US envoy says 89-year-old French Jew’s death reminiscent of Sarah Halimi murder

US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt says the killing of an 89-year-old French Jew last week was reminiscent of the murder of another French Jew, Sarah Halimi.

Prosecutors suspect that René Hadjaj may have been pushed out of his 17th-story window by a neighbor last week because he was Jewish.

Halimi, 65, was beaten and then pushed out of the window of her Paris flat by neighbor Kobili Traore, 27, who shouted “Allahu Akbar” (“God is greatest” in Arabic) in 2017. But the French Court of Cassation’s Supreme Court of Appeals last year upheld rulings by lower tribunals that Traore could not stand trial because he was too high on marijuana to be criminally responsible for his actions.

“The role of antisemitism as a factor in Rene Hadjaj’s death in Lyon is troubling; facets of his death evoke the 2017 killing of Sarah Halimi in Paris. Both cases reflect a concern of growing antisemitism. The U.S. stands with France to combat antisemitism,” Lipstadt tweets.