Seventy years ago

Over a period of just three years, roughly half the Jewish families in Villepinte have left. Some have gone to other suburbs or Paris neighborhoods considered safer for Jews; a few have left the country.

Of 300 families three years ago, only 150 remain today.

The reason, he says, is anti-Semitism.

Now Villepinte’s 40-year-old synagogue, which was torched in 1935 and 1938, is at risk of closing because there are barely enough regulars for a minyan.

OK, I changed the dates and cut out a bit about a community leader, which would have been a give-away. Torchings were in 1991 and 2001.