Vampire Weekend's Surprising Jewish Stories
4 min read
3 min read
4 min read
2 min read
The young Parisian Jew was brutally murdered because he was Jewish. Authorities initially refused to believe it was a hate crime.
View this post on Instagram
On February 13, 2006, Ilan Halimi, a 23-year-old French-Moroccan Jew, was brutally murdered for simply being Jewish. His killers, a gang that went by the name of Les Barbares or “the Barbarians”, held Halimi hostage for 24 days before burning Halimi alive and dumping him near a train station in the Paris suburb of Saint-Genevieve-de-Bois.
Halimi was found alive by a local, still fighting for his life, with 80 percent of his body deformed and disfigured by acid burns, an ear and toe cut off and his genitals mutilated. He died on his way to the hospital.
During the investigation, key members of the group confessed that they believed that all Jews are rich, which motivated them to target Halimi, although he came from the same lower-class, Parisian suburb as the abductors. The kidnappers threatened the Halimi family to send money from the “Jewish community” and “rabbis” if they could not afford the 450,000 euro ransom.
The aftermath of the Ilan Halimi case gained attention only in France. Reactions from the global community were scarce, with only the United States Helsinki Commission holding a briefing, recognizing the rise of antisemitism in the modern world. While all those directly implicated in the abduction of Halimi were sentenced to heavy dues for their crimes, a Halimi relative quotes, "The important thing for me is not handing out heavier jail terms, honestly. The important thing is to open this to the press and public and make it a learning experience.”
The murders of Mireille Knoll and Sarah Halimi (not related) that followed demonstrate that lethal antisemitism is very much alive in France today.
