Head of pro-Jewish group Siona, his wife and son are assaulted at their Livry-Gargan home in what authorities believe was an anti-Semitic act.
French authorities and Jewish groups said Sunday that a Jewish family was beaten, tied up and robbed in what the government described as an anti-Semitic act.
According to local media reports, three assailants burst into the house in the Paris suburb of Livry-Gargan late Friday night, cut the power and confined three members of a Jewish family, assaulting them and threatening to kill them. The incident lasted several hours, until one of the family members managed to escape and call the police, French anti-Semitism watchdog BNVCA said.
According to The Guardian, the assailants told the three victims, “You are Jews, you have money. We take money from Jews to give to the poor.”
One of the victims was Roger Pinto, the 78-year-old head of Siona, an association “defending the Jewish people and the State of Israel,” Pinto’s lawyer, Marc Bensimon, told the British newspaper. Pinto was kicked several times in the head and throat. The other two victims were Pinto’s wife, who managed to call the police, and their son, Bensimon said.
The assailants made off with jewelry, cash and credit cards, the report said.
The French Interior Ministry denounced the violence and offered support for the family and the Jewish community, saying that racism and anti-Semitism “have no place in the French nation.”
French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb promised a “major effort” to arrest those responsible “for this cowardly act [that] appears directly linked to the victims’ religion. Everything will be done to identify and arrest those who carried out this foul attack.”
Francis Kalifat, president of the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish organizations, said, “This horrible act is proof that Jews in France are particularly threatened in the street… and even in their homes.”
French police said they were investigating the incident. No suspects have been arrested at this time.
The French Jewish community is the largest community outside of the U.S. and Israel. Some 40,000 French Jews have emigrated since 2006, the majority of them to Israel.
Experts and members of the Jewish community in France say the terrorist and anti-Semitic attacks in recent years were not the only reason people are leaving. Family, religious and economic reasons have also played a role in decisions to leave France.
By Israel Hayom Staff
