Friday, March 02, 2018
FRENCH JEWISH TEEN ASSAULTED WHILE LEAVING SYNAGOGUE
A 14-year old French boy was attacked on Wednesday while leaving a synagogue in Montmagny, north of Paris.
Three fourteen year-old youths and one fifteen-year-old surrounded the boy and began punching him at the exit of the synagogue. They broke his glasses and stole his kippa while shouting antisemitic remarks at him.
The assault took place during Purim, when the synagogue would have been filled with congregants. The boy's brother and sister were reportedly with him at the time, though he had left the building alone.
The suspects were taken into custody following the attack. The police have categorized the assault as antisemitic in nature.
Following the assault, Rene Taieb, the president of the Jewish communities of the Val D'Oise region where the attack occurred, met with Frederic Poitier, who oversees the French government's Inter-ministerial Delegation for the Fight Against Racism, Antisemitism, and LGBT Hate. The two met to discuss a new government plan to combat such incidents. The plan will be unveiled as part the government's new National Education Week Against Racism and Antisemitism in March.
In an interview just after the assault, Potier told the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (Crif) that combating antisemitism "is a fight that must be carried out relentlessly" regardless of the forms in which it is manifested. Potier said that while there will be no miraculous cessation of the phenomenon, he believes that the government and leaders have "the collective capacity to change the minds" of those who espouse antisemitism.
The assault marks at least the third time a Jewish minor has been violently attacked in France since the beginning of 2018. In January, an 8-year-old boy was beaten in his Paris suburb. He had been wearing a kippa at the time of the assault. Earlier in January, a 15-year-old Parisian girl's face was slashed while she was walking down the street. She had been wearing the uniform of her Jewish high school at the time.
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