Two arrested over brutal killing of 85-year-old French Jewish Holocaust survivor
Two men have been arrested over the killing of an 85-year-old Jewish woman, a Holocaust survivor, whose stabbed body was found after her Paris apartment was set ablaze, police sources said Monday.After brutal murder, French Jews hope authorities learn from mistakes
An autopsy conducted on the woman, identified Monday as Mirelle Kanol, who lived alone, showed her charred body also had at least 11 stab wounds.
A forensic examination of the apartment showed that an arsonist started a fire in at least five distinct areas of that space, the report also said.
An anti-Semitism watchdog initially said the case was reminiscent of an alleged anti-Semitic hate crime, but later said there was no immediate evidence of anti-Semitism.
“A preliminary examination of the elements of the crime does not reveal an anti-Semitic characteristic, but this possibility has not been discounted as police investigate further,” said a spokesperson for the Jewish Community Protection Service (SPCJ), which works closely with the French police.
The National Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, or BNVCA, wrote in a statement Sunday that the suspected murder “is reminiscent of the crime committed against Sarah Halimi,” a 66-year-old Jewish teacher and physician, whom prosecutors say was murdered by her Muslim neighbor in April partly in connection with her Jewish identity
The Paris prosecutor’s office said Sunday that it had not yet determined a motive, but “is not excluding any hypothesis.”
One year after the murder of a 65-year-old Jewish Parisian Sarah Halimi, France’s Jewish community is reeling again from the brutal murder of Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll.Stop Making Excuses for Louis Farrakhan’s Lunacy
The 85-year-old was allegedly stabbed 11 times while at home on Friday, before her body was set on fire, in an attack which Jewish community leaders described as reminiscent of the murder of Halimi.
France's Foreign Minster Jean-Yves Le Drian said Monday in a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the murder was "more than likely" antisemitic in nature.
"For now we cannot say for certain if the motive for the murder was antisemitism, but it's more than likely, it would not be surprising, and only strengthens the notion that this battle is not over and we will need to keep fighting it," he said during a meeting at the prime minister's residence.
“The inhumanity of this murder sends us back to that of Sarah Halimi just one year ago,” the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF) said in a statement, which continued by mentioning that council President Francis Kalifat had spoken at length with the children of the victim.
“During his discussions with the prefect of police and the office of the president of the republic, the president of the CRIF expressed the emotion and the deep concern of the Jewish population of France,” the statement said.
Jewish community leaders as well as other public officials had strongly and vocally criticized the way Halimi’s case was handled, accusing the authorities and the French media of hiding the facts from the public. They also denounced the fact that it took five months to categorize the murder as an anti-Jewish hate crime, after French President Emmanuel Macron called for an investigation.
And it’s not just Jews who are being asked to check their supposed “privilege” at the progressive door. Part of what’s amazing about this entire mess is that leaders of an outfit called “The Women’s March” are standing beside a man who yells at women for “knowing how to shake your behind but not how to rattle some eggs in a pan.” Gays and transgender people, duly name-checked by any good intersectional feminist, must take a back seat in order to make room for a guy who rails against “turning men into women and women into men” (a crime against nature perpetrated by, you guessed it, the Jews). Neither of these absurdities approach the most ridiculous part of this entire spectacle, however, which is that, during the 2016 presidential campaign, Farrakhan praised, and nearly endorsed, the very man upon whom resistance to which the entire Women’s March is predicated: Donald J. Trump.
There is no meaningful moral difference between Louis Farrakhan and Richard Spencer. Both are racist, anti-Semitic troglodytes claiming to represent the downtrodden of their respective race. You would not know it from the disproportionate press coverage afforded each man, however, but Farrakhan commands a much larger following and has actual political influence; no Republican congressman—never mind a future president—would be caught dead in the same room as Richard Spencer. Nor would any respectable journalist or politician or social movement leader make excuses and dissemble about Spencer in the Atlantic or The New York Times.
That there is even a debate to be had about Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam demonstrates the soft bigotry of low expectations many liberals continue to harbor with regard to their black countrymen. In reality, there is no debate. That the Nation of Islam may help keep order in some poor black neighborhoods is as good an argument for equivocating on Farrakhan as the crime-free streets of Little Italy justified Italian American pride in John Gotti. The late Meir Kahane indisputably defended Jews from violence and attracted legitimately devoted followers through his uncompromising stand for Jewish pride. He was also a racist vigilante — not a single mainstream Jewish public figure would appear alongside him — and his political party was banned in Israel. Louis Farrakhan should be similarly ostracized, and no one calling herself a “liberal” or “progressive” should ask for anything less.