Increased Security Measures at Synagogues and Jewish Institutions in France

France, a country that previously had one of the largest Jewish communities in the world with over six hundred thousand Jews, has increased security measures at synagogues and Jewish institutions following an armed attack by assailants on a Jewish supermarket in southeast Paris. On Friday, January 9, Amédy Coulibaly, an African Arab, likely accompanied by his girlfriend Hayat Boumeddiene, attacked the 'Hyper Cacher' supermarket in the 'Porte de Vincennes' area of southeast Paris, taking customers hostage for several hours with various weapons including a Kalashnikov machine gun. On that day, after several hours, the hostage situation ended with a raid by French commandos that resulted in the death of Amédy Coulibaly, although the pursuit for the arrest of Hayat Boumeddiene continued. Four other individuals were killed in the supermarket attack, but they were likely killed by Coulibaly before the commandos attacked the supermarket. Before his death, Coulibaly stated in a phone interview with a French television network, 'I killed Jews.' On that day, French police had asked Jewish business owners and institutions to exercise more caution; French officials also spoke of intensifying security measures to protect Jews. Additionally, the Great Synagogue of Paris was temporarily closed for the first time since World War II. Following the attack by Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, two French-Algerian brothers on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday, January 7, security measures to protect Meyer Habib, the only Jewish representative in the French National Assembly, had also been increased. However, the attack on the Jewish supermarket in Paris has raised further concerns among Jews regarding the normalcy of their lives in France. Last summer, during the war between the Israeli army and Hamas and armed Palestinian organizations in Gaza, there were several attacks on Jewish shops in France, including Molotov cocktails being thrown at some stores, although no one was killed in these incidents. Statistics from the Israeli immigration agency indicate that Jews from France have immigrated to Israel or Western countries more than any other country in 2013 and 2014 due to concerns over the rise of anti-Semitism and racism in France. They cite the increasing number of Muslims living in France and the strengthening of right-wing parties in the country as part of their concerns. Reports indicate that of the six hundred thousand Jews in France, only 478,000 remain, accounting for less than 0.8% of the French population. Most Jews who have left France in recent years due to concerns about rising anti-Jewish sentiments have headed to the United States and Canada, with Israel being their third priority. Since 2006, when Ilan Halimi, a young Jew, was kidnapped by a group of Arab Muslim immigrant youths in the suburbs of Paris and later tortured and killed, the wave of Jewish emigration from France has intensified. In recent years, every time the Israeli-Palestinian political conflict has escalated, including wars, the number of attacks on the lives and institutions of Jews in France has increased. Mehdi Nemmouche, a French Arab armed man, recently attacked the Jewish Museum in Brussels, killing several Israelis and Jews. In an attack by another Muslim Arab, Mohammed Merah, in Toulouse, most of the victims were Jews. Despite this, over 130,000 Jews from France who have left the country still retain their French citizenship and passports, and thus are still counted among the citizens of France in statistics. The life of Jews in France in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was significantly influenced by the rehabilitation of Alfred Dreyfus, a French officer who was accused of treason but later exonerated in a controversial trial, proving that anti-Jewish bias was behind the accusation. Dreyfus's exoneration and the improvement of the living conditions of Jews in France led many Jews from Eastern European countries to migrate to France in the early 20th century. The fall of the Ottoman Empire during World War I, which caused significant hardships in the Mediterranean region, also greatly influenced Jewish migration from these areas to France. However, a large portion of the Jews living in France were from North African countries; Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, and Algeria, who had migrated to France decades earlier. The peak of Jewish migration from Algeria, Morocco, Libya, and Tunisia to France occurred in the mid-20th century. French Jews also actively participated in the social and political life of France in the early 20th century, with the first Jewish prime minister in Europe, Léon Blum, serving in France in the mid-1930s, shortly before Hitler's attacks in Europe. However, during the Vichy regime in France, which was aligned with Hitler and Nazi Germany, tens of thousands of Jews living in France were killed or spent years in forced labor camps. The Vichy government had confined Jews in ghettos. Nevertheless, an Iranian diplomat serving at the Imperial Iranian Embassy in France managed to save hundreds of Jews from death. The diplomat of the Iranian monarchy, Abdolhossein Sardari, convinced representatives of the Vichy government that Iranian Jews were 'Aryan' and different from other Jews. With this argument, he provided Iranian passports to French Jews, allowing them to escape from France. Decades later, Amir Abbas Hoveyda, the nephew of Abdolhossein Sardari, became the Prime Minister of Iran. However, Jews in France and around the world remembered Abdolhossein Sardari's charitable services and awarded a plaque of gratitude to another nephew, Fereydoun Hoveyda. A television series produced in the Islamic Republic of Iran referred to this event, titled 'Zero Degree.' Bernard-Henri Lévy, one of France's most important philosophers, is a prominent Jewish figure known as a democratic and liberal intellectual recognized worldwide.