Europe: Top European rabbi says synagogues no longer safe haven

Via The Jerusalem Post:

“Synagogues are no longer a safe haven,” a top European rabbi said Sunday at a panel discussion about the situation of Jews across the continent, held in the framework of the Munich Security Conference.

“At the back of almost every Jew’s mind is the possibility of what could happen. Sadly, in Copenhagen, Brussels and in Paris, that has become a reality,” Chief Rabbi of Moscow Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis, said at a breakfast event he was hosting titled “Securing Jewish Communities across Europe.” 

“The Jewish community finds itself targeted from a number of directions; from the extreme Right, the extreme Left and Islamic terrorism,” he said, referring to terrorist attacks that have targeted Jews in European countries in recent years. 

The event took the form of a panel discussion featuring MK Tzipi Livni, Deputy CEO for Diplomacy of the World Jewish Congress Maram Stern, director of the International Center for the Study of Radicalization Dr. Peter R. Neumann and former director of Europol Jürgen Storbeck. German journalist Richard Schneider moderated the discussion. 

Stern expressed a similar sentiment to Goldschmidt, noting that while he feels comfortable walking the streets in general, when the synagogue is his destination he begins to feel uneasy. (...)

Neumann described Jews as a “priority target.” 

“They are the first ones to be targeted.

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