French Jews flee persecution.

Last year in France a young cellphone salesman was lured by a young lady to what he thought was going to be a date. On arriving, Ilan Halimi, a Jew, was abducted by a criminal gang of North African Muslims calling themselves the "Barbarians." Over a period of three weeks, according to the New York Sun, they mercilessly tortured Halimi, eventually leaving him for dead near a railway line. According to the Sun, "He was naked, handcuffed, and bleeding profusely. He was incapable of speaking. His entire body--or '80% of it,' according to police--had been butchered. He died of his wounds on the way to the hospital, just a few minutes after he was discovered." He was abducted and murdered because he was Jewish.

The murder of Ilan Halimi and other acts of anti-Semitic violence perpetrated by militant Muslims in France are causing many French Jews to flee the country. Some are coming to Florida, according to the Miami Herald. One of those who left France is Rod Kukurudz, who brought his wife and two daughters to Florida after his older daughter told him that she had to hide her Star of David while riding public transport in Paris. "The atmosphere created by that [Halimi] episode, plus other incidents and the general hostility of Muslims in France toward Jews, is what's behind my decision to leave," Kukurudz told the Herald.

Kukurudz is only one of thousands to leave France since 2001, a trend that is expected to continue. "French Jews see the handwriting on the wall and say, 'We're not going to wait until it's too late,'" Jacob Solomon of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation told the Herald.