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JewishHistoryעברית

Rue Copernic synagogue bombing

Date
3 October 1980Hebrew date: 23rd of Tishrei, 5741
Location
Rue Copernic synagogue, ParisFrance
Then part of
French Fifth Republic
Perpetrators
  • Hassan Diab (convicted in absentia, 2023) (Individual)
  • Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – Special Operations (Terror organization)
Killed (estimate)
4[1]People killed by the bomb left in a Suzuki motorcycle saddle-bag outside the synagogue. The BBC gives 38 wounded; JTA, writing in 2015 from its 1980 reporting, gives more than 40. Most of those killed or injured were in the street, not inside the building.
Locality

0.0013% of the Jewish population of Rue Copernic synagogue, Paris[4]

Country

0.00062% – 0.00073% of the Jewish population of French Fifth Republic (c. 1979)[64]

Worldwide

0.000031% of the worldwide Jewish population (c. 1980)[5]

Category
Terror attack
Confidence
DisputedThat a bomb killed four people outside the synagogue on 3 October 1980 is not in dispute. Hassan Diab's responsibility is: he was convicted in absentia in 2023 and sentenced to life imprisonment, while he and his supporters call the verdict a miscarriage of justice. The wounded count is 38 in the BBC report and more than 40 in JTA.

Summary

On the evening of 3 October 1980, Shabbat and Simchat Torah, a bomb exploded outside the Rue Copernic Reform synagogue in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. Four people were killed. The BBC calls it the first attack to target Jews in France since the Second World War. Investigation first looked at neo-Nazis, then at a Middle East connection. In 2023 a Paris court convicted Hassan Diab in absentia of planting the bomb and sentenced him to life imprisonment; he denied involvement and did not attend. Prosecutors linked him to the PFLP-Special Operations.

Sources

  1. Hugh Schofield, Paris synagogue bomber convicted after 43 years. BBC News (2023)
  2. Julie Wiener, From the Archive: A fatal synagogue bombing in Paris. Jewish Telegraphic Agency (2015)
  3. France Virtual Jewish History Tour. Jewish Virtual Library
  4. Leon Shapiro, World Jewish Population. American Jewish Year Book (1981)

Jewish population (estimates)

  • Worldwide: 13,034,000[5]c. 1980DellaPergola's revised core estimate for 1 January 1980 in the 2024 Year Book chapter (original AJYB figure that year was 14,527,100).
  • French Fifth Republic: 550,000 – 650,000[64]c. 1979AJYB 1981: some 650,000 Jews in France (other sources 550,000). DellaPergola 2020 retrospective: 530,000 for France in 1970; core 448,000 on 1 Jan 2020. Fifth Republic France — not Vichy or wartime occupied France.
  • Rue Copernic synagogue, Paris: 300,000[4]Jews in Paris at the end of 1979, about ten months before the bombing. Leon Shapiro's estimate in the 1981 American Jewish Year Book.

Sources for population estimates

  1. Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2024. American Jewish Year Book 2024, via Berman Jewish DataBank (2025)
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  3. Jewish Population of Europe in 1933. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  4. Jewish Population of the World. American Jewish Year Book 1948–1949, via Berman Jewish Policy Archive (1949)
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  9. The Contagion of Violence. 1391 and the Jews of the Spanish Kingdoms. Palgrave / Springer chapter (preview) (2021)
  10. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Religious Norms, Human Capital, and Money Lending in Jewish European History. Handbook chapter PDF via zvi-eckstein.com
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  12. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, THE CHOSEN FEW: HOW EDUCATION SHAPED JEWISH HISTORY, 70–1492 (book summary). Bar-Ilan University Economics seminar PDF (Princeton University Press forthcoming summary)
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  20. Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2024. American Jewish Year Book 2024, via Berman Jewish DataBank / Israel CBS host (2025)
  21. Sergio DellaPergola, Demographic Trends in Israel and Palestine: Prospects and Policy Implications. American Jewish Year Book 2003, via Berman Jewish DataBank (2003)
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  53. Statistics of Jews (World and US Jewish Population). American Jewish Year Book 1946–1947, via Berman Jewish DataBank (1947)
  54. Jacqueline Shields, Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries. Jewish Virtual Library
  55. Lebanon Virtual Jewish History Tour. Jewish Virtual Library
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  57. Algeria (Vital Statistics). Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
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  62. Sara Koplik, The Demise of the Jewish Community in Afghanistan, 1933–1952. SOAS University of London (PhD thesis abstract / deposit page) (2001)
  63. Argentina Virtual Jewish History Tour. Jewish Virtual Library
  64. All-Union 1959 census — ethnic composition of the USSR. Demoscope Weekly (РГАЭ РФ fond 1562)
  65. All-Union 1959 census — ethnic composition of the Uzbek SSR. Demoscope Weekly (РГАЭ РФ fond 1562)