Jews of France on the "volcano of anti-Semitism"

On August 14, in the garden of the city hall of Epinay-sur-Seine (a suburb of Paris), unknown antisemites cut down an olive tree planted in memory of Ilan Halimi, a French citizen of Jewish origin who was brutally murdered in 2006. For those who have forgotten, Ilan was kidnapped by a "gang of barbarians" (as they called themselves) for ransom; over the course of 24 days, he was subjected to abuse and torture, and died from multiple stab wounds and burn injuries. The gang, consisting of Muslim immigrants, chose him as a victim expecting a hefty ransom because of his Jewish origin, and subjected him to particularly inhuman torture, as the police specified, for the same reason. Photo credit: Haim Tzakh, LAAM The murder of Ilan Halimi has become a symbol of the new French anti-Semitism, which significantly differs from the right-wing anti-Semitism of the 1980s and 1990s, characterized by acts of vandalism at Jewish cemeteries and the Holocaust denial by Jean-Marie Le Pen. The an...