Denmark?s Jews vow not to emigrate after recent attack

Members of Denmark’s Jewish community have said they have no plans to quit the country after a racially motivated attack on Copenhagen’s biggest synagogue.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said following the attack that the Scandinavian country’s estimated 2,500 Jews would be welcome in Israel, telling them that it was their home.

However, the Jewish Society in Denmark’s chairman Dan Rosenberg Asmussen responded by saying that they appreciated the invitation, but that Denmark was their country and they were Danish citizens.

The shootings in the Danish capital started when a gunman began firing at a meeting at which an artist who had depicted Mohammad was present before the same man attacked to the city’s main synagogue, where around 80 people were celebrating a girl’s confirmation. One person died at each site.

Jewish community member Bent Bogard said that it was a risk that always exists and they could do nothing about it, adding that he felt as safe after the recent attacks as he did before it.

Denmark was home to thousands of Jews for hundreds of years until the Nazi occupation, when many fled to Sweden with the help of other Danes. Although most didn’t return, the ones that did have lived a safe and peaceful existence for the most part ever since.

However, as tensions escalated between Israel and Palestine last summer, a Jewish school in Copenhagen had its walls covered anti-Sematic graffiti and its windows broken in August. But the city’s chief Rabbi Yair Melchior said the community should stay put, insisting that terrorists could not control their lives and the Jewish community remained strong.