«Le sourire aux lèvres, ils sont capables du meurtre d’êtres humains, juifs, tout simplement parce qu’ils ne considèrent pas les Juifs comme des êtres humains»

His name was Jonathan Sandler, a 30 year old professor at the Jewish school of Ozar Hathora, in the southern French city of Toulouse. This brilliant young man had purposely decided to devote his life to the teaching of Judaism. Whenever he was not with children he was giving lectures to adults, acquainting them with the practice of those Jewish moral and religious values that brightened his life and made it meaningful. This Monday morning, March 19th, he went to the school as he did every day, with Arieh and Gabriel, his two boys, 5 and 4 years old.

At the same time Myriam Monsonigo, 8 year old, the daughter of the head teacher of the school, was entering the courtyard.

These four lives were brutally destroyed when a 23 year old gunman stopped his motorcycle and shot them to death.

Another pupil tried to intervene, was hit by a bullet which crossed through his entire chest, through the lungs, the heart, the liver and the stomach. He was miraculously rescued at the City hospital. There was no miracle for the others.

What do you call a man who quietly aims at a little boy trying to crawl out of the murder scene?

What do you call a man who drags the hair of a little girl with one hand and with his other hand lodges at point blank a bullet through her temple?

What do you call a man who records these deeds through a camera to leave them as a mark of glory?

I remembered the horrendous story that I had heard as a child about a cousin of my mother. A German soldier had crushed the head of her baby on the trunk of a tree.

This is the name: a Nazi. The perpetrator can only have been a Nazi. Oh yes, the murderer of Toulouse was a radical Islamist Djihadist. But do not be mistaken; these men are similar to Nazis. With a smile on their face, they are able to murder Jewish human beings, including children, precisely because they do not consider them to be human beings.

Sons of pigs and of monkeys, this is the definition of Jews they follow. They find it in the diverse conduits by which they were indoctrinated, videos, books, mails or direct sermons.

However much we hold in high regard freedom of speech, do not tell me that the continuous labeling of Jews as bastards of sons and of pigs has no influence on the behavior of those who hear these expressions.

The major difference between Islamic Nazis and German Nazis is that German Nazis tried to hide their crimes, Djihadists expose them proudly to be imitated by their admirers.  And they do have a number of admirers; the murderer of Ozar Hathora has become a role model.

Do not be mistaken. Such murderers should not be considered as the products, some even say the victims, of a society that is not able to give them adequate standards of living. They do not act because the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has no solution. They are the results of a specific indoctrination which not only dehumanizes “the Jew”, but which also targets all the proponents of the free society which we want to be ours.

This morning I called the father of Jonathan, Samuel Sandler, and the father of Myriam, Yakov Monsonigo, and I asked them what message they wanted me to convey to you; both answered that more than ever, they felt the purpose of their life was to transmit the values of Judaism. They expressed no hate and they expressed no doubt. Their admirable reactions impressed all those who were in contact with them in these appalling days, including Alain Juppe, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs who had accompanied them to Jerusalem with the graves of their beloved.

We have the moral obligation to follow their path and their noble standards. As we say in French; noblesse oblige…….

Richard Prasquier

President of the CRIF