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02-06-2025
PARIS: Authorities in Paris have launched an investigation after several Jewish sites across the capital were defaced with green paint.
The vandalism, discovered early Saturday morning, targeted the Shoah Memorial, two synagogues and a Jewish restaurant in the city’s historic Marais district, as well as a third synagogue in the 20th arrondissement (district). An open can of paint was reportedly found nearby, while French media said surveillance footage from the Holocaust Memorial showed an individual dressed in black spraying paint overnight.
Photos from the Shoah Memorial show paint coating a wall engraved with the names of the 76,000 Jewish men, women and children deported from France between 1942 and 1944.
The Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed it had opened a probe for “damage committed on the grounds of religion,” citing attacks on “three synagogues, a restaurant and the Shoah Memorial” during the night of Friday to Saturday.
Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau expressed his “immense disgust” regarding the acts of vandalism targeting the Jewish community through a post on social media.
The acts come ahead of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot. France’s interior ministry had already called for heightened security around Jewish sites this weekend due to heightened global tensions.
No suspects have been arrested and no group has claimed responsibility.
France has the third-largest Jewish population in the world, behind Israel and the United States, according to the Institute for Jewish Policy Research.
The total country population of France: 65,900,000
Determining how many Jews live in a particular place is often more complicated than it seems. The challenge is all about where to draw the boundary between who is and is not Jewish. Jews themselves differ on inclusion and exclusion criteria and depending on the reason behind the enquiry, there may be a compelling case for choosing one definition over another.
JPR uses four key definitions to describe the size of the Jewish population in different countries; ‘core’ Jewish population; Population with Jewish parents; ‘Enlarged’ population; and ‘Law of Return’ Jewish population. Click the + signs to find out what each definition means.
Population with Jewish parents in France: 499,890
Everyone within the core Jewish population is included, but so is anyone born to at least one Jewish parent, mother or father, who considers themselves to be partly Jewish. This population measure is quite a recent addition to Jewish demographic analysis and was developed in response to the desire within parts of the Jewish community to be more open and inclusive to the growing number of people who have this partial relationship to Jewishness due to their mixed parentage.
Law of Return Jewish population of France: 622,670
The right to claim Israeli citizenship applies to anybody who descends from at least one Jewish grandparent and it extends to the immediate families of those individuals as well. This legislation may be particularly pertinent if Jews in a certain country see a reason to activate this right and immigrate to Israel.
Core Jewish population of France: 438,500
The “core” Jewish population includes people who self-identify as Jewish in social surveys and do not have another monotheistic religion. It also includes people who may not recognize themselves as Jewish, but have Jewish parents and have not adopted a different religious identity. It further includes all converts to Judaism by any procedure, as well as other people who declare themselves to be Jewish even without having undergone conversion. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
