Excerpt:
Mireille Knoll seems to have come from a novel, or a theater piece. Saved from the Holocaust, murdered at age 85 in what French police (who are very good indeed) are calling an anti-Semitic crime, honored in a huge march, eulogized by the President of France, her life seems crafted by a dramatist. As if Destiny saved her from the Nazis only to deliver her to the latest generation of Jew-haters.
As the Passover Haggadah reminds us, in every generation the Jew-haters reemerge and try to destroy us. Again.
The police have arrested two men, one of whom was a neighbor. I wonder if Mireille thought he was a friend, or at least a potential friend, someone she should treat with respect and kindliness. After all, we all eventually have to get along, don’t we? In the event, another neighbor heard the killer cry “Allahu Akhbar” as he stabbed her repeatedly, and then set her home on fire. I keep scouring the French press online, but so far these details aren’t there.