French kosher supermarket siege victims buried in Jerusalem

The four French Jews killed in Friday’s kosher supermarket hostage-taking in Paris were buried in Jerusalem on Tuesday. At the ceremony French Environment Ségolène Royal pledged to fight anti-Semitism.

The funeral of the Hyper Cacher siege victims in Jerusalem Reuters/Nir Kafri

The bodies Yohav Hattab, Yohan Cohen, Philippe Braham and François-Michel Saada were buried in Jerusalem’s Har Hamenouhout hillside cemetery, wrapped in prayer shawls, with several hundred people looking on.

The four were murdered by Amedy Coulibaly, who declared his allegiance to the Islamic State armed group in a video before being shot by police at the end of the Hyper Cacher supermarket on Friday.

Hattab was the son of the Grand Rabbi of Tunis, Benyamin Hattab.

“Anti-Semitism has no place in France,” Royal declared. “I wish to assure you of our constant determination to fight anti-Semitic acts in all their forms.”

“We cannot allow it to be the case, that in the year 2015, seventy years since the end of the Second World War, Jews are afraid to walk in the streets of Europe with skullcaps and tzitzit [tassles on ceremonial garments],” said Israeli President Reuven Rivlin.

“My dear brothers and sisters, Jewish citizens of France, you are welcome,” he added. “Our land is your land, our home is your home and we yearn to see you settle in Zion.”

The four were buried in Jerusalem following an offer by the Israeli government.

Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu stirred controversy when he visited France for Sunday’s massive Charlie Hebdo solidarity march with an apparent appeal to French Jews to emigrate to Israel.

At the funeral he said that told mourners that world leaders were "starting to understand that this terror committed by extremist Islam represents a clear and present threat to peace in the world in which we live" and told the world’s Jews “Today, more than ever, Israel is your true home.”

Royal spoke of an “indestructible relationship” between Jews and the French republic, repeating Prime Minister Manuel Valls’s statement that “France without the Jews is not France.”