(JTA) — As the body count in hostilities between Israelis and Palestinian rises, so do fears that European Jews will be targeted in a phenomenon that many here call “the import of the conflict.”
That’s what happened when Hamas and Israel exchanged blows in 2014, triggering the worst wave of antisemitic violence in Europe since the Holocaust in terms of its prevalence and scope.
That summer, dozens of men, most of them from Muslim background and some of them coming from a large pro-Palestinian rally, besieged a crowded synagogue in Paris. For long minutes, Jewish men held the crowd at bay as the attackers hurled heavy objects at them, including pieces of furniture from a nearby café.