According to France’s interior minister Gérald Darmanin, 571 arrests of alleged offenders have been made.

By Ben Cohen, The Algemeiner

France’s interior minister confirmed on Wednesday that there had been no let up in the wave of antisemitism that has engulfed the country since the Hamas pogrom in southern Israel on Oct. 7.

Interviewed by broadcaster Europe 1, Gérald Darmanin announced that 1,518 acts of antisemitism had been recorded since the atrocities — a national record, and more than three times the 436 acts reported during the entirety of 2022.

Approximately 50 percent of the incidents involved offensive banners and placards, with a further 22 percent involving insults and threats, 10 percent involving apologies for terrorism, eight percent involving vandalism, and two percent involving physical assault. According to Darmanin, 571 arrests of alleged offenders have been made.

The new data was revealed amid a row over remarks made by the imam of the Grand Mosque of Paris during a television discussion that appeared to challenge the claim that antisemitism in France is becoming worse.

During an appearance on BFMTV on Tuesday night, the imam, Abdelali Mamoun, expressed surprise when he was informed that more than 1,200 antisemitic acts had been recorded since Oct. 7.

When presented with the figures by one of the show’s anchors, Olivier Truchot, Mamoun seemed visibly confused, asking whether the number incorporated all the antisemitic acts during 2023. Truchot replied that the number was a record only of the last five weeks, leading Mamoun to respond that he had not been aware of the figures until that moment, despite the fact that data on antisemitism has been widely reported in the French media. “You are making yourself look like an idiot,” another studio guest, Alain Marschall, interjected.

Mamoun later apologized for his comments, insisting that he had not intended to undermine the Jewish community’s fear of rising antisemitism.

“I was simply saying that this morning, upon learning this figure which shocked and stunned me, I asked for more details,” he said. “The vast majority of the Muslim component aspires to live in peace both with the rest of the national community but in particular with the Jewish component.” However, in common with the majority of Muslim leaders in France, Mamoun elected not to attend Sunday’s rally against antisemitism in Paris that drew nearly 200,000 participants.

Among those criticizing Mamoun was Darmanin himself, who condemned the imam’s “shocking insinuations” as he revealed the updated figure of 1,518 antisemitic acts.

Jewish leaders also voiced their displeasure. “When you don’t want to see the problem of antisemitism, that’s when you are part of the problem,” Yonathan Arfi — president of the Jewish representative organization Crif — told the AFP news agency.

The post France hits new record for antisemitism, with over 1,500 incidents since Oct. 7th appeared first on World Israel News.

More than 500 people gathered at the iconic Great Synagogue in Paris on Tuesday to highlight the plight of Israeli hostages held by Hamas terrorists and to speak out against rising antisemitism in France.

By Ben Cohen, The Algemeiner

Speakers at the event included the Israeli Ambassador to France, Jewish leaders, and relatives of the hostages.

“We no longer have tears, our eyes are dry, we are emptied, three weeks later. I ask only one thing, that they return,” Ayelet Sela — seven of whose relatives were abducted at Kibbutz Be’eri during the Oct. 7 pogrom — told the assembly.

Daniel Toledano, whose brother was seized during the Hamas attack on the Nova music festival, said that the lack of information about his fate over the last three weeks “was worse than knowing he is dead.”

“We have come to change what we hear from French public opinion,” Toledano added, to a standing ovation. “So stay by our side and help us release all the hostages.”

Tuesday’s event took place as the Jewish community reeled from the latest antisemitic outrage, involving dozens of Stars of David daubed on the outer walls of several buildings in the Paris region.

Some 60 Stars of David were painted on the walls of buildings in the 14th arrondissement of the French capital, as well as in Saint-Ouen, Saint-Denis, Aubervilliers, Vanves, and Fontenay-aux-Roses. An interview with one elderly Jewish resident conducted by broadcaster BFMTV went viral on Tuesday after she spoke of her profound fear. “I am crying because I am rediscovering the hatred I knew as a child,” the woman said through tears.

Commenting on the vandalism, Joel Mergui — president of the Consistoire, which administers Jewish places of worship in France — declared that Jews were at a “turning point” in history, confronting a “wave of antisemitism that is reaching new heights.”

