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For Jews in France, a "Kind of Intifada"

(Washington Post) A gang of 15 North African teenagers, some of them wielding broom handles, invaded the grounds of a Jewish day school on Avenue de Flandre in northeast Paris. They punched and kicked teachers and students, yelled epithets, and set off firecrackers in the courtyard. The file of anti-Semitic assaults in France grows almost daily: 309 incidents in the past 15 months in the Paris region and more than 550 since September 2000. The National Consultative Committee on Human Rights, a government-funded body, reported a sixfold increase in acts of violence against Jewish people and property in France from 2001 to 2002. "At first, neither the politicians, nor the courts, nor the intellectuals, nor the media, nor public opinion, nor civil society - none of them said anything," said Simon Kouhama, president of the Jewish Citizens Forum. A recent poll by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency suggested that more than 25% of France's Jews have considered leaving. (Washington Post)
2003-07-17 00:00:00
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