Toulouse, France – A motorcycle gunman opened fire Monday in front of a Jewish school in the French city of Toulouse, killing a rabbi, his two young sons and a schoolgirl, the prosecutor’s office said. It was the third deadly motorcycle shooting in the same area in recent days.
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French prosecutors were studying possible terrorist links but the motive for the attack was unclear. The attack shocked the country and prompted strong emotions and high-level discussions in Israel.
Concerns emerged about a possible serial killer with racist motivations, as investigators examined whether the attack was linked to two other shooting attacks in the Toulouse region that killed three French paratroopers and left another seriously injured.
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Religious minorities and issues of race have emerged as a prominent issue in France’s current presidential campaign. The paratroopers killed and injured were of North African and French Caribbean origin, and the targets Monday were Jewish.
President Nicolas Sarkozy rushed to the school, denouncing “the savagery” of the attack and vowing to track down the killer or killers.
“We will find him,” he said.
Sarkozy ordered increased security at Jewish and Muslim buildings around Toulouse, while his prime minister told officials to “secure” all school and religious buildings in the entire country.
Sarkozy’s challengers for the presidential vote in April and May also rushed to the scene.
In each of the three attacks, the same large caliber bullet — 11.43 — was used, a police official said. He was not authorized to speak publicly and asked not to be identified.
A 30-year-old rabbi and his 3-year-old and 6-year-old sons were killed Monday just before classes started at the Ozar Hatorah school, a junior high and high school in a quiet residential neighborhood, Toulouse Prosecutor Michel Valet said.
Another child, the 8-year-old daughter of the school principal, was also killed, school officials said. Valet said a 17-year-old boy was also seriously wounded and in the operating ward of a city hospital.
“He shot at everything he had in front of him, children and adults,” Valet said. “The children were chased inside the school.”
The slain rabbi was Johnathan Sandler, who taught Yiddish at the school, according to another teacher, Uriel Torjmane. Sandler arrived here from Jerusalem last September with his wife and children, according to Zionist activist Charlotte Elbaz.
France has the largest Jewish community in Western Europe, estimated at about 500,000, as well as its largest Muslim population, about 5 million.
Toulouse, a southwestern city north of the Pyrenees, has about 10,000 to 15,000 Jews in its overall population of 440,000, said Jean-Paul Amoyelle, the president of the Ozar Hatorah school network in France. He said the Toulouse Jewish community is well integrated.
The school targeted Monday, behind a high white wall with few external markings, was cordoned off by police, who then escorted other children out as forensics police combed the scene.
One officer held a distraught girl, her face in her hands. A mother and son wearing a yarmulke walked away from the site, their faces visibly pained. A video camera was visible at the school’s entrance.
“The drama occurred a bit before 8 a.m. A man arrived in front of the school on a motorcycle or scooter,” Valet said, adding that the man got off his scooter outside the school and opened fire.
“Everything leads one to believe that these were racist and anti-Semitic acts,” Toulouse Mayor Pierre Cohen said on BFM-TV.
Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet told The Associated Press that the suspect made his getaway on a dark-colored scooter — just as the assailant or assailants did in the two shootings last week.
On March 10, a gunman on a motorbike shot and killed a paratrooper in Toulouse. Last Thursday, a gunman on a motorbike opened fire on three uniformed paratroopers at a bank machine in Montauban, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Toulouse, killing two and critically wounding the other.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said it will investigate eventual terrorist links to Monday’s killing and the two killings of paratroopers last week.
A man who lives near the school said he spoke with the slain rabbi just before he was killed.
“I said “Bonjour” to him like normal,” said the 29-year-old, asking to be identified only by his first name, Baroukh. “Then he went out into the school entrance. I heard the shots and I turned around and saw him on the ground. He looked dead. But I didn’t have much time to see who did it because I panicked and started running away.”
Sarkozy visited the school accompanied by Richard Prasquier, the president of CRIF, the umbrella group representing Jewish organizations.
