Jewish group fears Copenhagen, Paris attacks start of ‘epidemic’

Simon Wiesenthal Center says condemnation is insufficient, calls for Europe-wide conference against anti-Semitism

By AFP 16 February 2015, 10:03 pm

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A man holds a placard with the hashtags #I am Danish, #I am Jewish, #I am Freedom next to a woman holding a Danish flag outside the Danish Embassy in Paris on February 16, 2015, where France's political leaders attended a commemorative gathering after double shootings that killed two people at a cultural center and a synagogue in Copenhagen on February 15, 2015. (AFP/JACQUES DEMARTHON)

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — The Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center on Monday said it feared the recent attacks against Jews in Copenhagen and Paris could be the start of a “pan-European epidemic” as it called for a Europe-wide conference against anti-Semitism.

The prominent Jewish rights group said the shootings in Copenhagen on Saturday followed the same pattern as the Islamist attacks in Paris last month, and were directed at “freedom of expression activists, police and Jewish institutions”.

“Paris and Copenhagen are bound to be precedents for a pan-European epidemic. Condemnation is insufficient,” the group said in the statement, addressed to European Council President Donald Tusk.

It called on Tusk to organize a conference to “combat anti-Semitism on every front”.

The weekend attacks saw a gunman kill a 37-year-old Jewish man outside a synagogue as well as a 55-year-old filmmaker attending a debate on Islam and freedom of the press at a cultural center. The gunman was later shot dead by police.

The attacks came just over a month after the January 7-9 shootings in Paris that left 17 people dead, including a policewoman and four Jews at a Kosher supermarket.