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European countries increase synagogue security as Jews brace for antisemitism after Hamas attack
MADRID, PARIS and LONDON (JTA) — As the bloody war in Israel and Gaza continues to escalate, many European Jews are bracing for reverberations far from the frontlines.
On Saturday, Hamas launched a surprise attack by land, air and sea, killing at least 900 Israelis, wounding more than 2,000 and taking more than 100 captive. Israel has responded with airstrikes that have killed close to 700 Palestinians. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip, while Hamas has threatened to execute its civilian hostages.
But in cities across Europe, crowds have celebrated just streets away from vigils for the dead. Groups cheering the Hamas assault as “Palestinian resistance” to the Israeli occupation have danced on the street in London and handed out sweets in Berlin. In France, far-left movements called the terror attack “heroic.”
Jewish communal officials in Europe anticipate that the fighting in Israel will ignite antisemitic threats in their communities. Police have increased surveillance around synagogues, Jewish schools and other institutions in Germany, Britain, France and Spain.
Germany
Police officers stand with their patrol car in front of a building behind which sit the synagogue and the Jewish community center in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany, Oct. 9, 2023. (Jens Büttner/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Berlin police were on alert Saturday night, just hours after Hamas’ incursion, as dozens of people gathered to cheer and hold up victory signs on the Sonnenallee, a boulevard in the city. Police announced they disbanded the gathering for chants “glorifying violence” and made multiple arrests. Two officers were injured in the clashes. Earlier in the day, officers also responded to activists who were celebrating with baked sweets while draped in Palestinian flags.
“An escalation of the situation in Israel unfortunately always has an impact on our community,” said Ilan Kiesling, a spokesperson for the Jewish Community of Berlin group.
Kiesling told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the fighting in Israel and Gaza triggered “great uncertainty” in the local community, with parents asking for detailed information about the security measures in kindergartens and schools.
The Central Council for Jews in Germany also said it was in close contact with security authorities to ensure that Jewish institutions nationwide had heightened protection.
“No violence, no riots and no hatred on German streets,” the group said in a statement.
Britain
U.K. Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis and U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak attend a ceremony at the Finchley United Synagogue in central London for victims and hostages of Hamas attacks, Oct. 9, 2023. (Lucy North/PA Images via Getty Images)
In London, Daniel Sugarman saw that a local kosher restaurant had its glass door shattered on Monday morning. Pita, a business in the heavily Jewish neighborhood of Golders Green, reported its cash register was stolen. New graffiti that read “Free Palestine” also appeared on a bridge nearby, though it is not known if the slogan and the burglary are connected.
The Metropolitan Police Service told the JTA that no arrest has been made and the incident is not currently being treated as a hate crime. But Sugarman, Director of Public Affairs for the Board of Deputies of British Jews, worried the fighting in Israel would set off hate in his community.
“This is about trying to make British Jews feel unwelcome and threatened where they live,” he said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Mayor Sadiq Khan condemned the incident, saying he stood with Jewish Londoners and the culprit would “face the full force of the law.”
The Community Security Trust (CST), a charity dedicated to security for British Jews, reported an increase in antisemitic abuse and threats over the past few days, and said it was prepared for more serious attacks.
“The number of incidents that have come in since Saturday is running at roughly triple what we would normally expect for this period,” Dave Rich, head of policy at the CST, told the JTA.
“We expect that number to go up,” Rich added. “We are still logging and verifying things before they are put into the system.”
The Metropolitan Police confirmed it was increasing patrols across the city and providing safety advice to synagogues, mosques and businesses. Officers said they have attended to some “low level public order incidents” that circulated on social media, such as a celebration in the Acton area in which a group of men danced, cheered and waved Palestinian flags while cars honked in support, but all of the incidents were resolved without arrests.
The CST was working closely with the police to ensure it has a reinforced presence in Jewish areas. “We are not starting from scratch,” Rich said. “We’ve been around this course several times before. We have built up plans over many years.”
