How An Age-Old Stereotype Led To A Horrific Kidnapping

This piece was first published on The Arty Semite blog at the Forward.

Ilan Halimi (courtesy of Stephanie Yin)

Was the 2006 kidnapping, 24-day long torture, and murder of 23-year-old French-Jewish cell phone salesman Ilan Halimi by a suburban Paris gang fueled by anti-Semitism? In the new documentary film, “Jews & Money,” there’s no doubt about the answer.

In the film we see lawyers arguing over the validity of anti-Semitic hate crime charges, but filmmaker Lewis Cohen’s starting point is obvious. The story of Halimi’s murder and its aftermath serves as a springboard for the history and development of Western anti-Semitis, and the adoption of its elements by Islamists and others opposed to the State of Israel.

In particular, it is the gang leader’s admission that Halimi was targeted because of the belief that all Jews are rich, which sets the stage for the filmmaker’s investigation of this invidious canard.

Cohen told an audience at the first screening of the film’s final cut on April 17 at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco that it was the topic of Jews and money, and not the Halimi case specifically, that first interested him. He said he hadn’t thought much about the origin of the stereotype until he took an extended trip to Europe about five years ago. He decided he wanted to focus on the subject, and when someone told him about Halimi, he realized the crime was an excellent framing device.

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© 2013 Renee Ghert-Zand. All rights reserved.

Toronto Jewish Couple Asphyxiated, Florida Police Say

This piece first appeared in The Times of Israel.

An elderly Jewish man and woman were asphyxiated while in their Florida townhouse, police said Wednesday, revealing the first details of the investigation since the grisly double murder in early January.

Rochelle Wise and David (Donny) Pichosky, retirees from Toronto. who resided in Hallandale Beach, Florida, during the winter months, were found dead on the evening of January 10. A neighbor used a key to enter their home due to concern over the couple having missed a lunch date scheduled for the day before.

Hallandale Beach Police Chief Dwayne Flournoy revealed at a press conference on Wednesday that the medical examiner had ruled the deaths homicide by asphyxiation. Flournoy declined to provide further details about the cause or time of death.

Wise, 66, was a respected and loved educator whose last position was as the preschool director at Toronto’s Bialik Hebrew Day School. She and Pichosky, 71, had been married for four years.

Despite some progress in the investigation, the perpetrators have not yet been apprehended. The family of the victims has put out a plea for help from the public, and Crime Stoppers has issued a $51,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of suspects.

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© 2013 Renee Ghert-Zand. All rights reserved.

A Murderous Tel Aviv Vacation

This post first appeared as “Australian Man Suspected of Grisly Murder in Tel Aviv” on The Shmooze blog of the Forward.

Husband-wife trips don’t always work out well, but this one turned out far, far worse than the usual bad vacation.

Israeli police were summoned to a hotel room on the 15th floor of Tel Aviv’s Dan Panorama hotel earlier this week to find Australian tourist John Paul Sebastian with the body of his 54-year-old wife, who had been stabbed multiple times in the neck and upper body. Sebastian was arrested on the spot.

Sebastian, 45, from Melbourne, is facing possible murder charges, but in the meantime is being held for eight days for psychiatric evaluation. He claimed that he was compelled to kill his wife because she was an enemy agent “with a written agreement that meant she owned him.” Even more bizarre was his assertion that she had forced him to eat raw meat and human flesh.

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© 2011 Renee Ghert-Zand. All rights reserved.