French Jews should have ‘orderly plans in place’ to leave, says top US Jewish leader

The Times of Israel reports:


The Jews of France should prepare plans to leave the country, a prominent American Jewish leader said.

“They shouldn’t flee. But they should have orderly plans in place,” said Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. 

“People who want to leave, should be able to leave,” he said of the half-million-strong community. “Things here (in Israel) should be prepared. The licensing process for lawyers, doctors, etc., should be facilitated in order to integrate them quickly.”

There are “whole areas in France” today, Hoenelin noted bleakly in a wide-ranging interview, “where the police don’t venture, and where Jews and Christians don’t go.”

While the French government has allocated considerable resources to the fight against Islamist terrorism there, Hoenlein elaborated, the head of France’s main security agency recently told him he lacked the manpower to adequately monitor the threat posed by French citizens returning from fighting with the Islamic State and other Islamist groups in the Middle East. This security chief, who Hoenlein did not name, told him that Cherif and Said Kouachi [pictured], the Paris-born brothers who received military training in Yemen and who killed 12 people in an attack on the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine on Wednesday, January 7, 2015, had been closely monitored by French security until days before the killings.

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