France
A French policeman stands guard outside the Paris Synagogue, Oct. 9, 2023. (Julien De Rosa/AFP via Getty Images)
In France, which has the largest Jewish population in Europe, police have arrested 10 people in connection with 20 reported antisemitic incidents since the Hamas assault. The reports include threats to synagogues and to customers who have visited Jewish businesses. Police also received a flood of complaints about antisemitic hate speech and glorification of terrorism online, resulting in 44 open investigations.
This spike in incidents over three days was “dramatic,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Monday, announcing reinforced security measures in 400 Jewish gathering places across France. As a sign of solidarity with Israel, the Eiffel Tower was lit in white and blue, the colors of the Israeli flag, on Monday night.
A segment of the country’s political left has distanced itself from near-unanimous condemnations of the Hamas offensive within the French political class. Some self-described “post-colonial” movements on and parties on the far left in France have praised the attacks.
Among them is the Indigenous Party, which tweeted on Sunday, “May the Palestinian Resistance, which carries out its actions with determination and confidence in heroic conditions, receive our militant fraternity in these terrible hours. Palestine will triumph, and its Victory will be ours.”
The statement sparked public outrage and calls for the party’s dissolution. Simone Rodan-Benzaquen, director of the American Jewish Committee in France and several other European countries, noted that penalties for advocating terrorism in France can reach five years’ imprisonment and a fine of 75,000 euros. Offenses committed on social media can lead to seven years of imprisonment and a fine of 100,000 euros, taking into account the broader reach of such activity online.
Myriam Ackermann-Sommer, the first Modern Orthodox female rabbi in France, said her community was stung by the way some political leaders had celebrated Hamas’ acts of terror.
“Of course, we were hurt by how far-left parties have reacted. Many people in our congregation consider themselves on the left of the political spectrum and this is very hurtful to them,” she told JTA.
Rabbi Yves Marciano of Paris’ Les Tournelles Synagogue said that while bolstered security around places of worship was helpful, the risk to individuals is often greatest when they are not at synagogue.
“With my kippah, I can be seen from afar,” he said. “I am identified and identifiable. And, Mr. Darmanin can’t do anything about that. So, we are very worried about the near future.”
Spain
A group of Palestinians get into a fight with two Jewish women during a pro-Palestinian demonstration in the center of Barcelona, Oct. 8, 2023. (Ximena Borrazás/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
In Spain, Madrid’s main synagogue in the heart of the Chamberí district was defaced with graffiti that read “Free Palestine” next to a crossed-out Star of David on Sunday. Officials from the Federation of Jewish Communities in Spain told the JTA the graffiti was removed from the synagogue’s main doors a couple of hours after its discovery.
The Spanish interior ministry has also bolstered police surveillance around synagogues and Jewish landmarks, according to Isaac Benzaquén Pinto, president of the Jewish federation. There are an estimated 12,000-15,000 Jews living in Madrid.
“Our community has always been known for being tightly knit whenever it is targeted, and this is an attack on Israel and all of Jewry as a whole. We stand unconditionally with the victims, all of them, the State of Israel and its army whose mission is to defend its people,” said Benzaquén Pinto.
In Ceuta, a small Spanish enclave on the North African coast near Morocco notable for its concentration of Spanish Jews, local authorities have particularly reinforced police surveillance and protection at the local synagogue and Jewish cemetery. Jews in Ceuta, mostly of Sephardic descent, have historically been targeted by antisemitism due to the geopolitical situation of the region, including a series of antisemitic incidents in recent years.
“As to this new wave of violence against Israel and the Jewish people, unfortunately, this is not new. We, as well as international organizations and the European Union, have been condemning this renewed surge of violence for a long time,” said Benzaquén Pinto.
Madrid Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida called the Hamas attack “unjustifiable” on Monday. He expressed concern that members of the Sumar political coalition — which includes far-left and green parties and is working to join a ruling parliamentary coalition after elections in July — hesitated to denounce Hamas.
The far-left Podemos party posted on X that the violence in Israel and Gaza was the fruit of Israel’s occupation and avoided outright condemnation of Hamas’ actions. On Monday night, the party led hundreds of people in a demonstration at Madrid’s Puerta del Sol square to “convey all our solidarity to the Palestinian people.” Demonstrators chanted slogans such as “Zionist State, terrorist State” and “It is not a war, it is a genocide.”
