We are horrified and sickened to learn of yet another terrorist attack on Jews and Jewish life in Europe, this time in Copenhagen, Denmark.

This attack, which bore a striking similarity to the terrorist rampage in Paris last month, was committed by a terrorist who was determined to kill as many innocent people as possible and to strike fear into the heart of another European Jewish community.

In this case, the terrorist attacked an event on free speech at a café before turning his weapon on the city’s central synagogue, where families and friends were celebrating a Bat Mitzvah. One brave man protecting those inside – a member of Copenhagen’s Jewish community – lost his life.  Five police officers were wounded.  We send our condolences and prayers to the families of the victims as we hope for the full recovery of the wounded. 

We stand with all decent people in the struggle against Islamist extremism and terrorism, an extremist, supremacist ideology that is filled with hatred, backed by violence and which threatens the peace of the world. We affirm that this is a struggle against Islamist terrorism, not the global Muslim community.

And we stand side-by-side with the Jewish communities in Europe who have not only been the target of Islamist hate and terror, but have endured an increasingly hostile climate of anti-Semitism, both overt and thinly disguised as anti-Israel or anti-Zionism.

We mourn with the people of Denmark, with its Jewish community and with the families of all of those affected by this murderous act of terror.