Rouen synagogue arson: Community faces ongoing antisemitism and trauma despite repair efforts

Solitary beams cast a dim light in the Rouen Synagogue’s prayer hall, let in through the same panel through which an arson attack marred the podium in May.

The ark’s face remained blistered and twisted from the flames that had clawed at the wood and paint from below. The pages of a burned prayer book still lay curled by the empty ark. A black shadow of the blaze stained the wall, crept high past the panel, dirtying the colored glass brick windows.

The stage had been torn up, leaving a bare floor. Renovations and repairs had begun but had been stalled by vacationing contractors. Yet the physical scars of the May 17 attack were not the only ones that were slow to heal. The community still grappled with the repercussions of the incident, and the antisemitism that lingered in the air like the smoky scent of burned buildings.

A man without residency permits had assumed that the Jewish community would be at prayer on Friday morning. He had climbed atop the synagogue with flammable materials and set them afire. He had hoped, according to synagogue treasurer Nisim Casanti, to burn out the Jews. The waiting assailant planned to stab the Jews that had fled the flames. The plan failed to materialize, and instead, the attacker was confronted by police. Despite what a local had originally told The Jerusalem Post, the knife man had not succeeded in stabbing an officer and had only attempted to as he was shot.

There was a moment of unity soon after when the rabbi, Jewish community president Natasha Ben Naim, and Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin gathered before the city hall, recalled federal prefecture official Clemons Vives. Casanti said that the synagogue had good relations with its neighbors, and it wasn’t natives that were harassing the Jews.

Important to protect the community bonds

There had been a rise in antisemitism since the October 7 attacks by Hamas against Israel, and Vives assured that the government was trying to secure stronger ties with the police and intelligence agencies to protect the Jewish community.

While insurance and Jewish national bodies provided funds for the rededication and beautification of the synagogue, Vives aided in the development of better alarm systems and security infrastructure.

There is a long history of Jews in Rouen, Vives said, which is why it was so important to protect the community bonds.

Yet the antisemitism Ben Naim’s community lived with was much more than the ruins of their synagogue.

EVERY DAY, Casanti photographed graffiti in the area so that city officials could clean it up. He recalled some graffiti proclaiming “free Palestine” painted opposite the synagogue. The slogan was chanted by Arab men who hollered and made noise as they passed the house of worship. Residents placed their mezuzahs, religious parchments, on the inside of their homes rather than on door posts outside.

Ben Naim’s 19-year-old son was constantly bullied.

“You are a Jew,” he was told. “Your place is in the Holocaust.”

Once when walking down the street, a man spotted her son’s Magen David necklace and told him that “Hitler didn’t do his job until the end.”

The authorities dismissed the last incident as the ramblings of a mentally unwell man.

Now Ben Naim’s son doesn’t want to return from his visit to Israel. He wants to make aliyah, and his 15-year-old brother already wants to follow in his footsteps.

“It is a difficult time in France, and the only place for Jews is Israel. There isn’t anything to be done here,” said Ben Naim.

Even with these words, she said that the community remained defiant. While services had largely moved to the Chabad house, they had of late instituted Friday morning prayers in the synagogue courtyard as a show of strength against antisemitism.

It was the same courtyard that held memorials for the community members who fell fighting in World War I and those deported to death camps during the Holocaust. The red drizzle from when a can of paint was flung at the building still marked the stone courtyard facade after a decade. The metal courtyard gate was the same that a man had banged on to apologize for attacking the rabbi and a congregant with a metal pole years ago. It was the same town in which 84-year-old Christian priest Jacques Hamel’s throat was slit by Islamist terrorists in 2016.

Each story remained with the residents, a scar laid on top of another. They told of each as though the wound was fresh and bare. The May arson was another scar in the collection. The repairs to the synagogue would begin anew in August, but for the 200 families of the Rouen Jewish community, the dark marks left by the arson would remain for years to come.