Canaan Lidor
Times of Israel, July 2, 2023
“There was no logic to the madness. The rioters just smash any shop in their path, there’s no selection.”
Before sunset, Jonathan C. draws the curtains of his apartment in the Paris suburb of Sarcelles tightly and makes sure no light can be seen from outside.
“I don’t want my place to be seen from the street and get targeted,” Jonathan C., a Jewish 40-year-old who works in the city as a procurement professional, told The Times of Israel on Friday. “I’m very afraid,” he added, referring to a wave of nocturnal riots that has rocked the streets of Sarcelles and other areas around the country with large Muslim communities.
The riots broke out Tuesday following the slaying by a police officer of a 17-year-old boy of Algerian descent. The teenager was driving a rented Mercedes and refused to comply with the instructions of an officer who pulled him over for a routine roadside inspection near Paris. The officer shot him dead, reportedly for fear for the lives of other officers.
Thousands of Jews who live in Sarcelles and other areas with a large Muslim population perceive the riots as a direct threat and reminder of the volatility of life in crowded neighborhoods with a history of antisemitic violence. In Sarcelles, an ordinarily calm but bustling suburb with an ethnically diverse population and a parking shortage, the riots have transformed the urban landscape into a battle zone where looters shatter storefronts to the light of burning tires.
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