TABLET MAG
The Metaphysics of the Sarah Halimi Affair
by Bernard-Henry Levy
April 29, 2021

The killing of Sarah Halimi is much more than a snippet of local news. It is a major event. Let’s review what happened. We have a murder of unimaginable savagery. We have a woman living alone, struck in the head, tortured, thrown from a window, killed. We have an act that everyone, starting with the judges, agrees was antisemitic. We have a killer, Kobili Traoré, known to be a radical Islamist, who attends a Salafist mosque, and who killed this mild-mannered and simple woman just because she wore a short wig and strove to serve God by observing His commandments. And we have a legal system that, upon the conclusion of a prosecution, an appeal, and a final ruling, found that the criminal, although guilty, was not responsible for his actions and therefore could not be condemned. READ MORE