“It’s a day of national tragedy,” Sarkozy said. “The barbary, the savagery, the cruelty cannot win. Hate cannot win. The nation is much stronger.”
In Jerusalem, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said “whether it was a terror attack or a hate crime, the loss of life is unacceptable.”
Einat Wilf, an Israeli legislator from the Independence Party, said legislators were being briefed on the shooting.
Special prayers were being offered Monday at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and a minute of silence in all French schools was to be held Tuesday. A carnival in Toulouse was canceled and vigils were planned in Toulouse and Paris to honor the victims.
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שמות הנרצחים הבוקר בפיגוע בטולוז שבדרום צרפת. יונתן סנדלר מורה בן 30, ובניו אריה וגבריאל בני 6-3 וכן בתו של המנהל, מרים מונטסנגו בת 8, הי״ד.
B”DE Now the French wake up and send security to all the schools!! Too ittle too late!! Is Jewish blood still so…. cheap???
Oy. Oy.
So deeply sad.
BD”E. horrible and may the French realize there is evil nd they need to find it and destroy it!
I have the same nightmare. Where is the security in our Yeshivas? Rachmana Litzlan!!!!
This is just to sad. I’m crying away. It’s so obvious Hashem is sending a message but we are just not at the level to understand what it means.
Hashem shomer yisrael… Remember that! Its not possible to secure every shul, school,yeshiva,institution,and child. Should we do hishtadlut? Of course,but its obvious we are protected by the one above.
On a separate note may the families have nechama and see only happiness in their lives.
As it is, the school is behind a high white fence for security. Here the children were being shot at as they were being DROPPED off in front of the school. It is a most tragic and frightening scenario, Hashem Yishmor.
May G-d avenge their deaths and may we merit the geulah shlaima and the end to galut.
Where are the Arabs denouncing this violence? We Jews always feel that we should apologize for any inconvenience or perceived inconvenience we may cause the Arabs.
However, they never feel that they need to denounce this barbarisim.
WAKE UP!! NEVER AGAIN!!!!!
Unfortunately, the same tragic attacks occur in EY and the U.S. We are NOT safe anywhere until moishiach comes. Achdus is the only way to make that happen sooner. Its time for all segments of yiddeshkeit, especially the ultra frum and “progressive left” move to the center and embrace their fellow yidden in ahavas yisroel and turn to the Beshefter and cry out, “we’ve done our part, now its your trurn”.
Boroch Dayan Haemes!
Unfortunately, both France, the UK, and other European countries have admitted thousands upon thousands of Muslims, who are not integrated into their respective European societies, and who bear a hatred towards Jews, and other “infidels”. This terrorist killing puts to rest the absurd argument which the Arabs always state which is:
“We are not against Jews, only the Zionists”.
They hate all Jews, whether those Jews are ultra Reformed, Reconstructionist, Reformed, Conservative, Modern Orthodox, or Chassidic.
In 1994, a Jordanian attacked a van of Chassidim (students) on the Brooklyn Bridge, with a machine gun, killing one student. In 1998, a Nazi attacked the Jewish Community Center in Los Angeles and shot and wounded several people, including a small child. In Seattle, an Arab also shot up the Jewish Federation killing a woman. The security at most Shuls, JCC’s, Federations, and other Jewish organizations is not good. If Rabbi Meir Kahana, z’l, were still alive, he would retaliate, and not let this incident pass. His motto was that “Jewish blood is not cheap”.
Tears of grief! May Hashem comfort these families & all of Klal Yiaroel & protect us from those who wish us harm!
Unfortunately the time has long past that security needs to be beefed up exponentially at the schools attended by our kids. Every Yeshiva needs to have a modern security system and a security plan including teachers being trained in self defense and fire arms use. One man with a gun at this French school might have been able to save a few lives. Stop blaming the Ribono Shel Olam for our being too cheap with security. Does anybody think there will be less terrorism when the Israelis bomb Iran? This has Irans fingerprints on it. – Motorcycle black outfitted shooter.
