Restaurant owner’s wife among dead

(JTA) – Among the deceased in the terrorist attacks that rocked Paris last week was Djamila Houd, the spouse of Gregory Reibenberg, the Jewish owner of the La Belle Equipe restaurant in Paris’s Charonne Street where 19 of the victims were killed. Houd, who was born to a non-Jewish family of immigrants from Algeria, and Reibenberg, who is an Ashkenazi Jew, raised together their eight-year-old daughter, Tess. In an interview with the France 2 television station, he recounted holding her in his arms as she lay dying from two gunshot wounds. “She said, take care of our daughter, I told her I would and that was that,” said Reibenberg. He knew nine of the people who died at the restaurant, including one  business associate and several employees.

In the days after the attacks, a volunteer trauma psychologist, Jean-Pierre Vouche, has been accompanying Reibenberg at all times. To cope with his grief and to help others, Reibenberg organized a meeting for relatives of the people who died at his restaurant. “All of us lost someone, a friend, a spouse, a partner,” Reibenberg said. “I lost all of that, like many of you.”

Reibenberg said his daughter asked him whether it would be possible to undo what happened to her mother. “I told her to think that her mother is up in the stars, and that she can talk to her there,” he said.

200 gather at Paris synagogue to pray for terror victims

PARIS (JTA) – Some 200 people gathered under heavy guard at a Paris synagogue to remember the victims of the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks. Led by the chief rabbi of France, Haim Korsia, leaders of French Jewry and Israel’s ambassador to France were among those who assembled at the Synagogue de la Victoire on Sunday evening. “Our people, which has been tested more than others, knows the healing power of solidarity and unity in the face of the pain of torn families, broken couples and orphaned children,” said Michel Gugenheim, the chief rabbi of Paris. Streets around the synagogue were cordoned off by police for the duration of the ceremony, where congregants underwent pat-downs and bag inspections. “Now ordinary French people are beginning to understand how we Jews have been living in recent years, and the reality in Israel,” Samuel Sandler, the father of Jonathan Sandler, who was killed in 2012 with two of his sons and another child during an Islamist attack at a Jewish school in Toulouse, told JTA at the gathering.

Israeli intelligence helping Paris attacks investigation

JERUSALEM (JTA) – Israeli intelligence services reportedly are helping France investigate last week’s Paris attacks. In a statement issued Saturday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he had “instructed Israel’s security and intelligence forces to assist their French counterparts and their counterparts from other European countries in any way possible.” Israel’s minister of intelligence, Yisrael Katz, later clarified Netanyahu’s statement, telling reporters that “intelligence material relevant to what happened has been relayed, and we will also deepen the cooperation.” Israel’s Army Radio reported that some intelligence may have come from Israel’s surveillance of Syria and Iraq, two strongholds of the Islamic State terrorist group that claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks.

Netanyahu: Same terrorism driving attacks in Israel and Paris

JERUSALEM (JTA) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the same terrorism is driving the attacks in Israel and Paris. “In Israel, as in France, terrorism is terrorism, and standing behind it is radical Islam and its desire to destroy its victims,” Netanyahu said Sunday. The prime minister was referencing the West Bank attack on Friday that killed a father and son, and injured five other family members, as they drove to the Shabbat pre-wedding celebration of the man’s daughter, and the attacks in Paris several hours later. “The time has come for the world to wake up and unite in order to defeat terrorism. The time has come for countries to condemn terrorism against us to the same degree that they condemn terrorism everywhere else in the world,” Netanyahu said. Netanyahu also said: “We are not to blame for the terrorism directed against us, just as the French are not to blame for the terrorism directed against them. It is the terrorists who are to blame for terrorism, not the territories, not the settlements and not any other thing. It is the desire to destroy us that perpetuates this conflict and drives the murderous aggression against us.”

Democratic candidates pledge ISIS fight, implicitly chiding Obama

WASHINGTON (JTA) – The three Democratic presidential candidates pledged during their debate to lead the United States in the fight to crush the Islamic State terrorist group, with each suggesting that the Obama administration has come up short. The candidates in the debate from Iowa broadcast Saturday night, Nov. 14 by CBS eagerly embraced increasing U.S. engagement and called for the absolute defeat of the terrorist group. Implicit in the pledges were critiques of Obama administration policy in the face of the rise of ISIS, which critics have said has been, at least until recent weeks, feckless and deferential to other world powers fighting the group.

“We have to look at ISIS as the leading threat of an international terror network,” said the campaign front-runner, Hillary Rodham Clinton, a former secretary of state. “It cannot be contained, it must be defeated,” she said. Sen. Bernie Sanders agreed that the United States must lead the fight against ISIS. But he also launched a broadside against moderate Muslims, saying they must step up in the battle. “We have to understand that the Muslim nations in the region – Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, Jordan, all of these nations – they’re going to just have to get their hands dirty, their boots on the ground,” Sanders said, adding, “They are going to have to take on ISIS. This is a war for the soul of Islam.” Sanders and the third candidate on the stage, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, took shots at Clinton for her involvement in policies, both under the Obama administration and during the presidency of President George W. Bush, which led to the unraveling of the Middle East. “It was not just the invasion of Iraq which Secretary Clinton voted for and has since said was a big mistake, and indeed it was,” O’Malley said. “But it was also the cascading effects that followed that. It was also the disbanding of many elements of the Iraqi army that are now showing up as part of ISIS. It was – country after country – without making the investment in human intelligence to understand who the new leaders were and the new forces that were coming up.”

