By NATHALIE GENTAZ
Associated Press
Two Molotov cocktails were hurled at a synagogue in a suburb north of Paris amid tensions over the violence in Gaza. The country’s chief rabbi called for peace among religious groups.
The firebombs broke a window and charred the walls of a pizzeria on the bottom floor of Chabad House Ohr Manahem in the town of Saint-Denis, said Rabbi Israel Belinow, the synagogue’s assistant rabbi.
No injuries were reported.
It was the latest in a series of anti-Semitic incidents in France since Israel began its offensive in Gaza against Hamas militants Dec. 27 in response to rocket attacks. France has Western Europe’s largest Jewish and Muslim populations, and Mideast tensions have in the past spilled over into vandalism or other incidents in France.
In the Chabad House attack, prayers had just finished and the rabbi was getting ready to go home Sunday night when he heard an explosion, Belinow said. Neighbors saw flames and called police.
Three more unexploded Molotov cocktails were still lodged Monday in the thatched roof of a children’s play area that is part of the Chabad House complex. Belinow said police found 15 other unignited gasoline bombs nearby.
“I think what has happened in Gaza has incited hate against Jewish people in France,” especially in communities with large Arab populations such as Saint-Denis, he said.
French Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, in a statement, called Sunday’s attack “cowardly and inadmissible.”
France’s Chief Rabbi Gilles Bernheim denounced the incident. “We call on the religious community leaders … to do everything so that others’ religions and their sites are respected,” he told The Associated Press.
A volunteer at the synagogue, Samuel Bounan, lamented what he called a “regrettable” act as he showed visitors around the damaged pizzeria. “There never were any incidents like this before,” he said.
