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French Rabbi Tells of Two Attacks in One Week as Antisemitic Hate Crimes Rise
Tens of thousands of French people march in Paris to protest against antisemitism. Photo: Screenshot
A French rabbi was attacked on Friday for the second time in a week, reflecting a rise in antisemitic hate crimes across France including high-profile assaults.
Elie Lemmel told Reuters he was sitting at a cafe in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine on Friday when he was hit in the head by a chair.
“I found myself on the ground, I immediately felt blood flowing,” he said.
He was stunned and unsure what exactly had happened, he said, initially thinking something must have fallen from a window or roof, before it occurred to him he had been attacked.
“Unfortunately, given my beard and my kippah, I suspected that was probably why, and it’s such a shame,” he said.
Friday’s incident follows another in the town of Deauville in Normandy last week, when Lemmel said he was punched in the stomach by an unknown assailant.
Lemmel said he was used to “not-so-friendly looks, some unpleasant words, people passing by, spitting on the ground,” but had never been physically assaulted before the two attacks.
The prosecutor’s office in Nanterre said it had opened an investigation into the Neuilly attack for aggravated violence and that a person was being held for questioning. It said it could not provide further details.
“This act sickens us,” former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal wrote on X regarding Friday’s incident involving Lemmel. “Antisemitism, like all forms of hatred, is a deadly poison for our society.”
Last weekend, five Jewish institutions in Paris — the Holocaust Memorial, three synagogues, and a Jewish restaurant — were vandalized with green paint.
In a separate incident last Saturday, a 21-year-old man was arrested after climbing a synagogue in the town of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine in north-central France, removing an Israeli flag from its façade, and attempting to set it on fire.
Then on Monday, an elementary school in Lyon, east-central France, was set on fire and defaced with antisemitic and pro-Palestinian slogans, as well as swastikas.
“I condemn in the strongest possible terms the antisemitic attack that targeted a rabbi in Neuilly today. Attacking a person because of their faith is a shame. The increase in anti-religious acts requires the mobilization of everyone,” Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said in a post on X on Friday.
Antisemitism skyrocketed in France following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.
Antisemitic incidents targeting French Jews continued to surge to alarming levels across the country last year, with 1,570 incidents recorded, according to a report by the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF) – the main representative body of French Jews.
The total number of antisemitic outrages in 2024 was a slight dip from 2023’s record total of 1,676, but it marked a striking increase from the 436 antisemitic acts recorded in 2022.
Anti-Jewish outrages have continued this year, with no sign of abating. In March, for example, Arie Engelberg, the rabbi of Orléans, was violently attacked while walking home with his nine-year-old son from the synagogue in the city, located south of Paris. There have also been multiple high-profile incidents of Jewish mean wearing kippahs and Stars of David being brutally attacked and called a “dirty Jew.”
The post French Rabbi Tells of Two Attacks in One Week as Antisemitic Hate Crimes Rise first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Readies for a Nationwide Strike on Sunday
Demonstrators hold signs and pictures of hostages, as relatives and supporters of Israeli hostages kidnapped during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas protest demanding the release of all hostages in Tel Aviv, Israel, Feb. 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Itai Ron
i24 News – The families of Israeli hostages held in Gaza are calling on for a general strike to be held on Sunday in an effort to compel the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a deal with Hamas for the release of their loved ones and a ceasefire. According to Israeli officials, 50 hostages now remain in Gaza, of whom 20 are believed to be alive.
The October 7 Council and other groups representing bereaved families of hostages and soldiers who fell since the start of the war declared they were “shutting down the country to save the soldiers and the hostages.”
While many businesses said they would join the strike, Israel’s largest labor federation, the Histadrut, has declined to participate.
Some of the country’s top educational institutions, including the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv University, declared their support for the strike.
“We, the members of the university’s leadership, deans, and department heads, hereby announce that on Sunday, each and every one of us will participate in a personal strike as a profound expression of solidarity with the hostage families,” the Hebrew University’s deal wrote to students.
The day will begin at 6:29 AM, to commemorate the start of the October 7 attack, with the first installation at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square in Tel Aviv. Further demonstrations are planned at dozens of traffic intersections.
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Netanyahu ‘Has Become a Problem,’Says Danish PM as She Calls for Russia-Style Sanctions Against Israel
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the press on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
i24 News – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has become a “problem,” his Danish counterpart Mette Frederiksen said Saturday, adding she would try to put pressure on Israel over the Gaza war.
“Netanyahu is now a problem in himself,” Frederiksen told Danish media, adding that the Israeli government is going “too far” and lashing out at the “absolutely appalling and catastrophic” humanitarian situation in Gaza and announced new homes in the West Bank.
“We are one of the countries that wants to increase pressure on Israel, but we have not yet obtained the support of EU members,” she said, specifying she referred to “political pressure, sanctions, whether against settlers, ministers, or even Israel as a whole.”
“We are not ruling anything out in advance. Just as with Russia, we are designing the sanctions to target where we believe they will have the greatest effect.”
The devastating war in Gaza began almost two years ago, with an incursion into Israel of thousands of Palestinian armed jihadists, who perpetrated the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
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As Alaska Summit Ends With No Apparent Progress, Zelensky to Meet Trump on Monday
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks at the press conference after the opening session of Crimea Platform conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, 23 August 2023. The Crimea Platform – is an international consultation and coordination format initiated by Ukraine. OLEG PETRASYUK/Pool via REUTERS
i24 News – After US President Donald Trump hailed the “great progress” made during a meeting with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky announced that he was set to meet Trump on Monday at the White House.
“There were many, many points that we agreed on, most of them, I would say, a couple of big ones that we haven’t quite gotten there, but we’ve made some headway,” Trump told reporters during a joint press conference after the meeting.
Many observers noted, however, that the subsequent press conference was a relatively muted affair compared to the pomp and circumstance of the red carpet welcome, and the summit produced no tangible progress.
Trump and Putin spoke briefly, with neither taking questions, and offered general statements about an “understanding” and “progress.”
Putin, who spoke first, agreed with Trump’s long-repeated assertion that Russia never would have invaded Ukraine in 2022 had Trump been president instead of Democrat Joe Biden.
Trump said “many points were agreed to” and that “just a very few” issues were left to resolve, offering no specifics and making no reference to the ceasefire he’s been seeking.