Danish Jews Ask for Police Protection after Paris Attack

Denmark's main Jewish group on Tuesday called for police protection for its school and synagogue in Copenhagen after four Jews were killed last week in a hostage drama in a kosher supermarket in Paris.

"With the situation being like it is, we believe it's very clear that Jewish targets are a high priority for the terrorists," the deputy chairman of the Jewish Community of Denmark, Jonathan Fischer, told AFP.

During the Gaza conflict in August, Copenhagen's Jewish school, Carolineskolen, had its windows smashed and anti-Jewish graffiti spray-painted on its walls.

The incident took place shortly after a rise in the number anti-Semitic crimes in Denmark prompted politicians to organize a "kippah march" in central Copenhagen in support of Jewish people's right to display their religion openly.

Four people were killed in a hostage-taking at a Paris kosher supermarket following the bloody attack on satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo last week.

Although there had been "no outright, concrete threats" against Jews in Denmark recently, the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) considers Jewish and Israeli targets in the country to be "especially vulnerable", Fischer said.

A spokeswoman for the PET declined to comment when contacted by AFP.

"Developments in the Middle East, including the conflict in Syria, can also increase the risk of attacks in the West, for example against Israeli or Jewish targets," the agency wrote in a January 2014 report.

Around 8,000 Jews live in Denmark, most of them in Copenhagen and with smaller communities in the cities of Aarhus and Odense, according to the Jewish Community of Denmark.