The Feelings of the Jewish Community

Four years ago, Sarah Halimi, a retired French doctor and schoolteacher, was brutally beaten and thrown out of her apartment’s window in Paris by her neighbor. All the medical team could do was to declare her dead. 

Halimi was the only Jewish resident in her building, and the assailant shouted “Allahu Akbar” during the attack and afterward declared “I killed the Satan,” and yet, for several months, the authorities and some of the media outlets refused to label the killing as antisemitic. Only as a result of strong criticism from public figures including President Macron did the government eventually acknowledge an antisemitic motivation for the killing. 

But the shock came when the court declared the assailant to be not criminally responsible, ruling that, “He was undergoing a psychotic episode due to cannabis consumption.” Yes, you got it right. The killer was not mentally ill (as most of us would agree that someone whose judgment is impaired by insanity is not legally responsible for their actions) but was a jihadist who used marijuana to summon up the courage to carry out a terrorist act. And because he was high, the court decided he was not responsible for his actions. The decision was appealed to the Supreme Court, who recently upheld the lower court’s ruling.

President Macron, who was personally appalled by the judges’ decision, promised to change the French law to prevent such absurd rulings in the future, and perhaps even call it the “Sarah Halimi Law”. Yet, I cannot help but wonder, what if Sarah Halimi was not a Jewish woman? Would the courts have reached the same decision? Of course, I cannot be certain, but it is revealing that even those in France who understand that justice was not done still talk about “the feelings of the Jewish community,” as if it is a Jewish problem rather than relevant to the whole French nation. 

Let me leave you with a final thought, as you process this story: Recently in France, a man threw his dog from a fourth floor window and was sentenced to a year in prison. The man who murdered a Jewish woman will face no consequences.