By Michael F. Haverluck, One News Now—
The most intense wave of anti-Semitism to hit Europe since World War II spurred by the mass Muslim immigration into France is forcing French-Jewish families to flee from their Paris suburb homes.
The changing demographics in the Seine-Saint-Denis suburb – which is now more than 40 percent Muslim – on the outskirts of Paris is making it nearly impossible for French Jews to live without fearing for their lives – as Muslims continue to take over neighborhoods and spread anti-Semitism.
Islam in, Judaism out
French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe condemned the “well-rooted” open hostility shown toward French Jews, as an accelerated exodus from the northeastern fringe of Paris has been taking place for more than a decade.
“This ‘internal exodus’ is difficult to quantify, but it is clear that many synagogues of Seine-Saint-Denis have closed, for lack of people,” the Paris commuter newspaper 20 Minutes reported. “In Pierrefitte, the rabbi has recorded a 50-percent decline in the congregations since his arrival 13 years ago. A similar story is told in (nearby) Bondy, where attendance on Yom Kippur – the holiest day of the Jewish calendar – has fallen from about 800 to 400 in the last decade.”
The president of the Bondy synagogue says that the exodus of French Jews has been driven by the “deteriorating climate” that he has witnessed over the past 15 years.
“It’s hard to explain – it’s provocations, it’s looks,” Bondy expressed, according to Breitbart. “There are places where we do not feel welcome.”
This is basically the same story that was shared by Rabbi Moshe Lewin of nearby Raincy a year prior, when he lamented over the fact that he could very well be one of the last Jewish leaders in all of Seine-Saint-Denis.
“What upsets me is that in some areas of France, Jews can no longer live peacefully, and that just five minutes from my home, some are forced to hide their kippas (skullcaps) or their Star of David,” Lewin shared, according to another Breitbart report last year.
And the year before this, French Jews were also recorded as “not feeling welcome” wearing their traditional kippas in the streets of Paris.
“ where keffiyeh-wearing men and veiled women speak Arabic on every street corner, soldiers are walking every street that houses a Jewish institution,” journalist Zvika Klein discovered in 2015.
BNCVA President Sammy Ghozlan, who heads the Jewish communal security organization in France, warned of the dire circumstances in which the remaining Jews find themselves.
“ not to underestimate the anti-Semitism we experience on a daily basis,” Ghozlan told 20 Minutes. “For a long time, Jews were targeted through their symbols – today, people themselves are targeted directly.”
Even though the largest Jewish community in Europe still resides in France – at approximately 500,000 people – it is quickly diminishing because they increasingly feel that Israel is the only place left that can ensure their safety.
“The 5,000 departures in 2016 add to the record 7,900 who left in 2015 and 7,231 in 2014,” Breitbart Jerusalem informed in a separate report. “In total, 40,000 French Jews have emigrated since 2006, according to figures seen by AFP.”