The Anti-Defamation League reported a spike in antisemitic rhetoric online during the 18 hours after war broke out on Saturday. Its data indicated that extremists and white supremacists across the world were emboldened in online spaces, some cheering Hamas, some circulating conspiracy theories and some discussing hopes for violence against Jews in the rest of the world.
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Herzog Confirms Behind-the-Scenes Negotiations with Hamas – Deal ‘Possible’
Israeli President Isaac Herzog looks on during a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, not pictured, in Washington, DC, on Oct. 25, 2022. Stefani Reynolds/Pool via REUTERS
i24 News – President Isaac Herzog revealed on Sunday that contacts are ongoing between Israel and Hamas for a ceasefire and hostage release deal.
In a conversation with Yael Alexander, the mother of the abductee Edan Alexander who has been held captive for 422 days by Hamas, Herzog said that “there are negotiations behind the scenes – and it is possible.”
“I reiterate the call – now, after the agreement in Lebanon, it’s time to make a deal and bring the captives home,” Herzog said.
His meeting comes after Hamas released a video over the weekend showing Edan Alexander, an American-Israeli who was captured on October 7, 2023, while serving in the IDF. The video showed him pleading for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President-Elect Donald Trump to secure a deal.
“There are negotiations with a bitter and cruel enemy whose entire purpose in the video was to demoralize us all,” he said. “On the contrary – I think this video gave us a lot of strength.”
“I had a sleepless night,” Yael Alexander said – “Edan, his voice. and the video which plays continuously. You can see from the video that Edan is going through hell, he is screaming and his eyes look sad, but this gave me a lot of strength – Edan strengthened us with his call to us. We released this video, so everyone can see – Edan is alive, and many other captives are alive and the time has come to do something and release them.”
Out of the 101 hostages held in Gaza, estimates range as to the number still living, with some going as low as two dozen.
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The Voice of Jacob
Chabad Rabbi Zvi Kogan. Photo: @Chabad/X.
JNS.org – The Jewish world is grieving the horrific murder of Rabbi Zvi Kogan in the United Arab Emirates. A gentle ambassador of Judaism, his young life was snuffed out by the perpetrators of evil. We grieve with his young widow, his parents and his family. May God grant them strength, solace and only simcha (“happiness”) in the future.
In this week’s Torah portion, Toldot, we read of the birth of twin sons to Isaac and Rebecca. These twins could not have been less identical. Genesis 25:27 tells us, “The boys grew; Esau became an expert hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a guileless man, dwelling in the tents (of Torah).”
Esau was a wild man, hunting animals as well as women. Jacob was a student of Torah. One was a gladiator, the other a sage. Esau would become the father of Rome, the destroyers of our temple, while Jacob went on to become one of the founding fathers of our faith, the patriarch who fathered the 12 tribes of Israel.
Who should we want our children to emulate: the wild warrior or the gentle scholar?
“The voice is the voice of Jacob, and the hands are the hands of Esau,” said Isaac when he was going to bestow the all-important blessings to his son and heir apparent. Jacob is forever represented by the soft voice of the Torah, of wisdom, reason and ethics. Esau, however, is not symbolized by the voice but by the violent hands that strike out and hurt others.
Jewish heroes have always been the peaceful giants of philosophy, wisdom, ethics and morals. Violent murderers are the antithesis of everything we stand for.
I feel that there is a danger today, when our heroes are our Israel Defense Forces soldiers, pilots and naval officers, as they surely should be. They are superheroes of body and soul. Every time a young man or woman puts on a Tzahal uniform, they put their lives on the line. They are prepared to give their lives to defend our homeland and our people. The most secular kibbutznik becomes a tzaddik, the holy of holies, when he makes that courageous commitment.
In fact, the Sheloh—Rabbi Isaiah Horowitz (1558-1628)—wrote that at the holiest moment of the year, on Yom Kippur, at the very climax of the Neilah service when we shout out Shema Yisrael (“Hear O Israel”), we should have in mind to give our life for God, Al Kiddush Hashem “to sanctify his name,” and it will be considered as if we actually did.
