"Je suis Charlie. Je suis Juif. Je suis Français." The community I spent this weekend with said them all with pride. Contrary to a dangerous and rapidly developing narrative, French Jews are not clambering to leave.
I visited the CJL Nitsa Synagogue, just metres from the Charlie Hebdo offices and where policeman Ahmed Merabet was gunned down. Many in the community heard the shots fired. The trauma hasn't made them determined to leave. It has strengthened their desire to be involved with a large, thriving and active diaspora community in France.
People are tearful and frightened, but they are not packing their bags and aren't planning to. Their hardest challenge is to answer the children's question, "why us? Why the Jews?" The lesson that adults do not have the answers is humbling.
I met a community determined to carry on; resilient and brave and determined. Most striking of all was their insistence that they are French Jews, with France their home. When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the Grand Synagogue in Paris on Sunday, the community not only sang the Hatikvah with gusto but also broke spontaneously into La Marseillaise, the French anthem. These are French Jews, and proud of that fact.
We need a balanced picture that reflects the truth rather than pushes a particular ideological agenda. On one hand, aliyah from France is at record levels. The Jews of France are shaken, but they do not need to be told what to do. Can you imagine if a terrible atrocity were to occur here? What would we think if journalists from other European countries, as well as leaders in Israel, told us our time in Britain was over?
French Jews want to have the option of moving to Israel, and Israel remains, rightly, at the heart of Jewish life in France. But they told me clearly that they don't want to encourage what they see as a dangerous narrative that is developing, that Europe is no longer safe for Jews. It is harmful to the diaspora communities, to Israel and to the European societies they would leave behind.