https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/06/its-open-season-jews-france-ari-lieberman/
In what has become a disturbing, and all too familiar occurrence in France, another elderly French Jew has been murdered in an unprovoked attack motivated by antisemitism. On May 21, an 89-year-old Lyon resident named René Hadjaj was defenestrated from the 17th floor of the apartment complex where he resided. The perpetrator has been identified as a 51-year-old male of Algerian origin named Rachid Kheniche. Hadjaj was said to have been wearing a kippah at the time of the assault.
French police were quick to dismiss the attack as a dispute between neighbors unrelated to antisemitism. However, watchdog groups quickly alerted French law enforcement authorities to Kheniche’s social media postings where he engaged in antisemitic rants. After viewing the postings, the French prosecutor’s office requested that judges presiding over the case include an antisemitic motive charge as an aggravating circumstance in killing of Hadjaj.
Hadjaj’s murder is eerily similar to the horrific April 2017 murder of Sarah Halimi, a 65-year-old French-Jewish retired doctor, who was severely beaten and thrown from her apartment to her death. In that case, the killer was a 27-year-old drug dealer and user named Kobili Traore. Halimi, who lived in the same apartment complex as Traore had previously expressed fear of her future killer after enduring his repeated antisemitic threats. During his assault against Halimi, Traore yelled Allahu-Akbar (God is Great) a common Islamist refrain. After killing her, Traore reportedly said that he had just killed The Shaytan, an Islamic reference to Satan.