JTA — Over a dozen Torah scrolls have been stolen from a French synagogue in an attack the local rabbi called “antisemitic.”

The burglary hit the Grand Synagogue of Levallois-Perret, a wealthy suburb of Paris, between Sunday night and Monday morning. Rabbi Chalom Lellouche said the Jewish community was “violated” by the theft.

“It is, of course, a criminal act, but it is also an antisemitic act that specifically targeted the Torah,” Lellouche said in a joint video statement on Monday with Philippe Cohen, the president of the local Jewish community association.

Levallois Mayor Agnès Pottier-Dumas said on Instagram that she learned with “shock and anger” of the attack, adding that “the antisemitic nature of this vile act must be condemned.” She confirmed that municipal and national police were investigating.

The des Hauts-de-Seine prefecture, which handles local state administration, said on X that the stolen scrolls represented not just a “simple theft,” but “an entire community of believers that was wounded to the depths of its........

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