France: The most dangerous place to be a Jew in Europe today is France

Judith Miller via City Journal:

Anti-Semitism, toujours - A new report highlights the dangers confronted by French Jews.

The most dangerous place to be a Jew in Europe today is France—that’s the conclusion of an as-yet unpublished, two-year report on anti-Semitism in 11 European countries, conducted by former NYPD commissioner Raymond W. Kelly for Ronald S. Lauder, the former U.S. Ambassador to Austria.

Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, has donated heavily to efforts combatting anti-Semitism in Europe and the United States. He asked Kelly, New York’s longest-serving police commissioner, to assess the growth of the anti-Semitism sweeping Europe and suggest practical ways to strengthen the security of Jewish communities and institutions.

Though the resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe has been widely noted and condemned, Kelly’s report concludes that the threat to France’s 450,000 Jews—the world’s third-largest community, after Israel and the U.S.—is the most “acute.” Attacks and threats against French Jews surged 74 percent from 2017 to 2018, the report finds, and preliminary data for the first half of 2019 indicate “further intensification,” with another 75 percent increase last year. Moreover, the official estimates of some 500 attacks and anti-Semitic acts per year are “notoriously under reported,” according to the study, which contends that “no responsible individuals or even government representatives place much credence in these numbers.”  

Kelly and two additional investigators, David Cohen and Mitchell D. Silber, both former senior NYPD counterterrorism officials, blame the French government for failing to respond to the almost-constant violence against and harassment of French Jews. Government funds to the Jewish community total just $3.7 million a year—“about one-fifth of what British Jews receive from their government, though France’s Jewish population is roughly double that of Britain.” […]

While the report doesn’t urge Jews to emigrate, it suggests a bleak future for those who remain, given the projected population growth among French Muslims. The French Muslim population now stands at some 6 million, and a recent Pew study projects a 50 percent increase in their numbers by 2050, even with no additional immigration. […]

Overall, however, the report seems pessimistic. “Radical Islam is universally seen in France as a physical threat,” Kelly and his team conclude. “And this more violence-prone anti-Semitism is certain to worsen.”

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