Toulouse Jewish Leader Urges Young Jews To Flee France
Image by getty images
On the two-year anniversary of the murder of four Jews in Toulouse, the president of the local Jewish community encouraged young Jews to leave France.
Arie Bensemhoun, the community’s president, said young Jews should leave Toulouse because they could not practice Judaism openly and without fear there.
“I won’t deny that, yes, I encourage the younger people to make aliyah [immigrate to Israel] or go elsewhere, where they can thrive in open Judaism, emancipated and without constantly fearing over what tomorrow will bring,” Bensemhoun said during an interview Monday with the i24 television news channel.
On March 19, 2012, 23-year-old French-born Islamist Mohammed Merah arrived armed at the Ohr Hatorah Jewish day school in Toulouse, where he killed eight-year-old Miriam Monsonego along with Rabbi Jonathan Sandler and his two sons, Arieh and Gabriel.
The event shocked many French Jews and non-Jews, and is believed to have contributed to a marked increase in the number of French Jews who immigrated in 2013 to Israel – from fewer than 2,000 in 2012 to more than 3,000 last year.
According to the SPCJ security unit of the French Jewish community, the killings triggered a wave of anti-Semitic incidents. Ninety such incidents were recorded in the 10 days that followed the shootings.
In a statement Wednesday, European Jewish Congress President Moshe Kantor commended French authorities for their efforts to curb anti-Semitism and urged officials to “preempt the next murders by continuing to invest in education, law enforcement against those who preach hate and incitement and to combat the extremists.”
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