Those courageous chayalim make that pledge daily. And far too many have sacrificed their lives in the current war against terror. So it is entirely appropriate that they should be our superheroes. But the inherent danger here is that our children and the younger generation idealize war and military action, heroic though it may be. These wars of defense are a regrettable necessity in our neck of the woods. And today, sadly, Jews everywhere need to be able to defend themselves.
While we honor, cherish and admire our chayalim, they themselves would much rather be at their desktops, in the library or the yeshivah instead of on the front lines.
We dare not forget who we really are, the children of Jacob, B’nai Yisrael. Jacob is our eternal role model. Esau is the antithesis of everything we stand for.
Yes, believe it or not, Jews are pacifists. We are peace-loving people despite the scandalously libelous claims of genocide against us. Our enemies at the United Nations won’t acknowledge it, but it’s who we are.
Yes, we need the IDF, and we need it to be strong and fearless. But that is an unfortunate necessity, not an ideal.
Rabbi Zvi Kogan was a faithful scion of Jacob. His life was cut short by the hands of Esau. Perhaps the appropriate response to this tragedy would be to emulate his ways and enhance our own observance of this sacred ideal or to encourage another to embrace it.
May the voice of Jacob forever drown out and overpower the tumultuous, blood-stained hands of Esau. And may our reluctant warriors be able to go home and resume their gentle lives in peace and security.
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Unable to Destroy Israel Militarily, Its Enemies Resort to Lawfare
An exterior view of the International Criminal Court in the Hague, Netherlands, March 31, 2021. Photo: REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
JNS.org – Jerusalem has decided to appeal the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) decision to issue warrants for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant. Israel submitted an announcement to the ICC on Wednesday regarding its intention, along with a demand to delay the warrants’ implementation.
In its decision, the ICC said there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Gallant were criminally responsible for acts including murder, persecution and starvation as weapons of war as part of a “widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza.”
Netanyahu has called the accusation a “modern Dreyfus trial.”
Once again, the Jews have been placed in the docket, this time as antisemites seek to punish Israel on trumped-up charges of “genocide” against the Palestinian people, he said.
Netanyahu met in Jerusalem on Wednesday with U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who updated him on the efforts he is advancing in Congress against the ICC and countries that cooperate with it.
Amb. Alan Baker, director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs and the head of the Global Law Forum, told JNS that practically, “assuming states agree to honor the arrest warrants, despite their being inherently invalid and ultra vires [running against] the ICC statute, they could theoretically try to arrest Netanyahu and Gallant if they enter their territory.”
In a statement published on Wednesday, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said Jerusalem’s notice of appeal “shows in detail to what degree the decision to issue the arrest warrants was baseless and without any factual or legal foundation whatsoever.”
Israel denies the authority of the ICC and the legitimacy of the warrants issued against the prime minister and the former defense minister, the statement continued.
Should the court reject the appeal, it will underscore to Israel’s friends in the United States and elsewhere the ICC’s bias against the Jewish state, it added.
The court lacks jurisdiction in the case for several reasons.
First, Israel is not a party to the Rome Statute that established the court, and second because Israel has its own independent, robust judiciary. Third, Palestine is not a state and does not meet the criteria for statehood under international law.
By calling for the arrest of Israel’s leaders, the ICC is violating the Rome Statute, which clearly states that complementarity is the crucial factor in such a decision.
Since Israel has a robust judicial system, it is unnecessary and unlawful for the ICC to involve itself in Israel’s internal matters, and by doing so the court breaches its foundational principles.
Furthermore, as a recent Wall Street Journal editorial noted, “The charge of deliberate starvation is absurd. Israel has facilitated the transfer of more than 57,000 aid trucks and 1.1 million tons of aid [into Gaza], even though Hamas’s rampant theft means Israel is provisioning its battlefield enemy, something the law can’t require.”
The warrant also, absurdly, calls for the arrest of Hamas leader Ibrahim al-Masri, otherwise known as Mohammed Deif, whom Israel and Hamas both say was killed in an Israeli airstrike in July.
By naming him together with Israel’s leaders and thereby feigning even-handedness, the ICC has only demonstrated morally repugnant equivalence.
