France: Landmark Paris synagogue closes on Shabbat for first time since World War II

The Grand Synagogue of Paris shuttered ahead of Shabbat services on Friday night in the wake of a series of terrorist attacks across the city, including a siege on a Jewish market by an Islamic extremist.

The synagogue was evacuated during the event, Le Monde reported, and did not reopen for services on Friday night. The closure marks the first time since World War II that the synagogue, a Paris landmark, was not open for worship on the Sabbath, according to the Orthodox Union.

“The Jewish community feels itself on the edge of a seething volcano,” said Dr. Shimon Samuels, the Paris-based director for international relations at the Simon Wiesenthal Center. “Hostages in a kosher supermarket held [up] by an African jihadist, who reportedly already killed two victims,” he said. “The scenes are out of a war movie. But the war is undeclared as long as the sickness is not publicly named as a state of emergency. A culture of excuse exonerates the perpetrators as ‘disaffected, alienated, frustrated, unemployed.’ No other group of frustrated unemployed has resorted to such behavior.”

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