France: Memorial for victim of anti-Semitic murder vandalized November 5, 2017Ilan Halimi. (AP/Benoit Tessier)(AP/Benoit Tessier)France: Memorial for victim of anti-Semitic murder vandalizedA memorial honoring a French Jewish victim of anti-Semitism has been vandalized again. A Jewish memorial plaque near Paris in homage to Ilan Halimi, a French Jew murdered in 2006 by Islamic anti-Semites, was pulled off, thrown on the ground and covered with anti-Semitic writing.France’s Interior Minister Gerard Collomb condemned the desecration as “cowardly and odious.”The plaque had previously been vandalized in 2015.France’s leading Jewish group, CRIF, said that this latest event highlights the country’s persistent anti-Semitism.Halimi’s death stunned many in France, especially in the Jewish community, Europe’s largest. Driven by anti-Semitism, an Islamic gang held him captive for weeks and tortured him, then left him naked and handcuffed near railroad tracks. The 23-year-old Halimi died en route to the hospital.France is no stranger to violent anti-Semitism, including the murderous attack on a Jewish supermarket in Paris in 2015, in addition to Islamic terror attacks including the massive vehicular attack last summer in Nice.French Jews, who constitute the largest Jewish community outside of Israel and the United States, continue to leave France, mainly for Israel. Since 2006, 40,000 French Jews have left the country.By: AP and World Israel News Staff anti-SemitismCRIFFrance