The Wall Street Journal also highlighted the case of Alice Wairimu Nderitu, the U.N. Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide. After she declared that the war against Hamas does not meet the qualifications for genocide, the United Nations announced that her contract will not be renewed, though it has denied the two things are linked.
According to Nderitu, the term “genocide” encapsulates the Holocaust, the Hutus’ mass murder of Tutsis in Rwanda, the Serbian attacks on Bosnian Muslims and the killings being carried out in Sudan.
“As a legal matter, establishing a pattern of violence as a genocide requires demonstrating intent. Israel’s campaign of self-defense doesn’t qualify,” the Journal‘s editorial noted.
The court’s baseless case against Israel’s leaders, coupled with Nderitu’s dismissal, demonstrates that the ICC is abusing the law for political means.
Several world leaders, including President Joe Biden, have harshly criticized the ICC decision.
Biden stated on Thursday evening that warrants were “outrageous.”
Rep. Mike Waltz, tapped by President-elect Donald Trump as National Security Advisor, tweeted, “The ICC has no credibility and these allegations have been refuted by the U.S. government. Israel has lawfully defended its people & borders from genocidal terrorists. You can expect a strong response to the antisemitic bias of the ICC & UN come January.”
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has invited Netanyahu to visit his country, assuring him he faces no risk of arrest.
While ambiguous at first, France has declared it will not enforce the warrants as Israel is not a signatory to the ICC.
Some analysts have questioned whether France’s decision was linked to the ceasefire announced Wednesday between Hezbollah and Israel.
Famed lawyer Alan Dershowitz has announced he is assembling a “dream team” to defend Israel in The Hague.
This support is crucial because so much of the international community has fallen for the widespread anti-Israel propaganda.
Hala Rharrit, a former U.S. State Department diplomat who has made her anti-Israel opinions well known, said in an Al-Jazeera interview that most of the world is feeling that “finally, finally, there is a sense that the international community is taking action, far little too late.”
She said that in the State Department, “secretly, many American diplomats are celebrating this.”
Rharrit resigned in April in protest over Biden’s support for Israel.
Several world leaders have condoned the ICC decision.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the ICC warrants “courageous.”
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said, “The states that signed the Rome convention are obliged to implement the decision of the court. It’s not optional.”
Some experts have questioned whether the warrant and its implications could prevent civilized nations from fighting terrorism.
“If this progresses to a large-scale issuance of arrest warrants for a wider range of military people and politicians, it could certainly serve as a warning to states involved in fighting terror,” said Amb. Baker.
“But this issue is more of a blatant Israel-directed issue and would not necessarily be used against other states fighting terror,” he added.
According to Natasha Hausdorff, legal director of UK Lawyers for Israel Charitable Trust, “Every phrase of every sentence” in the court’s warrant “was in fact false.”
In a conversation with Matt Frei of Leading Britain’s Conversation (LBC), Hausdorff provided a stinging rebuke to the ICC. “One example is that in furtherance of this allegation of starvation, the prosecutor relied on a report that suggested that famine might come to parts of the Gaza Strip,” she said.
“That report was subsequently debunked by a Famine Review Committee report that indicated it had been based on insufficient or incomplete information and it drew implausible conclusions,” she said.
“The overall conclusion of that process and also from the press release the court put out on Thursday is that they have made that determination to arrest Netanyahu and Gallant on the basis of this slew of false information,” she said.
Should Israel be approaching this challenge differently?
According to Baker, Israel needs to show the countries that are party to the ICC statute “that the issuance of the warrants is ultra vires the terms of the statute since the ICC cannot exercise jurisdiction in the territory of a non-state entity that has no sovereign territory.”
He added that it is “widely acknowledged that no state of Palestine exists, and the fact that the Palestinian leadership has manipulated the United Nations and ICC to treat them as if they are a state doesn’t alter the basic legal and political fact that there is no state of Palestine. Hence the ICC cannot be given jurisdiction by a non-state, and cannot issue arrest warrants.”
“Also,” he said, “as Israel is not a party to the ICC statute, its senior officials enjoy state and diplomatic immunity and thus cannot be arrested.”
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