Stephen Pollard, editor of Britain’s Jewish Chronicle, has been tweeting the whole day Friday, telling the world about the new exodus of French Jewry from his vantage point.
“Every single French Jew I know has either left or is actively working out how to leave, ” Pollartd tweeted, adding: “It is the largest emigration of Jews anywhere since the war. That’s a simple fact. Up and down the country, at Shabbat dinner, I’m sure one topic of conversation tonight will be ‘Are we safe here?'”
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EJP reported that French Jews watched with a deepening sense of fear Friday’s Islamist terrorist attacks in Paris, one of which targeted a kosher supermarket on Porte de Vincennes.
French TV channel France 2 showed images of dozens of hostages fleeing the scene, including one holding an infant, shortly after the police operation to end the siege at the supermarket was launched. Four of the hostages were murdered by terrorist Amedy Coulibaly when he entered the store, just a few hours before French President Francois Hollande denounced what he called “an appalling anti-Semitic act.” Fifteen other hostages, including women an children, survived the ordeal.
Speaking on French radio station RTL, Roger Cukierman, President of CRIF, the umbrella representative group of French Jewish organizations, said he was not surprised to hear that the Jewish community was being targeted. “Fanatical Islamism always targets the Jewish community, ” he said. “This attack took place two days before a nationwide rally will be held to demonstrate our national unity and defend democracy. We are targets like all French citizens are now targets.”
Pollard retweeted a tweet saying: “A poll from June 2014 shows that 74% of French Jews are considering emigrating. Definitely the impression I get from the community.”
Louise Ridley, writing for the Huffington Post, noted that the Paris Grand Synagogue closed this Shabbat for the first time since World War II.
Last July, Natan Sharansky, chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, said that European Jewry’s days are numbered: “The way things are developing in Europe, Jews will increasingly start to feel there is no future there.”