One woman who attended the meeting at the Grand Synagogue said that the appearance of the graffiti had terrified her. “This is the story of my parents,” the weeping 75-year-old woman, who gave her name as Arlette, told the AFP news agency.

She said that she had arrived at the synagogue alone after friends who had agreed to accompany her decided not to attend.

“They were afraid,” she said.

A number of non-Jews also attended Tuesday’s night ceremony in solidarity with the Jewish community.

“Taking people hostage, even animals don’t do it,” Daniel Jourdan, 56, told the news outlet La Nouvelle République.

Addressing the French parliament on Tuesday, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said that of the nearly 900 incidents of antisemitism reported since the Hamas pogrom in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 60 percent had been “directed at people, not property.”

The post ‘We no longer have tears’: Paris synagogue hosts hostage families appeared first on World Israel News.

According to figures from the French interior ministry, 819 antisemitic incidents have been registered since the Hamas assault, almost double the entirety of last year’s incidents.

By Ben Cohen, The Algemeiner

French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin has offered reassurances to his country’s Jewish community after new data published on Monday revealed that more than 800 antisemitic acts had been recorded since the Hamas atrocities in southern Israel on Oct. 7.

France was putting “very significant resources into protecting French people of the Jewish faith,” Darmanin said in a television interview on Monday. According to figures from the interior ministry, 819 antisemitic incidents have been registered since the Hamas assault — almost double the 436 acts recorded during the entirety of 2022.

Asked about fears in the Jewish community of pogroms in light of the violent demonstrations on Sunday that accompanied the arrival of a plane from Israel at Makhachkala Airport in the Russian Republic of Dagestan, Darmanin responded, “It won’t happen here.”

“I understand the fear of French people of Jewish faith, but I also want to tell them that they are protected by the Republic,” Darmanin declared, noting that more than 414 alleged antisemitic offenders had been arrested so far, and that 11,000 police officers had been mobilized for the express purpose of protecting Jewish institutions.

Media interviews with French Jews during the last week suggest a widespread fear of renewed antisemitic violence, based on recent memories of terrorist attacks on a Jewish school in Toulouse in 2012 and a Paris kosher supermarket in 2015, as well as the antisemitic murders of several French Jews, including 65-year-old Sarah Halimi in 2017 and 85-year-old Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll the following year.

“People are demoralized, they are afraid to go out to do their shopping,” 67-year-old Jacques Isaac Azeroual, who runs a kosher butcher in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, told broadcaster TV5 on Monday.

Azeroual said that since the Hamas attacks, the number of customers visiting his store had dwindled. He added that while he wears a kippah in his store, “when I go out, I take it off.”

A Jewish woman shopping in the store who chose to remain anonymous said that she was no longer venturing outside after 5.30 pm for fear of attack.

“We are not reassured, we are scared that they will come back like deranged people, that they shoot us, that they kill us,” she said.

In a separate interview with BFMTV, a Jewish woman identified as “Alice” said that she had told her children to remove their Star of David jewelry since the Hamas atrocities.

“Today, in France, in 2023, I am French, Jewish, and I am not afraid to say that I am afraid,” Alice said. She expressed concern that French Jews were experiencing “very dark hours in our history,” pointing to the profusion of Nazi-style antisemitic tags on the homes of Jewish families — most recently in the suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis, where houses apparently owned by Jews were marked with a Star of David.

The disproportionate representation of members of the Muslim community among antisemitic offenders has also set off a sharp debate in France.

On Tuesday morning, an interview with a commentator on a breakfast TV show resulted in a furor, with left-wing members of parliament protesting his alleged racism and Islamophobia.

“More recently, sorry to express it in a perhaps somewhat brutal way, but there is a ‘couscous antisemitism’ which is linked to the fact that there is a historical conflict with the Jew since the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 and today,” columnist Pascal Perri told the morning show “6/9.”

Perri’s use of the term “couscous antisemitism” to describe Jew-hatred among North African immigrants in France triggered ire on the part of parliamentarians from the far-left La France Insoumise (LFI — “France Rising”) coalition and the Green Party.

“Cassoulet racism,” responded LFI MP Manuel Bompard, invoking a traditional French dish, while Melanie Vogel of the Green Party denounced what she called Perri’s “caviar racism.”

The post ‘It won’t happen here’: French Interior Minister attempts to reassure Jewish community over pogrom fears appeared first on World Israel News.