In the usually bustling “Little Jerusalem” area of Sarcelles, north of Paris, the popular falafel and grill restaurant was eerily quiet. “People are not going out,” said Jérémy, the 33-year-old restaurant owner.
Lunchtime and evening crowds are common in one of the largest Jewish communities on the Paris outskirts. But many thought it wiser to stay home, fearing a growing number of antisemitic incidents in France and across Europe since the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October and the ensuing bombardment of Gaza.
In France, home to Europe’s largest Jewish community, police recorded more than 320 physical acts of antisemitism, and made more than 180 arrests, in the first 10 days of the war.
Antisemitic acts under investigation include people gathering in front of synagogues shouting threats, incidents of verbal abuse, threatening letters, graffiti such as the words “killing Jews is a duty” sprayed outside a stadium in Carcassonne in the south-west, the education minister’s reports of a Nazi swastika chalked on a blackboard in a school, and a Jewish high-school student whose clothes were ripped and antisemitic comments made to him as he came out of the school toilets. » | Angelique Chrisafis in Sarcelles, Ashifa Kassam, Kate Connolly in Berlin and Angela Giuffrida in Rome | Friday, October 20, 2023
