Toulouse Jewish school shooting, March 2012 Photo: AFP
Anti-Semitism drives French Jews to UK
New report from Jewish Community Protection Service reveals anti-Semitic attacks in France increased by 58% from 2011 to 2012; many Jews move across Channel to English shores
The biggest attack in 2012 was that of Mohamed Merah, who shot dead seven people,
including three children and a rabbi, outside a school in Toulouse. Merah’s killings, the report says, led to a spike of anti-Semitic attacks in the days following.
The increase in anti-Semitism has led to an exodus of French Jews who have moved across the Channel to English shores, with St. John’s Wood Synagogue in London establishing French-language Shabbat services to fulfill a growing demand.
UK Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, who is retiring
this year, has expressed concern over whether there was still a place for Jews in Europe after recent legal challenges to the Jewish practices of circumcision
and ritual slaughter.
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