Allah Hu Akbar! Jews driven out by Muslims, Marseille synagogue converted to Mosque

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Muslim Population Growing In France: Marseille Synagogue To Convert To Mosque
By Michael Kaplan @michaeld_kaplan On 04/27/16 AT 1:37 PM

mosque
Members of the Muslim community pray in a mosque in Marseille, France, on Jan. 9, 2016. Photo: Reuters/Jean-Paul Pelissier

A synagogue in Marseille is expected to be converted into a mosque, underscoring changing demographics in France, Agence France-Presse reported Wednesday. The Or Thora synagogue was purchased by Al Badr, a Muslim cultural association, a Jewish leader told the news agency.

"For the past 20 years or so we have seen the shift of the Jewish community to other neighborhoods," said Zvi Ammar, a top Jewish leader. "We all have the same God; the main thing is for this to proceed in harmony."

The plans are meant to accommodate a growing Muslim population. Marseille, a Mediterranean port city of about 850,000, has a population of some 220,000 Muslims. About 70,000 people out of that population are believed to actively practice their religion. Al Badr already runs a mosque in Marseille, but its members have reportedly outgrown the space.

France had an estimated population of 568,000 Muslims in 1990. The population today has reached some 4.7 million, Pew reported.

Marseille synagogue to be converted into mosque... https://t.co/YRfNmrVpHW

— DRUDGE REPORT (@DRUDGE_REPORT) April 27, 2016

The local Jewish community is also thriving, but it has moved to different areas. There are an estimated 70,000 Jews in the city, making it one of the largest Jewish communities in the country. Marseille’s number of synagogues nearly doubled from 32 to 58 in the last three decades, Ammar said.

To meet the needs of a growing Muslim population, a massive mosque project is planned in Marseille. The structure, promised by the mayor in 2001, is projected to cost some $26 million but has faced financial setbacks and legal challenges, mainly by far-right wing groups. If the mosque plans pull through, it would be the country’s largest.

The Muslim community in France has come under growing scrutiny since terrorist attacks in Paris in January and November 2015. The November massacre, which left 130 people dead, was claimed by the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq, where more than a thousand French Muslims are thought to have traveled to fight.

Muslim leaders nationwide were quick to condemn the violence. Both Muslims and Jews have reported a rise in anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic incidents in recent years.


http://www.newsweek.com/marseille-sy...2938?piano_d=1



Marseille Synagogue to Be Converted Into Mosque as Jews Leave City
By Jack Moore On 4/27/16 at 7:59 AM

France Muslims Jews Marseille Mosque
A man wears a kippah, the traditional Jewish skullcap, as he attends a visit of French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve at a synagogue after an attack in front of a Jewish school in Marseille, France, January 14. Reuters/Jean-Paul Pelissier
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A Marseille synagogue is to be converted into a mosque as the demand for places of religious worship for Jews and Muslims shifts in the southern French city.

Several months ago, the Al Badr Association, a Muslim organization, purchased the Or Thora synagogue near the Saint-Charles train station in Marseille for some $400,000, daily French newspaper La Provence reported on Tuesday.

Al Badr is to reopen the religious place of worship for Jews as a mosque this summer as the numbers continued to dwindle at the synagogue while an overflow of worshippers overwhelmed one of Al Badr’s other mosques.

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The French paper reported that the Or Thora synagogue sometimes has as little as 10 worshippers present despite having a capacity of 250, while the Al Badr mosque often became so busy that worshippers were forced to pray outside the complex on a Friday, the holy day of worship in Islam.

The change from synagogue to mosque is symbolic of a wider trend in the city, with many of the city’s Jews moving out of its center and into more affluent suburbs or even to other locations because of rising anti-Semitism, according to Elie Berrebi, the director of Marseille’s Central Jewish Consistoire, a body that governs Jewish congregations, who spoke to The Times of Israel.

In the city of 800,000, it has approximately a quarter of a million Arab residents and some 80,000 Jewish residents. Increasingly, Marseille’s Jews are moving to the city’s south, with more than 80 percent of the city’s population now residing there, Berrebi says, and most have stopped frequenting central synagogues as this area is perceived to be a higher security risk.

Many of the city’s Jews and the country’s wider Jewish population are looking further afield for safety—in Israel and as well as in London. A social media campaign using the hashtag #TousAvecUneKippa, or Everyone with a Kippa, began in January, showing well-known French figures adorning the Jewish religious headwear after an anti-Semitic attack in the city in January.

The campaign was launched to show solidarity with French Jews after a teenager claiming to be acting on behalf of the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) attacked a Jewish teacher, Benjamin Amsellem, with a machete and a knife while he was traveling to his religious education workplace in Marseille.

The attack caused division within the Jewish community as well. Following the attack, prominent Jewish community leader in Marseille, Zvi Ammar, called on Jewish men to stop wearing their kippahs and “being identified as Jewish” in order to prevent further attacks and deaths in the city because of the rising anti-Semitism. There were two other stabbings of Jews by Muslim or Arab assailants between October 2015 and January.


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