Ligue de Defense Juive, France's Jewish Defense League. Photo: Screenshot.

JNS.org – As anti-Semitism rises in France, the country’s Jewish community held a major rally in central Paris on Sunday. The Jewish National Fund (JNF); the Israeli Foreign, Defense, Tourism, Agriculture and Immigrant Absorption ministries; and other donors funded the event.

Titled “Israel Today and Tomorrow,” the rally was the brainchild of the JNF’s chief emissary in France, Reuven Naamat, and was expected to gather 15,000 demonstrators, among them Jewish community leaders from across France, Israeli government ministers, and JNF Chairman Efi Stenzler, according to Israel Hayom.

“Just last week, on International Holocaust Memorial Day, we saw the latest statistics portraying the large number of anti-Semitic incidents in France over the past year,” said Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon at the rally. “Before the European diplomats lecture us on how to conduct ourselves in our historic homeland, they should first focus on ending the age-old bigotry of anti-Semitism in their own backyards.”