If you have children in yeshivas, set up a meeting asap with the Board of the Yeshiva the whoever handles the $%$$$$$$. Decide what kind of security system they will install and when and if you know somebody who does it?? There is always somebody who knows somebody!! If there are a few yeshivas involved, you can surely get a break!! You have nothing to lose, except………..??
“Witnesses said the man worked at the school.”
This is interesting. What did he do at the school? Was he a janitor? Some kind of office worker? Would a Jewish school hire an Arab to work there knowing how militant Arabs are in France? Is it possible that the shooter is in fact a Jewish man who has gone off his rocker? R’L, we seem to be seeing a lot of that these days.
My biggest fear is of copycats here in New York. There is little we can do to stop them.
It shouldn’t cost much to get some well-trained young Israeli men and women who have recently completed their military service and are familiar with yiddeshe culture, dress, etc. to take jobs as security personnel for a few years. They will sense risk and be sensitive to the needs of the frum schools.
Is there a name for the seriously injured boy
What we are doing in this country nothing. Jewish day schools ,boys and girls are cramped for money and securitry protection must be paid for but instead we depend on betochan. We give scholarships to fine yunge leit who learn dligently but do not pay tuitiion and you can raise tuition only so much. Maybe these fine yunge leit should get training and a permit to use a firearm and give a day to hold guard at a day school but for this there too coward. Of course the government should protect day school and it will not and Jewish child are chas v’sholom exposed to terrorism. Wake up and change your mind set.
What we are doing in this countery babbling nonsense . Check the day schools and find out the percentile of students whose parents pay full tuition and those who are on partial or full scholarships. Yidden arrive from EY and don’t mind taken checks from the treifene America . One came to my apartment and when I gave quite a decent check complained that “fleisch” is expensive. I did not tell him that from 1939 until 1945 I had no fleisch and from 1938 to 1941 my parents made pessach. Yes we got through the Agudah a small piece of smoked meat and matzes through Hungary [Ganzfried ,Kiralyi utca]and the meat was for my father A’H and my mother A’H ate the soup made from it with potatoes. We shout liberals and leftist but are phonies from top to bottom. Join the tuition committe in your day school and start demanding paymentand hire private security firms to protect your children and granchildren instead of pontification
Baruch Dayan Haemes
How callous can one be , that instead of crying one goes on a rant about yeshiva tuition. Now is not the time to pontificate. It is the time to cry and daven for the injured and the neshomas that passed away.
Jews in Europe, wake up. Come to Eretz Yisrael. Live here. Yes there are problems here as well, but at least they are our own problems.
HY”D
When former chayalim leave the service and go for their year or two of adventure, they find the only ones who care to help them are frum Jews, particularly Chabad. When the Israeli consulate in an adventure tourism spot is closed, or gives Israelis abroad the runaround, they know all they have to do is show up at the nearest Chabad House and they will get what they need. In big cities, it isn’t just Chabad, there are other Ivrit-speaking bnei Torah, often themselves ex-Israelis, who will often try to help an Israeli traveler in distress. The help sometimes comes at financial or other personal risk to themselves when the Israeli turns out to be a druggie or swindler.
Some Israelis abroad, particularly those who are descended from the victims of shmad in the maabarot and davka want to be more Jewish, are only too happy to give back by helping with security. Jews have Yiddishe neshomos, even if the institutions of the so-called Jewish state try to snuff those neshomos out.
not sure why everybody is so sure it was an Arab. It could be or maybe not. It also could be a white supremest. neo nazi who did this.
either way it is tragic.
what needs to be investigated. if this was a lone gunman or more troubling a man that is part of a group
Could we be sensitive enough to keep this post non-political?
so terribly sad…..there are no words….the pain is unbearable…..we really really really need mashiach. its too much already….ppl being murdered…children….infants….ppl sick….wherever one looks there is severe tzaros….ad masai?? please may HaShem rescue us even if we are not worthy….we are and will always b his children.