Men, apparently armed, threaten Paris cops outside synagogue

Two men pointed what looked like firearms at police stationed outside a Paris synagogue in part of a weekend string of anti-Semitic incidents in and near the French capital.

The incident involving the police officers occurred on June 14 outside the synagogue on Julien Lacroix Street in eastern Paris’s 20th arrondissement, according to a report posted on Sunday on the website of the National League for Vigilance Against anti-Semitism, or BVCA.

The two men approached the police officers on heavy motorcycles when one of them produced what appeared to be a handgun and pointed it at one police officer while shouting “bang bang.” His accomplice did the same with what appeared to be an AK-47 assault rifle before escaping. The synagogue was empty at the time of the incident.

Other weekend incidents included two assaults of Jews on the metro. In one incident on June 12, a Jewish man and woman were the target of anti-Semitic taunts by three passengers, which escalated into a physical assault of the Jewish man.

The harassment of the two Jews began after they boarded a metro train at Cité Universitaire in central Paris. A man who appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent confronted them and, according to the BNVCA report, called them “dirty Jews” declaring: “I’m a Nazi, I’m German, long live Hitler, we’re going to gas you, he didn’t finish the job.” He also said: “Jews created the crisis and now there are poor people.”

The man was joined by a younger woman who reportedly praised him for “telling the truth.” A third passenger then hit the Jewish man in the leg while the woman shouted: “We’re the Muslims, we will blow you up.”

An hour earlier, a Jewish girl, 14, was assaulted while traveling on a metro to her Jewish school in the 19th arrodissement in northeastern Paris. Three young girls and an adolescent, whom she described as having African and Middle Eastern appearance, pushed the girl around and said “fuck your whole race.”

On June 14, various objects including a knife were hurled into the interior yard of a synagogue in Garges les Gonesses, a northern suburb of Paris. The objects were thrown down at the synagogue from apartments around the place of worship, BNVCA wrote. The synagogue was not damaged and no one was hurt.