PA and Fatah blame Paris attacks on Israel

(JNS.org) The Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Fatah faction – which are both led by Mahmoud Abbas – blamed Friday’s deadly Paris terror attacks on Israel. Fatah on Monday posted two Israel-related conspiracy theory cartoons on its official Facebook page, according to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). One showed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with an Islamic State terrorist near the Eiffel Tower; Netanyahu is pictured helping the terrorist aim his machine gun. In the other cartoon, two matches in a matchbox are labeled “Terrorism,” with the head of one match shaped as an Islamic State terrorist and the head of the other match as an Orthodox Jew. PMW also reported that on Sunday, an op-ed published in Al-Hayat Al-Jadida – the PA’s official daily newspaper – stated regarding the Paris and Beirut attacks, “They need to search the last place reached by the octopus arms of the [Israeli] Mossad [spy agency]…It is clear that its ‘Mossad’ will burn Beirut and Paris in order to achieve Netanyahu’s goals. He, who challenged the master of the White House, hides in his soul enough evil to burn the world.”

Paris venue previously targeted over Jewish ownership

(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) The Bataclan concert hall – site of the deadliest of Friday’s six coordinated Islamist terror attacks in Paris – was under Jewish ownership for four decades and had received frequent threats in the past for that reason. Sold only two months ago by co-owners Pascal Laloux and Joel Tuitto, the venue is still under their responsibility. “One of the managers called me and began to tell me about the disaster that was taking place,” Tuitto, who recently moved to Israel, told Israel’s Channel 2. “I could hear the gunshots and the voices in the background….The terrorists were inside the theater, and I heard the gunshots, but I couldn’t do anything.” Tuitto said he had co-owned the Bataclan since the 1970s, and that according to the terms of the sale, he remains responsible for it until September 2018. The French magazine Le Point reported that in 2011, a terrorist told French security services that “we (the Army of Islam terrorist group) had planned an attack against the Bataclan because its owners are Jews.” The Bataclan, which regularly hosted Jewish and Israeli events, also received serious threats in 2007 and 2008. Tuitto said a group of masked Palestinians had even come to the venue two years ago demanding its closure due to its “fundraising for Israel and the IDF,” and warning of an attack if their demand was not met, but nothing came of the threat. The band playing at the Bataclan the night of the brutal attack, Eagles of Death Metal, played a concert in Tel Aviv this past summer.

Thousands gather in Tel Aviv to support France

TEL AVIV (JTA) – Thousands of Israelis rallied in solidarity with France following last week’s series of terror attacks in Paris that killed more than 100 people.

French Ambassador to Israel Patrick Maisonnave presided over the rally, which took place Saturday evening in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square. Maisonnave said France has been targeted in particular for its part in the fight against terrorism and ISIS, and thanked Israel for its support. “It is a vivid testimony to that fact that France is not alone in this struggle,” he said. “I thank the people and the authorities of this country, Israel, for their flawless support. Democracies do not seek vengance and revenge. They seek justice. The fight against radical Islam is our common struggle.”

Former Israeli President Shimon Peres also spoke, as did Interior Minister Silvan Shalom and Knesset Opposition Leader Isaac Herzog. Peres opened his remarks with a speech in French, and emphasized what he called France and Israel’s shared values.

“Tonight we are all French,” he said. “We stand shoulder to shoulder in the war against the barbaric terror that threatens the peace of the whole world. Your war is our war. Your values are our values. They are the values of the entire enlightened world.” Many rally participants were French, and the crowd sang the French national anthem, along with the Israeli anthem, at the event’s close.

Christian-Jewish group sends aid to French Jewry

(JNS.org) The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews said Sunday that it is providing immediate emergency aid of more than $86,000 to 25 synagogues and schools run by the Chabad-Lubavitch Chasidic movement across France. The aid—which will be used to add security guards and more sophisticated security systems at the French Jewish institutions – marks the latest phase of more than $1 million in security support that the Fellowship has been providing to Chabad institutions worldwide. “The last few days have been living hell for the citizens of France, and especially for the Jews of Paris….Rabbi Eckstein was the first to approach us, seeking to immediately solve any security issues we may have. We do not have words sufficiently strong to express our gratitude,” said Rabbi Mendel Azimov, the director of Chabad of Paris.

Additionally, the Fellowship said it is extending support to any French Jew who wishes to immigrate to Israel. Two Jewish families were set to leave France for Israel on Monday with the Fellowship’s assistance, ahead of a special Fellowship-organized flight taking French Jews to Israel at the end of this month.