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Published on 17 January 2016
Year After Paris Attack, Jews Jittery as Soldiers Still Patrol Their Streets
By Steve Byas, published in the New American January 9, 2016
A year after the attack on a Jewish kosher grocery in Paris in which four hostages were killed before police fatally shot the lone jihadist gunman, hundreds of French soldiers are still patrolling Jewish neighborhoods, protecting their schools, synagogues, and other "sensitive sites."
On January 9, 2015, the self-proclaimed Islamic terrorist killed four customers and held several others as hostages in Hyper Cacher supermarket, until French police stormed the store and killed the gunman. The attack followed the killing of a dozen employees at the Paris office of French magazine Charlie Hebdo. Five of the victims were cartoonists who had published several satirical cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammed, considered blasphemous by Muslims.
Jews in France have had mixed reactions to the attacks and the increased protection by police and soldiers.
“I don’t feel safe here anymore,” declared one female survivor who was in the kosher store. “As Jews we are a preferred target, in a country which itself is a target.” Another regular store customer, identified only as Samuel, said it took him six months before he was able to go back to the grocery. According to AFP (the French Press Agency), he added, "There has been a real breaking point. Now we know we can be killed while doing our grocery shopping or walking the streets."
Roger Cukierman, President of CRIF and vice-President of the World Jewish Congress, labelled the Jewish supermarket killings a “despicable crime,” adding that “Islamist terrorism” is the principal “threat to our security and well-being today.”
However, Frederic Encel, a French Jewish politician, cautioned against blaming all Muslims for the attack, stating that the man who carried out the attack at the kosher grocery was an “extremist.”
Meanwhile, Dr. Shimon Samuels of the Simon Wiesenthal Center asserted that his hope was for “the authorities to draw the lessons of today and crack down on these threats with all measures available.”
Historically, Jews have far too often been targets simply for being Jews. However, many have pointed out that giving authorities carte blanche to “crack down with all measures available” could lead to an ever more powerful government, and a corresponding loss of liberty for all French citizens, including the country's 500,000 resident Jews.
For many Jews in France, the very presence of soldiers patrolling their neighborhoods gives them a sense of heightened concern. Likewise, no doubt many would find it difficult to imagine that American soldiers patrolling the streets of U.S. cities would provide great comfort to freedom-loving Americans.
The attack on the kosher grocery in Paris was certainly not the first which specifically targeted Jews in France. In 2010, four Jews, including a rabbi and three children, were murdered by a Muslim terrorist shouting “Allah hu Aqbar!,” while the victims were simply standing in front of Jewish school in Toulouse, France. During the first seven months of 2014, attacks upon Jews in France had doubled. Five hundred and twenty-nine such actions or threats were registered up until the end of July, according to the CRIF, compared to 276 for the previous year... Read more.