A band of Arab youths attacked a synagogue situated in the
basement of an apartment building in the town of Gosanville,
north of Paris, with Molotov cocktails on motzei Shabbos
parshas Shemos. During the attack, which took place at
two in the morning, the home of a Jewish family living above
the synagogue was damaged. The Lushovsky family reported that
they were woken by the sound of a large explosion. An ignited
Molotov cocktail was seen near the window of the synagogue,
located in the basement of the building, and rocks shattered
the windows of the Lushovsky apartment.
"We looked out of the window and couldn't see anything
outside except for a burning car. We lay down on the floor
while rocks continued to shatter the windows and fly into our
apartment," the family reports. A neighbor said that he saw a
band of some thirty Arab youths running wild outside,
flinging rocks and Molotov cocktails at the building.
Molotov cocktails exploded against the exterior walls of the
synagogue and ignited without penetrating the interior, thus
causing no damage. Police were alerted, but arrived only the
following morning in order to assess the damage. The police
officers said that at the time of the attack they had been
busy chasing another "youth gang" -- as they are called
locally so as not to use the word "Arab" and be accused of
racism. Scores of local Arabs and blacks rioted, looted and
burned cars that night.
The police called upon the family to file a complaint.
According to local Jews, the riots lasted all night and the
local Jews were in a state of panic. They barricaded
themselves in their homes out of fear of the thugs.
The local Jewish population is small. The few that do live
there pray in the basement synagogue that was attacked.
However, they are now afraid to approach it.
The attacks against Jews living in the suburbs of Paris
continue without respite, and without any reaction or
interference on the part of the authorities. There is only a
limited amount of verbal condemnation of the attacks. The
official Jewish organizations are also very restrained in
their pronouncements.
In Creteil, anti-Jewish slogans are spray-painted onto the
shul, onto the windows of Jewish-owned businesses, and
onto the walls of buildings in which Jews live, even when
Jews are only a minority in an apartment building. Sometimes
the slogans are only written with initials. In one case they
wrote the initials of an anti-Jewish slogan and then wrote
out: "Whoever guesses the initials will win a
kippah."
People are afraid to walk the streets wearing a
kippah. The Jewish Agency has already visited Creteil
to offer the residents aliyah, but so far there is not
much interest.
