on Nov. 21 after she painted antisemitic slogans on the store, among them the word “Jew” accompanied by a Star of David, along with “Gaza” and “Stop Genocide.” The court heard that the defendant had gone out to spray the graffiti on three separate nights during November before she was caught.

Apologizing to the store managers and tearfully denying that her actions were antisemitic, the defendant justified her behavior by claiming that she had felt an awakening within herself after viewing what she said were images of “disemboweled children” in Gaza.

“I wanted to wake up consciences while we are all witnessing a live massacre,” she told the court.

Unimpressed with this line of defense, the court passed a ten-month suspended sentence on the woman as well as a total fine of 14,500 euros to cover both the material damage to the store and compensate the management for their distress.

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A lawyer representing the store welcomed Tuesday’s verdict.

“My clients and I are extremely pleased and relieved by this decision, both criminally and civilly,” Avner Doukhan told the news outlet Le Parisien. “The judiciary has sent a strong signal to the perpetrators of antisemitic acts.”

The aftermath of the Hamas pogrom in southern Israel on Oct. 7 saw a wave of renewed antisemitism in France and other European countries, with more than 1,500 incidents recorded in France in the seven weeks following the atrocities.

Last month, the Jewish Agency — which coordinates the “aliyah,” or immigration, of Jews to Israel — announced that the number of applications had risen by 450 percent in the weeks following the pogrom. The total number of immigrants heading to Israel from France is 1,200, compared with 220 at the same point last year. Additionally, 1,300 families participated in information evenings organized by the Jewish Agency across France during the month of December.