Addressing the Ministerial to advance Religious Freedom, US Vice President Mike Pence condemned increasing antisemitic violence in Europe, lamenting the fact that French and German Jews have been advised not to publicly identify as Jewish.
At the ministerial meeting, which was attended by the EJC, Vice President Pence noted a string of vicious attacks against Jewish targets over the last several years, including the 2012 school shooting in Toulouse and the 2016 terrorist attack at a Paris kosher super market.
“The world has watched in horror as these attacks on Jewish people have taken place,” Pence said. “In France and Germany, things have gotten so bad that Jewish religious leaders have warned their followers not to wear kippahs in public for fear that they could be violently attacked, and in too many cases, that’s exactly what’s happened.”
“It is remarkable to think that within the very lifetimes of some French Jews — the same French Jews that were forced by the Nazis to wear identifiable Jewish clothing — some of those same people are now being warned by their democratic leaders not to wear identifiable Jewish clothing,” Pence added. “These acts of violence and hatred and antisemitism must end.”