Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu reacted to the attack on a synagogue and coffee shop in Copenhagen with a call for European Jews to emigrate to Israel. He said: “This wave of attacks will continue. Of course, Jews deserve protection in every country but we say to Jews, to our brothers and sisters: Israel is your home.
“We are preparing and calling for the absorption of mass immigration from Europe. I would like to tell all European Jews and all Jews wherever they are: Israel is the home of every Jew.”
The killings began at about 3:30 p.m. local time on Saturday, when a man attacked the Krudttønden cafe during a debate featuring the controversial Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who had depicted the prophet Muhammad in cartoons. Finn Nørgaard, 55, a film director who was attending the event, was reportedly shot dead at close range after he went outside for an unknown reason at the time the attacker struck.
At about 1 a.m., a 37-year-old Jewish man, Dan Uzan, was killed while guarding the synagogue in Krystalgade during a bat mitzvah celebration. Two police officers were also hit, but their injuries were not life-threatening.
Rabbi Yair Melchior of Copenhagen said that he was “disappointed” by Netanyahu’s call for emigration, and said that he and other Jews in Copenhagen do not want to “let terror win”.
“Terror is not a reason to move to Israel,” he said. “Hopefully the security should do what they do but our lives have to continue naturally. Terror’s goal is to change our lives and we won’t let it.”
Melchior said the first step the Danish Jewish community must take was to “gather and be there for each other”.
“We will go to the family and be there with them,” he said. “It’s not an easy time. We lost a dear member of the community, and now we have to continue doing what he did, which was helping continue the regular Jewish lives in Denmark. This is the real answer to the vicious, cruel and cowardly act of terror.”
The Twitter photo shows Dan Uzan z"l.