The Simon Wiesenthal Centre expressed rage at the ruling by an investigating magistrate in Creteil, a Paris suburb, who rejected the anti-Semitic character of a December 2014 violent attack on a young Jewish couple, and the decision to close the case.

Three men had broken into the home of the couple, beating them and tying them up, then raping the wife. The three, together with a suspected accomplice, were charged with group rape, armed robbery, violence and extortion.

The attackers money and jewelery and were heard to claim that ‘’you are Jewish, you have money.’’ Their choice of victim was due to “their religious affinity.”

Their crime was evidently recidivist as, one month earlier, they attacked an elderly Jewish man.

Shimon Samuels, the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Director for International Relations, noted that “the clearly anti-Semitic nature and the rape so shocked the Jewish community, that it resulted in a 2014 governmental proposed plan “to fight anti-Semitism and racism as a national cause.”

The Centre called on French Justice Minister, Jean-Jacques Urvoas, to ensure the reopening of this case, recalling the long delay in denoting as anti-Semitic the 2006 Ilan Halimi kidnapping and murder, despite the perpetrators’ claim that their choice of a Jewish victim was, then also, “as Jews had money.”

“That case alone should have set a juridical threshold… The Hyper Cacher 2015 attack with four dead Jews was called anti-Semitic... Mr. Minister, does it take the murder of a Jew qua Jew to be acknowledged as anti-Semitic? Are rape, violence and armed robbery of Jews qua Jews insufficient?,” asked Samuels.

Patrick Klugman, lawyer of the victims, expressed his indignation, saying: "The only common point of the victims is that they are Jewish. The anti-Semitic insults and statements are obvious. If we erase the anti-Semitic qualification, we do not understand anything about this case. Anti-Semitism is at the root of this burglary and aggression. To remove this aggravating circumstance and subtracting this essential dimension of the aggression is a scandal and a forfeiture.''