European leaders reject Israeli call for mass immigration of Jews despite recent attacks

Despite desecrated Jewish graves in France and a deadly attack at a synagogue in Denmark, European leaders Monday rejected calls from Israel’s leader for a mass migration of the continent’s Jews to Israel, urging unity instead.

Hundreds of Jewish tombstones were found vandalized in eastern France on Sunday, hours after a Danish Jew guarding a synagogue in Copenhagen was shot dead.

Frenchmen have been accused of three deadly attacks on Jewish sites since 2012: one at a school in the southern city of Toulouse, another at a museum in Brussels and one at a kosher market in Paris last month. Twelve people died in total.

“We know there are doubts, questions across the community,’’ French President Francois Hollande said Monday. “I will not just let what was said in Israel pass, leading people to believe that Jews no longer have a place in Europe and in France in particular.’’

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said Monday the government would defend French Jews against what he described as “Islamo-fascism.’’

“A Jew who leaves France is a piece of France that is gone,’’ Valls told RTL radio.

Hollande was to visit the desecrated Jewish cemetery in the small town of Sarre-Union today, his office said. Of the 400 tombs in the Sarre-Union cemetery, 250 had been vandalized.

Investigators were questioning five minors, 15 to 17 years old, in connection with the vandalized cemetery, said Philippe Vannier, prosecutor of the eastern Bas-Rhin region. One of the five had turned himself in.

All were from the region and none had a criminal record, he said. They can be held for up to 48 hours before being either charged or released.

In 2014, more than 7,000 French Jews in a community estimated at about 500,000 left for Israel, more than double the number for 2013.

The Israeli cabinet on Sunday approved a $46-million plan to encourage more Jewish immigration from France, Belgium and Ukraine.

The exodus from France accelerated after the March 2012 attacks by Mohammed Merah, who stormed a Jewish school in Toulouse, killing three children and a rabbi.